NEH Grant Day 7/Saturday July 18, 2009
Today is the final day of our program The American Skyscraper: Transforming Chicago and the Nation. It is a sad feeling that the program which I have been anticipating and planning for so many months is now over. Overall, it has been a valuable learning lesson, and experience which I would not have had otherwise. I feel that I have learned a great deal and that my interactions with my Saint Stephen’s students will be enriched. I am looking forward to seeing my Eoin boy this evening , after having been without him for 7 days.
I would like to publicly acknowledge my Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School friends. Thank you to Mrs Pullenand Mr. David Snodgress, for excusing me from my on campus duties this week so that I may attend this program. Thank you to Mrs. Gina Anderson for composing a stellar reference letter on my behalf. Thank you to Mrs. Denise Hartnett for being equally as excited as I am upon hearing of my inclusion into this program. I am grateful that you have aided my travel plans. Thank you to my fellow staff/faculty co-workers as well as school parents who have been reviewing my blog, both as it appears on wordpress in it’s original form, as well as it’s second generation on my Facebook page. I do hope that my enthusiasm and excitement of this adventure have been captured accurately.
And finally, thank you to the National Endowment for the Humanities for funding such an intellectually stimulating program as well as seeing a need in which to better promote American history to our country’s teachers and ultimately to our children. Thank you to Chicago Architecture Foundation for selecting my application. This week has been a valuable learning experience. Mrs. Jean Linsner and Ms. Jenn Masongarb thank you for planning such a rewarding and enriching week of activities.
I am posting a few snap shots of the University Center, 525 S. State Street. It is my understanding that this facility functions as a student dorm
for neighbouring DePaul University, Robert Morris College and the like during the normal school year. In the
summer, this operates as a secure, inexpensive downtown hotel option. My room was one of four bedrooms in an apartment style unit. With two bathrooms, there was no waiting for the shower int he morning! Youpie! I can only imagine what a cool dorm facility vibe this building has during the school year, certainly nothing like my university days, I can assure you.
After grabbing a quick breakfast nibble at the Panera Bread shoppe on the University Center, I finished my packing , my co roomates, Sarah the art history teacher and Jean the librarian and I made our way to the Santa Fe building with our bags for the final wrap up discussion set to begin @ 9am. As we entered a slide show of snapshots documenting the week’s activities and participants was projected on our classroom’s screen.
How has this week changed how you are thinking about using architecture in your classroom? What are you going to do with what you have learned this week? I think that I have learned how to look at the contrasts of different buildings and the different lifestyle of each design period. I have learned how to better question why a specific building in located in its given place and respecting its history. I have also gained a better understanding of the history of Chicago and why is blossomed from this particular spot. Of course, I now have a crick in my neck from looking up most of the week, but it was well worth the minor discomfort!
How will you share this newly gained information and knowledge? Personally, I have tried to maintain this blog to document the workshop activities, knowledge that I have gained and fantastic adventures i have enjoyed. This blog is viewed by my fellow staff/ faculty co-workers as well as my school community (school parents). This blog can be viewed via wordpress.com, as well as via my Facebook page’s notebook widget. My school library webpage contains a link to the blog to facilitate viewing. I am averaging 15 views per day, according to the statistic counter. As part of my obligatory portion of the grant, I will be documenting an assignment which draws upon the knowledge that i have gained this week. While I do not have concrete plans, I am leaning towards a lesson which highlights our new Saint Stephen’s Middle School (LEED) building, set to open January 2010 as well as highlight children’s literature which employs architecture within the literary theme.
How has architecture affected your way of teaching? I have learned to let the building speak to the viewer, that architecture can elicit an emotional reaction from a viewer. I have learned to pay better attention to the build environment around me. that the built world and the natural world are juxtaposed each other.
Should you see any huge erroneous facts, please contact me to make the correction. Much info has been delivered this week, errors are bound to happen, unfortunately.
