Lee Bey: The Urban Observer

(photo by Lee Bey) 

I was walking out of the Daley Bicentennial Plaza parking garage on Randolph Street when I noticed Harry Weese's shiny and perfect Swissotel, visible in the gap just east of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Building.

The Swissotel is 20 years old, but it looks as fresh and vital as the new buildings popping up around it. And it reminded me, once again, of what a brilliant architect and civic presense Weese was. In addition to designing works such as the Time Life Building; the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist; the Washington Metro, Metropolitan Correctional Center and scores of iconic buildings, Weese also led the charge to save Auditorium Theater and helped create Printers Row. When he died 10 years ago, I wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times: "Weese was an architect and a preservationist, a planner and a visionary. When others seemed willing to burden the city with anonymous one-size-fits-all buildings that could have stood in any metropolis, Weese used his voice and his designs to show that Chicago is indeed a special place."

Read Weese's own words here. And, here, check out some of his work.