visualculturist

just looking around

[visualculturist]

Fair Deal

Art Basel Miami is so much more than the expo at the Miami Beach Convention Center - it’s the whole week long extravaganza of ABM and nearly 20 other “sattelite” fairs, held at other locations in MB and even more across the Intracoastal waterway in Miami itself. As a neophyte attendee who only has a cursory familiarity with the contemporary art world, how could I make any sense of it?

The Design Miami show, which describes itself as “the premier venue for collecting, exhibiting, discussing, and creating collectible design ” —  is substantially less daunting, maybe because there’s something a little less pretentious and social about it, which may have at least something to do with the nature of what’s on display there. While much has been made of the commodification of art and the role of the art fairs - specifically Art Basel - in creating that phenomenon, collectible design has never pretended NOT to be a commodity. Most items we characterize as “collectible design” are objects intended to be used in some fashion -  as interior furnishings, table ware, attire and other adornments - rather than simply admired. So the commercial element to the design fair never seems quite as vulgar or unseemly. And also the price points seem so much lower. Five figures for a lighting fixture or a sofa actually sound reasonable compared to eight for a picture. And there isn’t the kind of competitive insanity in the market for collectible design that you find in the fine art world, at least not yet.

[photo credit for this and probably half of what follows to DM’s James Harris]

Which is not to say that the merchandise at DM is in any way ordinary. Like the material at the other fairs - specifically Art Basel - this is all best in show, top tier stuff. But the distinction is that it’s manageable: with only about 50 vendors [compared to the close to 300 at Art Basel and probably more than a thousand spread among all the fairs, it’s a lot more manageable.

So even though I wasn’t trying to embrace all the art fairs  [I did go to about half a dozen over the week I was there], I sensed I was behind the curve already when I arrived at MIA on Wednesday evening and saw designer Jonathan Nesci, assuming he had just gotten there, too. But no, he was already on his way home, having attended some pre-opening events over the weekend and then the Tuesday daytime VIP preview for DM and then the Vernissage that night, he had done his duty. So it was clear that the connected and influential would have already done their connecting and influencing and gone home. [or wherever – Chicago architect Brad Lynch posted a few pics from the art fairs  on Wednesday and by Friday was posting photos from the Great Wall in Nanjing.

Maybe the whole “scene" was tepid by the time I had a chance to venture out, but hell, I wouldn’t know - I was a Miami fair virgin and it all seemed pretty fantastic to me. Irrespective of any of the collateral activities and events, the Design Miami experience itself is pretty thrilling if you like design. If you’re jaded, it’s probably not such a big deal, but I found it inspirational.

So even though the cool kids were long gone by the time I arrived, there was lots of great stuff to see.

No dealer at these shows is going to admit to you the show was a bust, but clearly some did better than others. My conversation with designer Jonathan Nesci- who is about as astute an observer as you will find, says that design collectors are mostly interested in the historical material. Contemporary design objects, Nesci suggests, are more the territory of design professionals. Individual collectors are unlikely, he offers, to purchase an avant-garde item of their own accord, but they’re more willing to do so if their designer tells them it’s a good idea.

Modernist works from the 1930s through the 1960s formed the core of the show; the offerings at Design Miami reflected an abundance of classic 20th century furniture and objects.

Galerie Patrick Seguin [London and Paris] brought a prefabricated house designed by Jean Prouve as emergency housing in France at the end of WWII.  

I had only thought of Prouve as a furniture/ industrial designer, but was schooled here:  he was in fact also an architect [self-taught, actually]. The house looks more like cabin in the woods than a modern pavilion, but it’s still an astonishing relic of modernist history. 

The gallery also brought a dazzling array of mid-century French designs, from Prouve, Jean-Jacques Ruhlmann and Pierre Jeanneret.

For a fine injection of proto-modernism, John Keith Russell Antiques brought a splendid selection of Shaker items.  

François Laffanour - Galerie Downtown brought some great pieces from the usual suspects: Le Corbusier, along with his brother Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand and Prouve, presented beautifully, with many red dots on the price sheet. 

