Chicago Architecture: Histories, Revisions, Alternatives

Charles Waldheim

University of Chicago Press, 2005 - Architecture - 418 pages

When you think of modern architecture, you think of Chicago, the birthplace of the skyscraper, the cradle of twentieth-century American design, and the home of enduring works by such iconic figures as Louis Sullivan, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Idealized through tourism and celebrated in the groves of academe, the city's majestic skyline and landmark buildings remain a living testament to the modern movement.

In Chicago Architecture, Charles Waldheim and Katerina Ruedi Ray revise and offer alternatives to the archetypal story of modern architecture in Chicago. They and an esteemed group of contributors assert that the mythic status of Chicago architecture has distorted our understanding of the historical circumstances in which it was realized. This searching volume illuminates the importance of photographs, books, magazines, and other media in the cultivation of an international audience for Chicago architecture; it explores the pivotal role of real estate developers, finance and insurance sectors, and speculative capital markets in the development of the city itself; and, perhaps most notably, it examines a wide variety of overlooked architectural works and their creators—individuals who did not fit into the dominant modernist narrative.

Offering new insights on Chicago public housing and O'Hare International Airport, on the Columbian Exposition and Marina City, on the city's grid system and the place of women architects in the story of Chicago modernism, and on the subjective experience of living inside Chicago's most well-known buildings, Chicago Architecture is a work of enormous scope and vision—a book as heady and towering as the skyline it considers.

Contents

• Regionalism and Race in the Inland Architect JOANNA MERWOOD3: 3
• Myth of the Chicago School ROBERT BRUEGMANN: 15
• The Centrality of the Columbian Exposition in the History of Chicago Architecture DAVID VAN ZANTEN: 30
• From Prairies to PleasureGrounds REUBEN M RAINEY: 37
• Does Frank Lloyd Wright Belong in Chicagos Architectural History? SIDNEY K ROBINSON: 53
• Preservation and Renewal in PostWorld War II Chicago DANIEL BLUESTONE: 61
• Architecture of Chicago Multifamily Housing 193565 ERIC MUMFORD: 82
• Selling Mies DAVID DUNSTER: 93
• Living at 860880 Lake Shore Drive JANET ABRAMS103: 103
• Painting as Inscription JULIA FISH III: 124
• Only Girl Architect Lonely SUSAN F KING129: 129
• The Chicago Years PAMELA HILL: 143
• Marking Sexual and Ethnic Identity CHRISTOPHER REED: 163
• Tableaus of Naturalization JANE WOLFF: 176
• The Architectural Photography of HedrichBlessing ROBERT A SOBIESZEK: 181
• A Personal View of Architecture GEOFFREY GOLDBERG: 226
• Field Theory MARTIN FELSEN AND SARAH DUNN: 253
• Walter Netsch and the Architecture of Bureaucracy DAVID GOODMAN: 261
• 24: 273
• Understanding Chicagos HighRise Public Housing Disaster D BRADFORD HUNT: 301
• 26: 307
• Chicago OHare CHARLES WALDHEIM: 327
• 28: 347
• NOTES361: 361
• LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS: 410

About the author

Charles Waldheim is associate professor of architecture and director of the Master of Landscape Architecture Program at the University of Toronto.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Chicago Architecture: Histories, Revisions, Alternatives; Chicago Architecture and Urbanism
• Editor: Charles Waldheim
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2005
• ISBN: 0226870383, 9780226870380
• Length: 418 pages
• Subjects: Architecture / Buildings / Public, Commercial & Industrial; Architecture / Criticism; Architecture / Design, Drafting, Drawing & Presentation; Architecture / General; Architecture / History / General; Architecture / Regional; Travel / United States / Midwest / East North Central (IL, IN, MI, OH, WI)