The Bankers Building: Improv of Decrepitude

image courtesy the Chuckman Collection

How can something so ugly be so compelling?

When it opened in 1927, Burnham Brothers' Bankers Building was a prestige location.  At 41 floors, it rose almost 200 feet above the great dome of Henry Ives Cobb's Federal Courthouse, just across the street.  At 476 feet, it remains the tallest Chicago building to be clad entirely in brick.

Which may not have been an entirely good idea.

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Despite generally high occupancy rates, time hasn't been kind to the 442,000 square-foot structure now known by its intersection as the Clark Adams Building, much it now taken up by the Club Quarters, Chicago Loop hotel.

The heroic, if weathered, figures still crouch on either side of the globe in the relief high over the entrance, but over time, there's been a substantial crumbling of that brick facade, especially at the corners, and as new replacement brick has been inserted, the color mismatch makes it look like the skyscraper got an on-the-cheap fix-up by somebody's brother-in-law.  When was the last time the building was cleaned?  And if it were, would it just make it worse?

Set between the cool perfect limestone of the Field Building to the North, and the even cooler, even more perfect flat-black graphite metal of Mies's Federal Center to the East, the battered and bruised Bankers pulls itself up to its full height and feigns dignity even as it's attired in patches. Against the proud, often glistening towers of the flush Financial District, it's a memento mori nagging at the cityscape's leveraged bravura.

Hilberseimer Place? Divergent's Housing on Harrison

Update [6/12/13]: filming is reported to be taking place at Hilberseimer Abnegation Village June 13-15 and again on the 19th.  Let's hope there's no storm damage today.

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The good news?  It's the first development on the south Loop site since Grand Central Station was demolished in 1971.  The bad news?  As Alfred Hitchcock used to say consoling one of his overstressed actors, �It's only a movie.�

You've probably already seen pics of this small housing village.  It was constructed for the movie Divergent.  Directed by Neil Burger - as Blair Kamin would inevitably find a way of telling you: he's a Yale graduate - who also made 2006's The Illusionist and 2011's Limitless, it's based on the novel by Veronica Roth.  Born in Barrington, she reportedly wrote Divergent while studying at Northwestern.  It's part of an award-winning trilogy  (the final volume, Allegiant, is scheduled to be published this coming October) that Lionsgate studio is  hoping will blossom into a lucrative, Hunger Games-type franchise.  Divergent's cast includes Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Maggie Q, Ashley Judd and Kate Winslet.  $40 million of the $80 million budget was said to be spent on the 6o days of shooting in Chicago, which began in April.

Set in a futuristic dystopia where society is divided into five factions that each represent a different virtue, sixteen-year-olds have to decide if they want to stay in their faction or switch to another - for the rest of their lives.

In the novel, teenagers must choose between the Amity (peaceful), Abnegation (selfless), Candor (honest), Erudite (intelligent), and Dauntless (brave) factions, but there are those known as Divergents, who don't fit into any one of these particular groups. 

Apparently, that �futuristic dystopia� is actually Chicago, at a time when institutions have broken down and TIF funds exhausted, but the upside is that they've finally built close-in housing for all those people who went missing when the CHA projects in which they lived were demolished.

The irony is that Divergent's housing is actually more attractive than some real projects I could name.  You can tell its fiction because in the actual Chicago you'd never find an affordable community like this composed entirely of detached units.

Preview: Shall We Gather at the Ping Tom Boathouse, with Rahm and Riccardo

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 Sunday saw a combination celebration at Ernest Wong's wonderful Ping Tom Park along the south branch of the Chicago River, with the dedication of a handsome new boathouse by Johnson and Lee, and the culmination of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Rivers series of events with the fabled brass section floating down the river (on a boat) and Music Director Riccardo Muti conducting the Chicago Childrens Choir in a performance of Verdi's Va Pensiero (twice).  A happy Mayor Emanuel was also on hand.  We're working on the story - with a lot more photos and some video - but for now, here's a placeholder preview.

Retro Saturday: Happy 146th Birthday, Frank Lloyd Wright! A Miscellany Portrait of the Reprobate �World's Greatest Architect�

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�I.K�, [Frank Lloyd Wright] said with almost no prelude. �I.K, I have been conventional too long! I am a genius, I know no conventions, a genius knows no law. A genius must and will live his own life. From today I cast aside conventions; from today I live my own life!� That was the gist of a ten or fifteen minute prattle, in which the words 'genius', 'life', 'conventions' were flung about like confetti at a carnival. At first, I thought that as usual architecture was on his mind . . . but the next day the papers carried as an item of news that our genius had 'eloped with the wife of a client.'

- from The Autobiography of Irving K. Pond: The Sons of Mary and Elihu

It's been said that Frank Lloyd Wright's greatest creation may have been himself.  Through many rocky decades, he clung to his self-image of �world's greatest architect�, and by the time he died at 91 in 1959, he had convinced most of the rest of us, as well.  On this day, June 8th, that would have been Wright's 146th birthday, the old scoundrel's sorcery remains as potent and inspiring as ever, so what better time than provide this highly selective, impromptu portrait from our writings down through the years . . .

The Night Frank Lloyd Wright Spent in Hennepin County Jail was a direct consequence of Wright's willful liberation from his second wife.

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Japanese Print - The Art Institute had a great show last fall displaying many of the Japanese prints Wright had collected early on and sold to sustain himself during the lean times.  Among the prints were some of the original spectacular Japanese-influence renderings that had helped made his work world famous, many of which came not from Wright's hand, but from that of his employee, the richly talented Marion Mahony . . .