Among its offerings: chairs designed for Le Corbusier projects in the utopian Indian city of Chandigarh. A gallery representative told me that there has been a healthy production of fake pieces almost since the genuine pieces went into production in the mid-50s, which helps account for their seeming ubiquity in so many contemporary design auctions.

Galerie Vivd from Rotterdam brought an outstanding selection of Dutch items, including some rare pieces by Gerrit Reitveld [as well as one of his signature armchairs in black and primaries] and, oddly, a wonderful bookcase designed by Sol Lewitt composed of four stacked cubes - the last of an edition of six, still available from the gallery at $49K. 

.Thomas Fritsch brought a spectacular collection of postwar French ceramics; all of the artists were completely unknown to me 

I was particularly attracted to the work of Roger Capron: 

Lawrence Converso still maintains his Converso Modern workroom and warehousing in Chicago although he long ago moved his retail operation to SoHo. His booth this year featured a number of items Warren Plattner designed for a house [which he also designed] in suburban New York 

and a spectacular Bertoia tree - 

all of which sold. I lusted after the tapestry designed by Herbert Bayer for the CBS HQ in NYC, and I think it’s still available.  

Even though the vintage materials from the 20th century are more interesting to me, more than half the vendors showed primarily contemporary works. R and Company - one of the leading New York galleries - showed a range of pieces from the gorgeously functional like this kaleidoscope credenza [here are pics the gallery provided, for some reason I didn’t take my own photos] by the Chilean designer Sebastian ErraZuriz  

to this delicious but sort of idiotic tentacled marble tub in the foreground below designed specifically for this show by the Haas Brothers [It’s worth noting that while the Haases have been a fixture at the design show for years, it was apparently a big deal that Marianne Boesky showed their work at the Art Basel show as “fine art.” 

New York dealer Friedman Benda, another leader in the market, offered a dramatic display of seating pieces. I won’t comment beyond reporting that each of them had a sign that said “Do Not Sit.”

At Todd Merrill Studio’s booth, I was stunned by the ingenuity and artisanship of Jean-Luc Le Mounier. 

I am hoping they sold the Butterfly cabinet [asking price: $175K] to Mariah Carey. The still photos do not do it justice. Check out this video:

[The thing is, the cabinet showed at Design Miami is about four times the size the little one in the video.

The Jason-Jacques gallery space featured Women in Clay and it is almost impossible to put any kind of label on the work of Katsuyo Aoki, who somehow mashes up export China painting, delicate porcelain molding, acid rock skull imagery and sweeping narrative depiction in almost all her pieces - all exemplifying how a picture is indeed worth a thousand words and how inadequate words are in describing art.

Of course it’s the commercial galleries that fuel the engine of the market and by extension, this fair. But you’ve got to hand it to the fair organizers for assembling a lot more than the array of blue-chip dealers - which  is already enough of a service to design fans. At Design Miami, the special installations and what one supposes are subsidized spaces for more modest commercial enterprises provided some of the fair’s most exciting moments

When a big industry convocation of this type anoints a “visionary,” it’s easy to be skeptical. But in looking back over those previously honored, the DM folks have consistently chosen extremely worthy recipients. 

This year the fair honored Mexico City-based husband and wife collaborators Pedro Reyes and Carla Fernandez - he is known for graphic and furniture design; she for fashion, but their work defies categorization. They were tapped, according to the DM statement, because they “consider how objects, experiences and systems can create a sense of belonging, but also call people to action.”  

Frankly I am less impressed with Reyes’ pre-Columbian inspired furniture than with the apparel produced by Fernandez [see some of her other fashions here ] Her “fashion of resistance” collection draws on local craft and design traditions from every state in Mexico, and speaks to the importance of preserving and supporting indigenous arts throughout the globe. 

The pieces resonate because they work on multiple levels - as appealing garments but also as political statements - without requiring a lot of explanation. But on a more practical level, it was clear that there was an enormous amount of sales activity. I am going to guess that there was more sales activity - or just activity in general  at this booth than any other one in the show. This may be because most of the items [dresses, coats, jackets - were priced at $1000 or below. 

