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By columnist Paul Paradis, Art Historian, Specialist Consultant in French Furniture and Decorative Arts
Dateline: Chicago
Sophisticated, less flashy than New York yet possessing a pinch of San Francisco charm, Chicago is a jewel in the crown of American architectural beauty and achievement. A boat cruise on the Chicago River provides a unique perspective on the layout and history of a truly unusual town. Although smaller than their Parisian cousins, the Bateaux Mouches, the river boats are pleasantly open and provide hot coffee and muffins to arriving visitors. (I pretended not to notice the bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream next to the coffee machine, since after all, it was time to concentrate on architectural wonders). To the sound of a piped-in classical music medley, we filed onto a green deck where white plastic patio chairs were lined up in neat rows and a highly varnished side bench flanked the edges.
Chicago Sears (now Willis) Tower and 311 South Wacker Drive
The parka and glove-glad docent appeared with her microphone and immediately explained that the term “windy city” has its origins not only in the notoriously bone chilling winds of Chicago, but also in the catty statement of a New York journalist who jealously criticized Chicagoans as “wind bags” after the city was awarded the Columbian Exposition in 1893 against all visible odds. The city had recovered from the devastating fire of 1871 and faced considerable competition to host the World’s Fair honoring the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus’ journey to America. The event remains the pivotal point in the history of both the city and its architecture as it provided critical momentum towards the development of the Chicago River waterfront away from primarily industrial use. The witty and erudite docent would soon prove that certain stereotypes have some foundation in truth: she spoke non-stop for the duration of the ninety-minute tour, taking only tiny inaudible breaths between phrases (that would be the envy of any soprano) not missing a single site along the way.
An art deco elevator detail from the Carbide and Carbon Building
The tour launches from the main branch of the Chicago River near its mouth to Lake Michigan takes the spectator to the north and south branches successively. The guide explained an interesting technical detail about the river: the direction of its flow, formerly into Lake Michigan, was reversed using a deep 28 mile canal system at the turn of the century to end the constant polluting of the lake (the city’s principal source of drinking water) from industrial and human waste dumped regularly into the river. This engineering feat involved the movement of more earth than for the construction of the Panama Canal. A lock was built at the river’s mouth in 1930 in order to limit the formerly unregulated intake of water from Lake Michigan to two billion gallons a day. According to the docent, the city of Saint Louis, finding itself downstream from Chicago, protested the entire operation but the engineers circumvented the problem by secretly implementing the reverse flow using the canal in the middle of the night before a judgment could be reached. An aura of mafia intrigue like that in the Jack Nicolson film Chinatown came to my mind.
Architectural highlights from the
tour must begin with the landmark Chicago Tribune Tower, completed by John Mead
Howells and Raymond Hood in 1925.
The Chicago Tribune Tower, 1925
The firm held a competition in 1922
offering a $50 000 prize for the “most beautiful and distinctive office
building in the world”. The neo-gothic
structure clad in stone and crowned by flying buttresses is certainly a
masterpiece of the period.
The base of the building is embedded with fragments of important architectural sites from around the world collected by journalists at the request of Colonel McCormick, head of the Tribune, spanning structures as diverse as the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, Notre Dame de Paris and the Texas Alamo. One can only ponder today the ethics behind the acts of vandalism necessary for this endeavor. Fortunately times have changed.
Of the same period is the Wrigley
Building by Graham, Anderson Probst and White, who erected two towers linked by
a sky bridge to adhere to a trapezoidal lot facing the Michigan Avenue Bridge. The architects were inspired by the
Giralda tower in Seville, although the exquisite relief details in shaded terra
cotta seem to draw from both European and purely eclectic American ornamental
sources.
Details of the Wrigley Building, 1924
As the boat glides down the river,
the contrasting styles and materials dazzle the onlooker, the gleaming modern Miesian buildings reflecting silvery images of their noble
Art Deco stone counterparts nearby.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), a German born architect and
theorist, taught at the Chicago Armour Institute of Technology (later named Illinois Institute of Technology) from the late 1930s,
and is considered the father of modern architecture in Chicago. His esthetic rejected the ornate stone
façades featured in Beaux-Arts and Art Deco structures (like those mentioned
above) for a highly functional approach using simple geometric shapes and basic
industrial materials, steel and glass.