By 10.30am, I had left with a few other participants who were sharing a ride to either Midway or O’Hare. Vicki and I shared a taxi to Midway. I will admit to being nervous to make it to my plane on
time, after viewing the line ups for the departure security check points on my arrival one week prior. Luckily , I arrived at Midway in 25 minutes in light Saturday morning traffic, I checked my bag , cleared through security by 11.45am. I would like to publicly thank Sebastien at the Midway Air Tran ticket counter. He was so very excited to see my Canuck passport. I am glad that I madesomeone’s day ! I am also thankful to Sebastien for assigning me a seat with extra leg room 10C, the next aisle behind first class and thus making my trip home more enjoyable. By 2.37pm, were were pushing away from the gate and heading home to SRQ . We landed @ 6.06pm to an eagerly awaiting Eoin boy and my husband at the end of the ramp.
As much fun and rewarding as it was to be learning about American history in Chicago, it was great to be home with my family in Florida.
Foundation was under a cloudy sky. The view of our skyscrapers was very mystical amidst the clouds.
skies had cleared.
Today’s workshop theme was ‘unifying the design of the tall building’. How did technology in the late nineteenth century impact the look and functions of the modern skyscraper? What role did Louis Sullivan play in refining the skyscraper typology?
Esparza. While I have yet to dine at Berghoff’s, I am sure that the food will be as wonderful as the architecture. 17 West Adam Street is the second oldest Chicago School of Architecture building in the city, built in 1872, it is constructed of sandstone. The current restaurant is housed in two neighbouring buildings, including what was once the Palmer Hotel, a lower rise that is 4 stories tall, with thick load bearing walls and parts of its covering are cast iron. This iron facade was not popular, as that much of the iron facades melted right off the building during the Great Fire, thus rending them structurally inhabitable. City codes after the fire changed the materials which could be used during reconstruction. In effect, the downtown loop is not a fireproof area, build with materials of the time which were seen as non flammable. By the by, the second oldest restaurant in the city is the Walnut room in Macy’s on State Street. At this stop, we further clarified the Chicago School of Architecture. These buildings have abase ( often 2 stories tall with street level retail), they have a shaft ( office space) and a capital ( an ornate terracotta top or cornices, which were removed as a liability and replaced with a glass fiber with reinforced concrete materials).
The Marquette Building on Dearborne and West Adams was designed by Holabird and Roche in 1895. it is a Chicago School Style with a steel skeleton structural frame, tripartile.A metal frame holds the building up, as is expressed on the outside with the exaggerated piers. the walls, thus, are intended for protection. It is clear the inside of the structure is mimicked on the outside. Chicago windows are on display here. They are often a very large piece of glass, with two double hung windows on either side to allow for ventilation from the outside in. The Marquette building is E shaped, to maximize offices having exterior windows for ventilation as well as light. This building is currently owned by the McArthur Foundation ( commonly know for their funding of PBS programming). As a point of 
reference, this building faces onto the Federal Plaza, where a large red Alexander Caulder Sculpture resides. You might recognise this area from the movie The Lake House with Sandra Bullock and Keaveu Reeves several years ago. A Tiffany mosaic and bronze friezes decorate the area above the elevators.
currently know by its current tenant) was completed in 1934 as the LaSalle bank building. Built by Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, it was one of the last buildings to be constructed during the depression and then skyscraper construction did not pick up again until the 1950s, during to WWII, a lack of money and lack of materials. When looking at a Beaux Arts building, such as this example, one can see a two tone colour scheme created byt he limestone and granite. it gives a very vertical feeling. A staggering of floors, or setbacks, allow this building to be built taller without over powering those on the street. The tower is up to 40 floors and gives a taller impression with an additional 23 stories and rounded corners. In 1906, Marshall Field died (of the department store ), leaving in a trust of 106 million to his two sons. While they could not touch this money until their 55 birthday, trustees invested the money including in the construction of this building. many luxury details can be found in the marble lobby. the lobby lighting echoes a wedding cake shape, based on the style found on the Normandy luxury cruise liner in the 1920s. Clocks are in a Cartier style. This huge Art Deco style building occupies one city block. The whole lobby has a “Fred and Ginger’ feel , for lack of a better descriptive word.