As an accompaniment to the collection, Reyes’ typographic map of the western Hemisphere is a brilliant piece of design [regrettably this is the only image of it I can offer: 

What it is, of course, is a typographic map of the western hemisphere indicating the territories of native peoples. Reminds me, of course, of the many Chicago neighborhood maps 

But what the Reyes map really drove home for me is how connected the Americas are, and of course how the Europeans came and commandeered it all away from the indigenous people. Quite a legacy. As you might expect, it’s available as the design on a t-shirt dress in Fernandez’s collection

I’m not sure whether the various “Curio” booths at DM are subsidized spaces, but if so, I would tell the fair’s organizers to continue to support these curated exhibits, often focusing on the work of individual artisans.

At first glance Harry Nuriev [who operates under the trade name Crosby Studios]’s collection appears to be an elaborate goof: the ugliest of utilitarian, plastic machines rendered in elaborately carved golden oak which actually are revealed to have functions as home furnishings: the copy machine is embellished with birds and opens up with drawers and compartments to be used as a dresser; the window air conditioner is a single drawer cabinet. But they’re also a clever commentary on the banality of designer Nuriev’s tiresome existence in the post Soviet Russia. Its fabrication by Russian artisans underscores the support of traditional local crafts.

The golden objects in “liabilities,” Nadja Aerunian’s elegant installation, are intended to suggest various conversations, conditions and relationships - “perfect deception,” “adventurous frivolity,” “flirtatious addiction,” ”reserved dependability” among them.  It embodies such a challenging concept and is executed with such care that Nadja, who doesn’t even call herself a designer, shows herself really, to be an artist.

The exquisitely arranged and subtly lit vignette of KEM Weber objects produced for the Disney animation in 1930s is as good an example of why the Curio program is so valuable. Stephanie and Peter Blake are successful LA contemporary art dealers who also have a Jones for design. After encountering Weber’s signature airline chair a few decades ago, they’ve amassed an impressive group of works by the esteemed Hollywood designer. In collectible design, early modernism remains revered and respected.

But wait - there’s more.

Another distinctive feature of the fair is its series of “collaborations” between design professionals and manufacturers you might consider strange bedfellows.

The installation devised by pop conceptualist KAWS and the Campana Brothers - a bubble-gum pink Insta-perfect setting for their aggressively silly plush-toy seating - was clearly the most popular social media venue at the show.

Less perplexing was the presence of works that carried the imprimatur of a luxury brand. Again, there’s a distinction here with similar applications in the fine art world.

When a distillery sponsors a series of illustrative graphics, art collectors might scoff, but in the realm of designed objects, the branding makes more sense. The Fendi fashion house regularly mounts special exhibits at the design show and this year’s was mesmerizingly beautiful - The Shapes of Water was a dreamily lit installation of glass pieces incorporating water features designed by Sabine Marcelis.

The Louis Vuitton style machine has been building a collection of furnishings by chic designers - the Campanas, Patricia Urquoia and Marcel Wanders among them that it calls Les Objets Nomades. I was particularly impressed with the exhibit booth, which looked sort of like the interior of a glowing George Nelson bubble fixture. The Vuitton rep I talked to told me it was designed in-house.

I was quite interested by the number of dealers I encountered from behind the former Iron Curtain. [See Harry Nuriev, above.] I was hugely impressed with the craftsmanship and sheer beauty of the rugs the Tapis Rouge concern brought to the show, designed in Russia and manufactured in Nepal [as most great rugs are today]. And prices that aren’t all that different from the high-end hand-knotted brands you’d find in the contemporary decorator marketplace.

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It wouldn’t be a trip to Miami without seeing cool architecture. This trip I explored Miami Shores more on bike than I ever had before - it’s really great, even if a lot of it is hard to photograph because the landscaping is so lush you often can’t get clear shots of the houses.

Here are a few places that made an impact:

There’s a lot more like this, and I will certainly do more exploration when I return. As a last image, here is a selfie I took at the famous Arquitectonica Pink house [built for the architect’s parents]

Are you visually exhausted yet? I am. 