An elegant building on the south branch by Kohn Pedersen Fox (completed
in 1983) pays tribute to this ideal while also respecting a bend in the river
with its gently concave façade in tinted glass which harmonizes with the
changing nuance of the water and sky.
Building at 333 Wacker Drive, 1983
Ironically, at the end of the 19th century the south branch was notorious as a dumping ground for animal carcasses from the surrounding meat packing district, which once decaying at the bottom would send up bubbles of methane and grease, earning a part of the branch the nick name “Bubbly Creek”. Again, thank goodness times have changed.
The view from the river inspires with
its strong blend of old and new and attests to Chicago’s ability to respect
tradition while remaining at the cutting edge of American architecture. The tour concludes with an account of
the latest gossip surrounding a monumental project for the Chicago Spire
by celebrity Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The structure will be 2000 feet high and is in the shape of
a spiraling unicorn’s horn.
The future Chicago Spire by
Santiago Calatrava (Image : Shelboune Development)
The investors having run out of funds after completing the deep foundation, the site now resembles a smaller version of Ground Zero covered with a huge tarp. Rumor has it that the Beanie Baby magnate has already purchased the Spire’s penthouse for $40 million. Perhaps just another flash in the pan, but stranger miracles have taken place in Chicago. Sometimes the best things in life are worth waiting for.
Paris: A Short Update
Although the post-FIAC mood in
Paris was decidedly less electric, it was back to business as usual at
Drouot. The buzz of the week
seemed to be a major sale by auctioneer Beaussant-Lefèvre which occupied three entire salerooms for the
viewing. Divided over two
days, the first session offered old master paintings and furniture, and the
second, ceramics and objets d’art, over five hundred lots of
classic fair. An impressive oil on
paper attributed to the Bolognese painter Gaetano Gandolfi (1724-1802)
depicting Cupid and Psyche in a
swirling baroque embrace stunned the room by attaining €39 000, almost quadruple
the high estimate of €3 000. Perhaps
the drawing is by the hand the
Master himself after all?
Psyché et l’Amour, sold for €39 000 (Photo : Baussant- Lefèvre)
A portrait of the
duc de Gesvres by the workshop of French painter Louis-Michel Van Loo
(1707-1771) reached a more modest €15 000. Governor of Paris in 1739, the subject was from the eighth generation
of a robed noble Parisian family.
His taste for luxury and loose morals made him a popular subject of
court gossip at the time.
The session offered no less than
fifteen mirrors in styles ranging from 17th century Dutch repoussé metal to Louis XV gilt-wood. An impressive, boldly carved Roman
gilt-wood example adorned with putti
amidst foliate scrolls attained €11 200, more than double its low estimate.
Gilt-wood mirror, Rome 18th
century (Photo: Beaussant-Lefèvre)
Several important tapestries concluded the second day of the
sale, most notably a rare Brussels piece from the workshop of Evrard III
Leyniers (1597-1680), presenting an allegory of the month of January, sold for
€12 500. I find the art of
tapestries extremely fascinating and will devote a detailed article to them in
the near future.
Finally, a precious miniature portrait
on ivory of the Archduchess Marie-Antoinette was offered the next day by
auctioneer Coutau-Bégarie. The future Queen of France is
depicted at age fourteen, wearing a choker with a bow and a garland of pearls in
her hair. The delicate little frame
veneered with red tortoise shell, inlaid with engraved silver arabesques provides
an exquisite backdrop to the imperial portrait.
Miniature portrait of Marie-Antoinette, estimate €2 800 / €3 500 (Photo: Coutau-Bégarie)
The auctioneer has yet to publish the results of the sale, but do stay tuned.
Unless otherwise indicated, photos are by Paul Paradis.
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