Some of the other buildings we visited were the Rookery. An 1888 Burnham and Root design which demonstrates the development of skeleton framing. the interior atrium was renovated by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Western University Architecture Professor, delivered a lecture entitled Why is there a city here? . His lecture outlined six stages of Chicago’s history, emphasising 1830 to 1914. In 1848-1871, Chicago rose to prominence as a Midwest center. Between 1871 to the beginning of World War One, was a period of great industrial growth with meat packing jobs, European immigrants seeking jobs. He also addressed various obstacles to building Chicago in this location and how these obstacles where over come. Obstacles such as water borne issues, Niagara falls cuts off much of the transport in the Great Lakes, until the 1825 Eric Canal. The tall grasses of the prairies had deep roots, thus making farming and plowing difficult, until the Mccormick invention of the steel edge plow. This ability to ’sod-bust’ allowed for farmers to work large plots of land, growing grains. (eventually the steel edge plow was manufactured here in Chicago, thus adding to the local demands for employees.) Also, a grass prairie plains created an absence of trees and timber…timber to build homes and fuel during the winter months. The final important obstacle was that there were people already here. With the 1823 Black Hawk Treaty, many Native peoples were displaced to reservations elsewhere.
By mid afternoon, we broke into groups to write and draw our observations of Harold Washington Library. Named after the city’s first black mayor, he sadly died of a heart attack shortly after his second re-election. Know as a ferocious reader, the new building subsequently honors him. Many green patina owls adore the roof line, both barn and great horned owls, symbols of knowledge; the wise old owl grasping a book in his talons. A number of medallions in the brick word contain the letters C-P-L- Y. These stands for the Chicago Public Library and the Y is a reference to the Chicago Canals, a letter to be found elsewhere in the city, sucha s on man hole covers. 
Ribbons of grain are chiseled into the brick, as a tribute to Chicago’s status as a trade center of grains. Cherubic faces are also found on the facade. Ceres, the goddess of grain, as well as faces with puffed out cheeks, as if blowing air to you. While one could claim that they are blowing kisses, in fact it is another tribute to the ‘windy city’, whimsical faces as if blowing air to the passersby. The building is 15 years old, and is typical of post modernism. It ‘borrows’ elements from other styles and neighbouring buildings. A Greek pediment echos the Chicago Art Institute, the wall structure from the neighbouring Montack building. The building directly across the street , housing the Robert Morris College is over one hundred years old and was built to look new, yet the library across the street is a new building trying to look old. It is a skeletal frame building, not load bearing, a veneer of granite materials clad a portion of the building. I am looking forward to visiting inside later this week as that the children’s room is on the second floor.
We discussed a few archietcuture terms to create a better understanding of how these skyscrapers are build: post and beam, load bearing, skeletal construction, curtain wall, truss. We also toured an upper floor of the Santa Fe building to better understand the construction of a light tube, thus maximizing light for workers on the inside of the building. With a few modern modifications, the building now is enclosed, hallways are on the interior, all offices face the exterior of a building.
Finally, all participants walked across the street to the Millennium park for a group photo in front of the mirrored jelly bean, entitled Cloud Gate by British artist Anish Kapoor. It is a sculpture which was assembled on site, a steel frame with a series of mirrored panels attached to the form, then the seams were buffed out, resulting in a smooth mirror like surface.
From there, I dashed back to my room to change and head off to the Magnificent Mile. Beside the John Hancock building, the American Girl Cafe waited for me. granted, every table was taken up by at least one young girl and here doll. While I had neither a dolls not a young person to enhance the experience, I still enjoyed myself. I felt rather sorry for fathers and brother who looked glum and had obviously been dragged into this estrogen filled space. A pink and black and white decor was fun. I enjoyed seeing the many dolls. While I do not personally own one of these dolls, I do like Molly and Mia.
From there, our group walked over to the Fisher building on State Street South, next to the library. We read 
to a residential condo complex. Yet, the exterior remains attractive and intriguing. As a brownish orange terracotta cladding, a number of animals, mythical dragons, frogs, sea shells can be found in the exterior decorative sculpture near the door frames, the bay window frames and under the roof line as a play on words of the owner’s name. The Fisher Building is decorated with a nautical theme ….look closely for the starfish.
While I do not relish in experience high places, I was a tad nervous about reaching the 103 floor. A quick elevator ride was pleasant, yet crowded during the busy summer tourist season. I will admit to being fearful of heights, though felt a tad bit sway-ish. I even was able to look out on the glass platforms, which had been opened only two weeks prior. The weather was sunny and clear, 75 degrees. Thus a clear view of the city and its buildings and the lake beyond stretch for miles from our windows of the 103 floor. Some days, it is possible to have a clear view to 500 miles away.