[visualculturist]

O[h] Canada - TO

Who knew that Montreal and Toronto are the last of the great American 19th century [pre-car, pre-A/C] cities? I’ve always given that distinction to Chicago, but each of them is more like Chicago than even Milwaukee  or Cleveland  

Visiting the two places consecutively really feeds my compulsive need to compare and rank all things - maybe most particularly cities, which of course are all considered in comparison to Chicago.

The city seems to have grown upward and outward from the old port - which is still quite active. By the late 19th century, the “center” of the CBD was clearly the Municipal Building [City Hall} complex, 

a wonderful Romanesque Revival colossus with glorious decoration - stone carved - not terra cotta. 

The interior [I unfortunately didn’t photograph it] looks pretty much untouched - all marble. A great detail: the plaque on the front of the building attests that construction began in 1893, “the 35th year in the reign of her gracious majesty Queen Victoria.”

Toronto is roughly the same age as Chicago - incorporated in 1834. Like Chicago, it developed as a port and as a rail hub in the mid 19th century. Unlike Chicago, however, it never had a great fire, so many interesting buildings from the 1860s and 1870s survive. There’s some great stuff down by the St. Lawrence Market in what they call Old Toronto. 

And don’t you think every city should have a Flatiron building? 

You have to love La Temple De La Renomme du Hockey - built originally as the Bank of Montreal

There’s a nicely preserved distillery district from the early 19th c

   The advent of tall buildings - skyscrapers - coincided with the development of steel frame construction techniques. Chicago, of course, is famous for its early - 1880s and 90s - examples. Oddly, I saw almost no tall buildings - i.e. 12 stories or more - that appeared to date from before World War I. The sole exception: 

the 1909/ 1910 Lumsden building - a 10 story steel framed structure with a very unusual concrete curtain wall - not just because of the material but the unusually quality of the detailing - kind of a stylized ur-Deco 

I think more typical of the era is the Confederation Life Insurance company building of 1892

I always think it’s so very affected and stuffy when architecture writers use the term “pile” to describe a big old place, but it fits here. I spotted a number of similar buildings. I am guessing this reflects the level of sophistication and density the city possessed at the time - decades behind its American counterparts. 

I particularly like this Chicago school influenced work designed by a local architecture firm from 1899 through about 1912 with great terra cotta decoration

And of course the provincial Parliament site is truly grand and reminds me of HH Richardson’s hospital for the insane in Buffalo.

These buildings seem to be in reasonably good states of preservation - my research discovered the Confederation Life building was renovated in the 1990s. Other buildings of its ilk haven’t been as fortunate. 

The whole preservation issue is an interesting one. We take it for granted at this point that preservation of a city’s architectural past is a pretty sacred value, but what I realize is how endemic that attitude is to the US in general and Chicago specifically. [Residential teardown and McMansion replacements are a completely separate issue.] But really, since Penn Station in NY and the Chicago Stock Exchange in Chicago, the respectful preservation and rehabilitation of important historic structures has really been a driving factor in late 20th c urbanism. The American Bicentennial played a major role in emphasizing the significance of historic character to a city’s viability. I am thinking that Canada did not benefit from this kind of patriotic fervor. 

From what I can tell, preservation of historic buildings in Toronto in the post WW2 era has been slapdash for the most part and the triumphs are most likely the result of sheer neglect.  Let’s start with the number of buildings where I am guessing that whatever preservationist fervor there was exerted enough influence to save certain exteriors but I saw an awful lot of 19th century buildings that  had really idiotic late 20th century additions - like a three story building that would have an 8-10 story tower built above it. 

Clearly a what were they thinking moment.

Another ridiculous example, in Yorkville: 

Truly unfortunate. 

But while most of these mashups are really idiotic, a couple are kind of interesting - like this one, also in Yorkville, where they incorporated a few small scale retail buildings on Yonge Street with a warehouse structure on the cross street with a striking neo-modernist residential tower

I also quite like the tower itself.

I found a number of interesting MCM buildings. Of course there is Toronto Dominion Center, the famous urban complex designed by Mies van der Rohe. I really liked this minimal Bell Canada building on Adelaide with a beautiful tile installation that I haven’t been able to find out anything about.

