Lee Bey

Willis Tower celebrated in new photo exhibit

By: Lee Bey | Oct. 18, 2012

Oct. 18, 2012
Willis Tower, downtown's 1,450 ft. stack of architecture, engineering, commerce and civic pride, turns 40 next year.
 
If you are of a certain age, that milestone might be as jarring as the fact that the Willis — the world's tallest building as recently as 1998 — is soon to be "only" the eighth tallest building on the planet. (It gets worse: In China, Korea and Saudi Arabia, there are 11 buildings under construction that are all taller than Willis.) 
 
But reflection often comes at 40. The tower and its history and impact are likely to be re-examined and revisited in the years to come.

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Restoration puts Calder's 'Flamingo' back in the pink

By: Lee Bey | Oct. 15, 2012

Oct. 15, 2012
Alexander Calder's Flamingo looks great, thanks to last summer's restoration that returned the sculpture to its brilliant vermillion — allowing the work's color, arcs and curves to again properly contrast against the dark and right-angled modernist buildings of the city's federal plaza.
 
The  $213,000 restoration by McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Lab is a pretty good early birthday present for the sculpture which turns 40 next year.
The 53-foot tall steel sculpture was formally dedicated in 1974 with a visit from Calder himself who got a key to the city from Mayor Richard J. Daley.

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The Burlington Zephyr's race to Chicago

By: Lee Bey | Oct. 11, 2012

Oct. 11, 2012

Check out the above clip of the streamlined and backswept Burlington Zephyr as it rockets across the countryside on its way from Denver to Chicago in 1934.

The trip was a technological breakthrough in transportation and design; a promotional effort to showcase the speed and engineering behind the newly-developed stainless steel beauty. The Zephyr made the trip non-stop in a hair over 13 hours with an average speed of 77 mph. At one point, the mighty diesel-electric engines pushed the train passed 112 mph.

Today, the same trip would be almost 19 hours — although the comparison isn't completely fair because Amtrak trains, unlike the Zephyr on this run, would have to stop to pick up passengers. But many of today's trains don't roll much faster than the Zephyr due to safety regulations that limit the speed to 79 mph in much of the country.

Still the video is a reminder of what rail travel in this country once aspired. Yet today's successor to the Zephyr is in Europe or Asia:

Building a network of 220 mph Amtrak bullet trains crisscrossing America will likely not happen, short of a public private partnership.

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UofC's architectural hot streak continues

By: Lee Bey | Oct. 9, 2012

Oct. 9, 2012

Some of the best collegiate architecture in the country is going on right now at the University of Chicago. The gray lady of Hyde Park has welcomed visually-exciting new buildings such as the domed Mansueto Library and the glassy, near-steampunk chiller plant on its south campus.

The streak continues with the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, the new 184,000 sq. ft. home of the university's visual arts and theater programs. The $114 million facility has classrooms, performance spaces, theaters and more, and is punctuated by a remarkable 11-story tower that erupts from the southern edge of the Midway Plaisance at 60th and Drexel.
 
The center is the work of the noted New York-based Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, which won a 2007 design competition for the commission.

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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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