Lee Bey

St. Joseph Hospital's postwar cool

By: Lee Bey | Dec. 17, 2012

Dec. 17, 2012
We know what a tough time midcentury modern hospitals have had as of late, what with the old Michael Reese campus on the South Side plowed under for who-knows-what and the former Prentice Women's Hospital being famously endangered.
 
St. Joseph Hospital however, seems to be doing quite fine. Completed in 1963, the Y-shaped, 12-story building at 2900 N. Lake Shore Drive, and its trademark blue exterior walls with diamond-shaped windows, is a fine — and functioning — piece of postwar architecture. As the AIA Guide to Chicago put it: "Architects would like to think the 1960s looked like Mies' Federal Center, but this is what the era really looked like."
 
The AIA Guide probably didn't mean that as a compliment, but I'll take it as one. Hospitals can be efficient, but bland, look-alike buildings. But not St. Joseph.
 
The hospital was designed by Belli & Belli, an architecture firm whose work includes St.

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Oscar Niemeyer dies at 104

By: Lee Bey | Dec. 6, 2012

Dec. 6, 2012

Oscar Niemeyer, the architect whose stylish and futuristic buildings put the thrill in Brazil's capital city Brasilia, died Wednesday in a Rio de Janeiro hospital. He was 104.

Niemeyer's remained an active architect until the end, with his work spanning nine decades. In addition to buildings in Brasilia, his birth city of Rio de Janeiro, Paris and other locales, Niemeyer also collaborated with fellow greats such as Le Corbusier to design the United Nations headquarters.

The New York Times gives him a good send-off in this obituary, but there is more. The above clip from the 1980 BBC television series The Shock of the New takes a critical look at Brasilia, while a 2012 report from Al Jazeera said real estate pressures might reshape the city and negatively affect its iconic modernist structures and site plan:

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Four Sheridan Road homes could get Landmark status

By: Lee Bey | Dec. 5, 2012

Dec. 5, 2012
A quartet of early 20th century homes built when Sheridan Road was among the city's most fashionable thoroughfares might take a step toward landmark status this week.
 
At its regular meeting Thursday, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks is scheduled to weigh a request from city staffers to grant preliminary landmark status to the Joseph Downey House and coach house at 6205 N. Sheridan; and the Samuel Gunder House (seen in the photo above) and coach house at 6219 N. Sheridan. Both homes and their shared grounds have been owned by Chicago Park District since 1981 and are part of Berger Park. The two houses are also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
 
The proposed landmark designation also includes two former residences owned by Loyola University: the Adolph Schmidt House — now Burrowes Hall — at 6331-39 Sheridan; and the Albert G. Wheeler House at 970 W. Sheridan, better known as Piper Hall.

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Englewood church stands after 120 years

By: Lee Bey | Dec. 3, 2012

Dec. 3, 2012
I took a walk around Chicago Embassy Church a few days ago, beckoned by the 230 ft. spire that is visible — as is most of the building — from the Dan Ryan Expressway at 59th Street.
 
That the old building is still there is good news, given the rough time this town's vintage houses of worship are having as of late. St. James Church at 29th and Wabash will be demolished soon, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese said recently. The former Shepherd's Temple on the West Side was wrecked last March.

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'Lost Chicago' explores city that once was

By: Lee Bey | Nov. 29, 2012

Nov. 29, 2012

Chicago is a modern city endlessly fascinated by its past. Although still relatively young compared to the Londons and Parises of the world, Chicago's demolished buildings, bygone places and long-ago world's fairs capture our attention and a fair amount of net traffic judging by the popularity of excellent sites like Forgotten Chicago, Calumet 412 and the no-longer updated but still very good blog, Bright Lights Dim Beauty of Chicago.

Now comes a new hardcover book, Lost Chicago, that examines the way we were in this town. Written by John Paulett and Judy Floodstrand, the book looks at architecture that is no longer with us — places like the Henry Ives Cobb-designed Federal Building seen in the photo above — but also things we've forgotten about (until we remember) such as those three-wheel motorcycles Chicago coppers used to ride.

Lost Chicago is an immensely entertaining and beautifully illustrated book with great archival photography.

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Chicago architecture had role in 'Boss.'

Lee Bey | Nov. 26, 2012

Nov. 26, 2012

Chicago is architecture, history, power and politics -- often rolled into one. And there was a scene in the first season of the television show Boss that captured this better than anything I've seen on the tube.

The show's main character, Chicago Mayor Tom Kane in a bravura performance by Kelsey Grammar, meets Illinois State Treasurer Ben Zajac on the green roof atop the city's real-life City Hall. With his arm around Zajac, played by Jeff Hephner, Kane looks out over the skyline and speaks of Democratic power broker, and later mayor, Anton Cermak. As Kane talks, the modern Chicago skyline vanishes and is slowly replaced by previous-turn-of-the-century buildings, effectively taking us back in time as the story of how Cermak unified warring ethnic factions in the city by bringing them into the tent -- and sharing the political spoils with each of them -- is weaved.

Current-day Chicago returns when Kane's story ends and the lesson learned. It was a masterful scene -- the kind of smart stuff Boss often did during its two-season run on Starz.

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Marina City in its youth

By: Lee Bey | Nov. 14, 2012

Nov. 14, 2012

Updated 9:07 a.m.

The first residents of Marina City — architect Bertrand Goldberg's architectural and urban planning tour de force — moved in 50 years ago this week.

Goldberg's other Chicago landmark may be under attack, but this city-within-a-city is still going strong. So let's mark the occasion by digging some silent footage taken when the complex and its remarkable twin cylindrical residential towers were still new. The crisp, color images were uploaded to YouTube by a company called Clips & Footage, an ofutfit whose YouTube channel describes it as "a friendly and independent supplier of high quality archive film."

 

Resident Steve Dahlman, who operates the indispensable Marina City Online website, said he discovered this video a few years ago. "The footage is most likely from 1964," Dahlman said.

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Oak Woods Cemetery: Where design and planning are eternal affairs

By: Lee Bey | Nov. 12, 2012

Nov. 12, 2012
For decades, a concrete wall topped by barbed wire has surrounded Oak Woods Cemetery.
 
But behind the heavy, gray barrier is one of the most striking urban spaces in Chicago: 183 acres of gentle lawns, winding lanes and a quartet of lakes, all planned with order and beauty--not to mention fancy mausoleums and monuments ranging from Greek Revival to Art Nouveau and beyond. The North Side's historic Graceland and Rosehill cemeteries get all the attention, but Oak Woods, located on the South Side at 67th and Greenwood, is right there with them.
 
Created in 1853, Oak Woods belongs to a first generation of high-quality cemeteries that sought to take the burial experience beyond cramped graveyards and creepy boneyards, instead allowing loved ones to be laid to rest in well-designed, park-like spaces with trees, museum-quality statuary, rolling lawns and landscaping.

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