 I discovered a number of buildings that look like they’re right out of the SOM portolio from the fifties and sixties. Most of them, regrettably, have been “updated” at the street level. But here are two exceptions:

This homage to the Inland Steel building, which fronts on both Yonge and Victoria Street; 

The Victoria Street entrance seems to be all original to 1960 or so 

Similarly, the 111 Richmond Street West building, which I would have suspected was a Gordon Bunshaft design, is actually from the drawing board [this was pre-CADD] of Canadian architect Peter Dickinson 

 A recent addition to the east is quite well done, and the best part is that the 1960 lobby interior appears to be completely intact. 

But mostly I was taken with all the splashy stuff from the last 15-20 years. I know a lot of sophisticated observers are tired of Frank Gehry, but his re-imagining of the Art Gallery of Ontario is among his most emblematic projects, and maybe my personal favorite of all I’ve seen personally [disclaimer: I haven’t been to Bilbao] 

I was knocked out by this student center at Ryerson University, designed by Canadians. Maybe not surprisingly, I saw a lot of the most innovative architecture at the universities in town. Ryerson and University of Toronto are both downtown, and add richly to the architectural mix.

I loved this sculpturally faced poured concrete Medical Sciences building at U Toronto from the sixties I guess- haven’t been able to find out much about it

The British architects Foster and Partners designed the futuristic Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy building, completed in 2001

Similarly arresting is the 2005 Terence Donnelley Centre down the block, designed by Architects Alliance and a German firm, Behnish Arkitekten.

Also, the amazing OCAD University Sharpe Center, completed in 2004. Designed by the British architect Will Alsop, who died in May of 2018 

Back on the non-academic front, the gilded Royal Bank of Canada [c.2005] - is almost Tru*p-like in its glitzed out non-Canadian-ness

Finally, the Tableau Condominiums on Peter Street is just one of seemingly dozens of super-stylish tall buildings of very recent vintage. The architectural design is dynamic but I have rarely seen an artwork - from Canadian Shane Dark - that is so well integrated with the architecture [the Canadian firm Wallman Architects]

.

But wait there’s more, although I don’t have the pics to prove it. For one thing, Toronto has a lakefront, but it’s sort of hard to get to. I did have a great time biking out to the lakefront on a hot muggy day, but as a Chicagoan I was disappointed to note how disconnected the city seems from its shoreline. 

I rode out to the scenic Tommy Thompson Park, which extends into the lake on a long spit of land, but the “beaches” are all rocky. Apparently you have to go out to the the eastern suburbs to find sandy bathing beaches. 

Which I will have to do on my next trip there. In the meantime, I am on to Montreal. 

[visualculturist]

Georg Jensen, Danish Modern

My take on the fine Georg Jensen show assembled by the Art Institute:

https://design.newcity.com/2018/07/20/georg-jensen-scandinavian-design-for-living/

[visualculturist]

Park District treasures: fieldhouses

 I’ve been a little obsessed with Chicago Park District fieldhouses for a long time. They’re a specific building type that I guess exist in other places, but the sheer volume and breadth of them is kind of astonishing 

Let’s just start with the Garfield Park fieldhouse, which wasn’t built as a simple “fieldhouse.” It was originally the West Parks administration building [relic of a time when the city’s parks were divided into several administrative units; when they all were combined to form what we know as the present Park District [1934 I think], that’s what it became. 

While most of the city’s fieldhouses are utilitarian institutional buildings - not dissimilar from schools of the eras in which they were built - the West Parks building is a palace - actually a more lavish civic structure than City Hall. I’ve always found it intriguing that the architects weren’t Graham Anderson Probst & White or Holabird & Root - who divided up just about every other prominent institutional project of the era. Michaelsen and Rognstad must have been politically connected because the firm also got the commission for the buildings in Humboldt Park. I know nothing about the principals but somebody there clearly knew what he was doing. Just look at the interior 

Here’s a panoramic shot. [Of course the iphone lighting - I am still using a 5 - is terrible, but I’ve gotten used to it.]

