Great Houses of Chicago, Mrs. Huxtable's "Terroir" & Financial Times Montage

This post has three subjects that have a random, subtle relationship. I didn't plan it but they share ideas about the sense of place that surrounds a design.

The first is an extended review of a great and heavy new book about rich people's houses in Chicago. My review was originally published on the Society of Architectural Historians Chicago Chapter Blog - this version is more personal and wanders a bit.

The second is simply a recommendation that you buy the Wall Street Journal if for no other reason than to get Mrs. Huxtable's occasional essay - especially her recent exploration of context vs. destination and spectacle architecture.

The third subject is an image - the Financial Times widespread campaign that uproots all the world's major modern banks and trading structures (some imagined, I suppose) and plops them on an island.

Great Houses of Chicago 1871-1921

Susan Benjamin and Stuart Cohen

Foreword by Franz Schulze and Arthur H. Miller

9 x 12 inches, 334 pages, ISBN: 978-0-926464-39-8 •

$75.00 Acanthus Press

Synopsis: An essential reference tool for Chicago architecture, interior design, decorative art and history libraries.

SAH and Chicago Chapter members Susan Benjamin and Stuart Cohen have produced the most comprehensive overview on Chicago’s mansions, castles and residential fortresses.

This outstanding volume balances diverse sources and matches the pantheon of architects with those early patrons - the pioneers, nouveau riche and old eastern money. Nearly 350 sepia toned photographs, drawings, and floor plans are breathtaking in scope and detail. The visual content effectively evokes the muffled footsteps of parlor maids and rebukes by gruff railroad barons.

Rare figures of inhabitants intervene only occasionally; a child on a tricycle, Mr. Eliphalet Blatchford in his library but mostly the human presence consists of portraits above highly embellished fireplaces. The majority of these pictures were taken as silent documents of wealth and expressions of erudition but they evoke a surprisingly shaky, unconfident sense of style.

Even so, readers will derive a clear sense of each family’s private aesthetic and public facade. Interior design and decorative arts are as compelling as the structures. Paintings, sculpture, textiles, carvings, animal skins, all manner of souvenirs from grand tours and chotzkes galore - are piled in impeccable abandon.

It's tempting to search for the very few objects that found their way to the Art Insitute's collection.

The Editorial content is superb in providing the ontology of Chicago’s residential style, social context, family history and the sources of wealth.

Great Chicago Houses is also peppered with aridly amusing anecdotes. It makes a surprisingly entertaining read.

I was especially touched by the 1903 Julius Rosenwald House by Nimmons & Fellows and the authors' treatment. The book’s testimony to one of the greatest of Chicago’s early entrepreneurs and philanthropists is gracious and the house itself is uncomplicated but beautifully designed.

The strange sadness that pervade the book - especially for a lifelong Chicagoan - is linked with the number of demolished structures. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. These captains of industry built these palazzo's on the prairie to last. The quality of workmanship and materials was meant to echo the european structures that they saw on their trips. It was one of their frequent and futile, strikes at immortality. I wonder if they imagined that their children would inhabit the houses after them, shuddering from the capitalistic ghosts of their patriarchs or if they thought there would be tremendous competition to acquire their peculiar ornate newel posts (done - but in salvage yards).

For the great majority - their ghosts left with a wrecking ball within fifty or sixty years! They built with a sense of permanence and luxury that would institutionalize their memories but technology, location and that wierd, short cycle - 30 years after construction - when vernacular architecure becomes distasteful - killed a lot of them.

Chicago's growth continues -- inevitable, consistent and totally unrepentant in ravaging the past.

One note for the 2nd edition: while some photo dates are available in the Illustration Credits, label dates or indication of the probable range when the pictures were taken (circa) or even “date unknown” would provide an even richer context. Knowing if the varnish on the spindles is dry or decades old would add polish to this significant volume.

Below: Julius Rosenwald Residence: Demolished

Images courtesy of Acanthus Press.

Again, With Mrs. H.

Mrs. Huxtable's brilliant contruction in the Wall Street Journal includes an archicentric use of the word "terroir" and this ruthlessly correct phrase:

"None of this matters; superperfectionism seems stale and out of date."

As usual, I agree with every character she writes even though a good friend has admonished
not to idolize, deify or carve a pedastal - I can't help myself. Why don't we hear her.

It reminds me of what Frank Lloyd Wright said about Adlai Stevenson: "He didn't win because Americans don't like a thinking man in the White House."

The Financial Times Version of the Island of Doctor Moreau

Try to get a cab or a 2 bedroom vintage rental.

Random Images from 2007

More Kitschmas

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STREET ART

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STREET FASHION

She won best costume - need a hint?

She travels from north to south and for most of the year, she took

an hour from North Ave. to Belmont.

That's right - she's the CTA's Red Line!

One of the judges said, "Does she smell like urine? That would be real."

Christmas with Howard in Hinsdale included...
Ruby trout...

And a sublime red in a Lalique glass.

Hope for 2008

Internet Stuff and Scraps

My friend HSW said something profound in reference to our political disaster of a government today. He said, "We're all just sitting here talking about how crazy the country has gotten but it's OUR country. We're doing it - we're allowing them to define torture and rendition and allowing this to happen."

Here are two people who didn't allow it...

Heroe: Sugihara

Heroine: Andrée Geulen-Herscovici

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To my chagrin, and with no prior notice, I am on Youtube at the same time that a really bad piece of my art is being sold on ebay. I donated the Ebay piece to the American Cancer Society auction during the very early '80's. It is bad art coming back to bite me. But it originally went for $250 so that's good.

Fall is here and Chief Illiniwek is gone! I actually worked on this logo as an undergraduate. Oren Johnson produced this and he was/is a brilliant artist. I helped cut the large films that were turned into the smaller version (this was before Photoshop or any major computer design). He had a studio in a farmhouse beyond Champaign. I would ride ten miles every morning to get there. I'm sure it's all condo's now but his serigraphy studio in the basement was extraordinary. I was a little concerned with the Chief then but we were more intensely fighting South African apartheid on campus.


Then, I remember talking to a really talented American Indian woman who started the great fight to get rid of this crazy Chief dingbat. She was recruited to the department of art and design - to diversify the program. She said, "I arrived and the head of the painting department invited me and my children to a basketball game. We got there and this guy - this "Chief" comes out and does this dance and I looked over at my kids and their mouths are wide open. I said to the faculty member, 'This is not good.' and he says, laughing, 'Come on - are you kidding? You know your culture is dead'." She said she had spent a lot of time trying to get her kids to see the authentic spirit of her people. This was not good. She sat out in front of the stadium with cardboard signs for months until others joined her. She had death threats. She did a great thing.
I would call her a warrior.

Graceland Cemetery was closed because of a microburst storm in August that tore down Irving Park Road toward the lake. The weather is becoming more extreme. No doubt Versace helmets will be available for spring.

Jake's birthday cake. Oh for a mom like that that bakes the cake and knows what's important.

The worst could be over. This is not a staged photo but a moment of Rick Santorum's life and I kind of feel bad about putting it up. On the other hand, he had no problem with trading in his "family values".

Bring the boys home. These are family values. Bring them home.

Old Art: "The Light Was Yellow Officer"

I found a bunch of slides of pieces I did on tar paper back in the late '80's. This piece was done on construction debris and I think it was 6 feet tall by 3 feet wide. I left it in an alley when I moved to 1322 North Wicker Park Ave.