Frank Lloyd Wright's Right-Hand Woman

Also last year, the indispensable Tim Samuelson, who currently has another great show, Modernism's Messengers: The Art of Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli, up at the Cultural Center, curated an overview of Frank Lloyd Wright's early work, centered on the time he spent as an employee of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sulivan.

Wright's Roots

 

Wrights Roots: Garrick Theater colors seen for first time in over a century

In May, a joint campaign was announced in which the Alphawood Foundation would contribute up to $10 million in matching funds towards the restoration of Wright's 1908 Unity Temple in Oak Park,, which, if successful, could also see ownership transferred from the Unitarian Universalist

congregation which originally commissioned the building to ownership by a new, endowed foundation.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple among National Trust's 11 Most Endangered 

See Frank Lloyd Wright's Boiler!

Back in 2006, actor Peter Weller brought his own stamp to Wright in his portrayal in Richard Nelson's play at the Goodman Theatre, an interesting effort to capture Wright at his point of exile, the long, lean years between his early triumphs as his re-emergence as an architectural powerhouse in the 1930's.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Pacific Overture
Robocop channels Frank Lloyd Wright

The play also featured Harris Yulin as an alcoholic and exhausted Louis Sullivan, but when, during the play's run, a major American magazine created a list of 100 Influential Americans, Sullivan had a bit of revenge, coming in at position 59 to Wright's 76.

Koolhaas, Wright, Sullivan score in Overnights

Wright continues to be influential, as can be seen in Hyde Park, where Wright's Robie House . . .

. . . is both subtly mirrored and re imagined in Rafael Vi�oly's Graduate School of Business for the U of C.

Rafael Vi�oly talks Wright, new hospital, at the Logan Center for the Arts

And for dessert, a small Wrightian miscellany . . .

Frank Lloyd Wright archives won't be bleeding Art Institute Red

Frank Lloyd Wright Hits the Wall

Wright's dog house

 Let's Get Small - Frank Lloyd Wright's American System-Built Homes in Beverly

Psssst, hey - buddy!  Wanna buy the Larkin Building?

Art Friday: Kanecko Finally Re-Opens; Red Tables on State; and a Great New Gallery Arises Out of Block 37's Ruin

I've just decided that I won't be able to finish up my story on the winning entries to the Chicago Architectural Club's bus rapid transit shelter competition until next week, so for this weekend - in addition to this year's Chicago Blues Festival and the Printers Row Lit Fest, here are a few more great things to visit in Chicago.

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It's been almost two months, but Millennium Park's Jun Kanecko Exhibition is finally open, and it's a wonder.  Opening day, April 12th, there was an accident involving some idiot climbing on one of the colorful, oversized ceramics, and the show was shut down to allow all the sculptures to be more securely seated.

 

The North Boeing Gallery, filled with Kanecko's whimsical Tanuki's, re-opened a week or two ago, and the South Gallery, filled with more traditionally sculptural Dangos, has now re-opened as well, complete with new signs reminding people, �Do Not Climb on the Sculptures�.

Dango means �rounded form� or �dumpling�, while the Tanuki �is considered to be a trickster who causes trouble and mayhem in both the human and supernatural worlds,� which will probably be the legal defense of the person who damaged the art - �a Tanuki made me do it�.  It's a delightful addition, running through November 3rd, as custom-made for photo-ops as Kapoor's bean.

Meanwhile, over on State Street, art meets street furniture in something called �The Gateway� an experiment in placemaking from the Chicago Loop Alliance designed to mark the entry into the Loop at the expanded median just south of Wacker and a way to animate an underused asset with fire engine red tables, blue chairs, and, perhaps most importantly, active management by a cleaning team and support staff from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily through September, providing an Al Fresco meeting place for patrons of neighboring restaurants and fast-food joints, including a soon-to-open Chick-fil-A in the Page Brothers Building . . .

. . . where yesterday morning finishing touches were being applied as uniforms, personally addressed to each new employee, were arrayed along a window-side counter.

Our last item today may be the most interesting.

Block Thirty Seven Pop-Up Gallery Opens

The Chicago Loop Alliance has taken on a 17,000-square-foot, never-occupied space in the tenant-challenged Block 37 complex that  to create Block Thirty Seven, a Pop-Up Art Gallery curated by the Chicago Design Museum.  Currently on display is a great show featuring the work of graphic designs Marian Bantjes, John Massey, Michael C. Place and Wolfgang Weingart, as well as a special exhibition, Re/View focusing on optical illusions.  Tomorrow, June 8th, from 2:00 to 4:00 p,m, the gallery will feature a talk by designer, typographer, writer and illustrator Marian Bantjes to kick off Chicago Design Week.  Tickets are $20.00.

This is an incredible space, with spectacular views onto State and Washington streets through huge, floor to ceiling windows.  It's entirely raw, and all the better for it.   We wish, of course, Block 37's new owners, L.A.'s CIM Group, the best of luck in finally leasing the upper reaches that have remained pristinely free of tenants ever since the mall opened in 2009, but in the interim, Block Thirty Seven is a major addition to the life of the Loop, with enormous potential.

"Upper Levels Will Be Opening Soon" -
cardboard, ink, steel, glass and granite.  Artist unknown.  2009-

More reading on Block 37:

Can Signage Save Block 37?
Block 37 - The Curse Lives!
The Entombment of the Plug Bug
Planning and its Disconnects: The Cautionary Tale of Block 37

Pics from This Morning's Rally for Chicago Sun-Times Photograpers

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Images of this morning's rally in support of photographers whose entire department was eliminated by the Chicago Sun-Times.  A photoset that proves conclusively: there is no substitute for a professional.

More after the break . . .

 

And in case you missed the Colbert Report last night . . .  

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