a view from the second floor

The detailing is as grand as anything from the era  - the floors of course 

but even the walls are marble and the doors are bronze 

of course the ceiling - inside the golden dome - is richly  coffered

the carved marble bas relief tableaux on the walls [Why do other people get such great pictures with their iPhones? These are terrible, but they get the point across that this place must have had a HUGE budget for a public institution. But it makes perfect sense when you consider it was constructed in 1928- -  the absolute apex of the Jazz Age boom - probably the period of greatest economic growth and unabashed expression of prosperity, probably in America; certainly in Chicago.] 

elegant archways 

All in all, it’s in remarkably good condition, including the Spanish Renaissance-inspired heavily decorated terra cotta exterior [guessing some enterprising architectural historian could access the records of Northwestern or Midland Terra Cotta to determine who designed them]:

. 

[visualculturist]

Return to SFL

My last trip to South Florida was at the very end of the real estate bubble, in 2008. I probably made about three dozen trips there from the mid-90s through the mid-00s so I really got to know the terrain from Palm Beach to Miami pretty well. I felt right at home when I visited there for a few days in February, even though I didn’t have much luck with the weather: just one sunny day of the five I was there. 

I got an apartment in a little pocket of the north end of South Beach that they call Bayshore, which doesn’t really make any sense because it’s a couple of blocks from both Biscayne Bay in one direction and a couple of blocks from the ocean shore in the other direction. The first morning I got there, I had to take a selfie with probably my favorite building, the Helen Mar Apartments, because, well, just look:

But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Miami Beach for me is always a visual feast. There is just so much great stuff to look at, even at the airport. I was surprised to discover that the amazing terrazzo floor - an installation called “From Seashore to Tropical Garden” by Michele Oka Doner - in the American Airlines terminal at MIA have been there since the late 90s; although in the years I traveled there frequently, I usually flew into Ft Lauderdale, I know I’ve been there since at least the year 2000 and I am really surprised I’ve never noticed them before. They are really spectacular 

Materials - terrazzo, tilework, marble and other stones - are always a theme in and around Miami. At a hotel like the Sherry-Frontenac, maintenance on some of the interior elements may not have been the best over the years, but you can still see the craftsmanship and the durability of the floors

And really, it’s the details in Miami Beach that endure, even if the overall picture shifts around. 

Certainly the details at the great Lapidus pantheons remain spectacular - at the Fontainebleau the fluted columns and bow-tie floors have become branding elements 

I like the gold tile work on the curving wall beside the staircase.

 While much of the Fontainebleau retains its original Lapidus elements, it’s been remodeled and supplemented as time has passed;  the Eden Roc seems  closer to its original appearance. 

He did like those fluted columns. Note the ceiling detail

And the floors are even better than bow-ties 

I can’t be the first person to observe that, while many of the mid-beach Collins Avenue hotels have been revived, many of the midcentury interiors have succumbed. So it was great to discover how much of the Deauville is still intact: 

Again, it’s mostly about the details. The floors:

Its most delicious feature, though, is the exuberantly glamorous gold mosaic tile treatment of the curving stair that leads to the mezzanine level [not dissimilar to a parallel space at the Fontainebleau] - literally dazzling. 

But really, the point of Miami Beach is the ongoing relevance of modernism, from streamline moderne - in addition to the Helen Mar, above, I still love The Tides on Ocean Drive

and also Haddon Hall on Washington 

through MiMo and neomodernism. I had never seen this tennis pavilion in Flamingo Park, but later found out it was a fifties building that was remodeled in the 2000s - I think they did a great job 

That said, Miami Beach is maybe the most heavily catalogued/ documented architectural place in the western hemisphere, so I can’t really add much to the canon, but I saw some things I don’t think I’d seen before: 

And a lot of it is detail. I’m wondering what this building looked like when it was built in the 20s - it’s clear to me that the design is in relief, but I wonder if the polychrome treatment is just something the owner applied now, or whether it was like this originally. I would not be surprised if the building was just painted white. 

And I am fairly certain the Miami Beach Sr High building was not painted in this color scheme when built, but it’s so great I’m not complaining. 

