Lee Bey

Big Apple to build world's largest Ferris Wheel

By: Lee Bey | Oct. 5, 2012

Oct. 5, 2012
The world's largest Ferris Wheel — four times the size of the one at Navy Pier — is being planned for a shoreline site on New York's Staten Island, according to the New York City's mayor's office.
 
The 625 ft. tall wheel would have views of Manhattan and would feature an outlet mall, retail and a hotel. The mayor's office said private funds were being raised to finance the $230 million project. The "New York Wheel" is expected to hold more than 1,000 passengers. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2014. In an Associated Press story on the wheel's announcement, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York said the big device would be "Staten Island's Eiffel Tower."
 
"This is a very big wheel," NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said during its announcement last week. The idea was among proposals the city solicited for the site.
 
Good luck to the Big Apple.

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New UNO school gets gold star for architecture

By: Lee Bey | Oct. 3, 2012

Oct. 3, 2012

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Saving Brutalist architecture is preservation's next battle

By: Lee Bey | Oct. 1, 2012

Oct. 1, 2012
Forty years ago, one of the most visually-powerful complexes in the city opened.
 
It was modernism rendered in concrete: jutting right angles, outdoor plazas, recessed slit windows to reduce the sun's glare inside the building. There was a swimming pool, a day care and a library big enough for 50,000 volumes. The design won a certificate of merit from the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects before the building was even completed.
 
The complex was the former Kennedy-King College, which opened in 1972. Two years ago, the huge complex, vacant since 2007, was demolished with hardly a blink outside of the Englewood community where the school was located. To some, the school was a near-masterpiece.

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A Wright wronged in Phoenix?

By: Lee Bey | Sep. 24, 2012

Sep. 24, 2012

A 60-year-old Arizona home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright has become the subject of one of the hottest preservation battles in the country. (Well, that along with our own dust-up over the fate of the iconic former Prentice Women's Hospital.)

The unusual David and Gladys Wright House — Wright designed the Phoenix residence for one of his sons — was purchased earlier this year by a custom home builder who sought to demolish the structure, subdivide its two-acre site and build a pair of houses there. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Arizona chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Chicago-based Frank Lloyd Wright Building conservancy have sounded the alarm.

Watch the video above and it is easy to see why. Completed in 1952, the Wright Home is made from concrete block. A spiral ramp not unlike the one in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum in New York City leads to the home's second floor.

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Modern living the Motorola way

By: Lee Bey | Sep. 21, 2012

Sep. 21, 2012
A little late-night rambling on the computer has unearthed these gems: A set of lavish 1960s ads from Chicago's own Motorola.
 
Created in 1961, the full-color ads show a fanciful and slightly futuristic lifestyle — with a moderately lounge-tiki vibe. The ads ran in magazines such as LIFE and depicted people living and dancing in soaring spaces and wildly impossible interiors where palm trees, shag rugs, exposed stone and rippling exotic waters were never more than a few paces away.
 
And neither were Motorola products. The company was once a full-fledged maker of consumer electronics, particularly at midcentury, churning out console stereos, radios, hi-fis, televisions and more, made in a plant at 4545 West Augusta Boulevard.
 
But that's the past. Now, the future:
 
Here a family watches a Space Age television set in a circular cabinet that is mounted on the floor and ceiling.

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The architecture of Maywood

By: Lee Bey | Sep. 19, 2012

Sep. 19, 2012

The west suburban town of Maywood often gets viewed through the narrow lenses of crime and — as the Chicago Sun-Times reported a month ago — shocking municipal mismanagement.

All that tends to overshadow one of the village's best assets: It's architecture. The 140-year-old town located on the west edge of the Des Plaines River has some insanely overlooked high-quality examples of pre-World War II building design, ranging from neat Craftsman bungalows to stately Prairie School homes that can complete with those found in nearby Oak Park and River Forest.

Which brings me today's video, The Historic Homes of Maywood, sent by Tom Kus, chairman of the Maywood Historic Preservation Commission. It's a well-done piece that does right by the town — and those there who are working to preserve and enhance Maywood's buildings. My favorite is the Cluever House at 12:57 in the video, designed by architect John Van Bergen.

"It kind of gives you a nice overview of the community from an architectural and historic perspective," Kus said of the video.

Check it out and enjoy.

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Suburban bank that pays homage to Mies van der Rohe

By: Lee Bey | Sep. 18, 2012

Sep. 18, 2012
Villa Park's best known building might be the Odeum Expo Center, where — in just a matter of weeks, in fact — you can see "The Greatest Ferret Show on Earth" or experience the largest haunted house in Chicagoland. Take your pick.
 
But here's something else worth seeing: an iconic and beautifully-maintained BMO Harris bank at St. Charles Road and Villa Ave., designed by a disciple of architect Mies van der Rohe. Indeed, the midcentury bank's design was inspired by an unbuilt work by Mies.
 
Built in 1964 as Villa Park Bank, the flat-roofed, single-story bank has floor-to-ceiling glass walls and an open floor plan. The building is supported by a pair of exposed trusses running parallel to each other across the roof. A drive-up facility was later added (you can see it to the left of the photo above), borrowing on the same architecture and engineering principles as the main building.

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Springsteen drummer honors Frank Lloyd Wright

By: Lee Bey | Sep. 10, 2012

Sep. 10, 2012

A day before sitting behind the drumkit for two of Bruce Springsteen's sold-out concerts at Wrigley Field last weekend, E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg entertained a small audience at Oak Park's Unity Temple.

"Besides being my generation's biggest Beatles fan, I happen to be a true Frank Lloyd Wright nerd — I mean 'aficionado,'" Weinberg told a group of about 150 people assembled in the auditorium of the Wright-designed church at 875 Lake St. last Thursday.

Weinberg's lecture was part of the "Break the Box" series of distinguished speakers, sponsored by the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

The New Jersey native said he has been a devotee of the architect since childhood, when a relative allowed him to visit the Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum in New York while the modernist masterpiece was still under construction. As a teenager, he'd search out Prairie School architecture with his high school buddy and future film producer (and fellow Wright devotee), Joel Silver.

Weinberg said traveling with the E Street Band allowed him to visit Wright homes in buildings across the country.

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