Love that typeface 

I’d never explored Normandy Isle, which will definitely refute any idea you have that all of Miami Beach is gentrified. You do note that deco buildings are sporting bolder colors but pastels are still the default  

In fact, there are parts of the area they call “North Beach” that are definitely down-market if not actually seedy. But I discovered a two block street east of Collins from 73rd - 75th St called Ocean Terrace where it’s what Ocean Drive would be like without the craziness. 

Surfside, on the other hand, becomes more and more rarefied. The Fendi Chateau - designed by Arquitectonica [but clearly borrowing an idea from Gang Studio’s Aqua tower in Chicago] - is a compelling presence even in  its unfinished state. 

Down on the southernmost edge of the island, I saw some other new architecture that impressed me. I’m guessing most locals aren’t with me, but I think Arquitectonica’s Ocean Place is great - I guess because it incorporates color so unabashedly. But I also like the warmth of the stone entry sequence against the tropical palette. 

Also recently completed, Glass Condominium - a very ambitious composition by Miami architect Rene Gonzales 

Nicely detailed

Also eye-catching, a mixed use complex by TEN Architecture at Collins/ 1st St. 

I spent part of the last day I was there in the Design District and Wynwood; didn’t take any pictures - it kept raining on and off - but I was really impressed with what’s happened in both areas since I was last there. 

At the airport, I went through another Michelle Oka Doner installation, 

which just reinforced my notion that there is ALWAYS something to see in Miami. Even when the sun doesn’t shine. 

[visualculturist]

A near miss for the wrecker’s ball

Sigh of relief department: In a sign of what I guess is a newly vigorous real estate market, there’s been a spate of demolitions on the north side recently, most with the promise [?] of hulking apartment blocks: the former Powell’s site on Lincoln, the former Bucca di Beppo site on Clark, and the much lamented Punkin Donuts site at Belmont/Clark. When I first heard about the project, I dreaded the idea that yet another great terra cotta facade - on the space now occupied by The Alley - would disappear. So I was able to exhale when I discovered that the new building would only stretch as far north as The Alley’s south wall.

I had never realized that the building was originally a movie theater - The Claremont. The website Cinema Treasures reports it was built in “the 1910s.” If I were a responsible researcher, I would  verify this, but I’m pretty sure the Northwestern company manufactured the terra cotta. Like most of their jobs, it’s beautifully executed. And it’s survived amazingly well, given that I’m guessing the building didn’t have the kind of stewardship the Wrigley or Carson Pirie Scott buildings have had. 

Rich details abound:

And the griffins are true works of art 

This, again, is another in a series of unheralded - and mostly unplanned -- preservation victories. What i like to think of as preservation through indifference.

[visualculturist]

Look up. More significantly, just look.

In the category of places you look at repeatedly but never really see: Dinkel's Bakery.

OK, maybe it's a "category" more specific to visualculturist personally, but he passes this building several times a week [all right, I also go into the store on occasion, usually when I want to reward myself for something. Dinkel's makes the best raspberry bismarcks I've ever had] but recently realized he never actually looks at it.

It is such a great facade - nice, intact terra cotta [love the rondels and the fluted panels], plus the rich marble base and brushed stainless trim - that I am sure would be landmarked if it were in Miami Beach or Hollywood.  Not so here in the Smelly Onion.

Dinkel's building has survived without help from legislation, primarily because it's remained a family business for 90 + years. Its promotional materials say it's been in operation since 1922. I think this was the original and only location, although I'm thinking this facade dates from closer to 1930.

[The similarly intact and handsome terra cotta facade on the Salvation Army store on Broadway near Montrose has also survived, even though - unlike Dinkel's, it's had many tenants in the last 90 years or so.

Other buildings contemporaneous to Dinkel's along Lincoln Avenue have fared variously. Several have been destroyed; others exist in some state of originality. And so, just as you've got to appreciate small victories in preservation, you have to recognize the unexpected surprises, like 3139 N Lincoln.

At street level, it's been more or less decimated, with most of it obscured by the typically gruesome dryvit facing you find way too much of on city storefronts.

but just looking at the carved limestone, bronze panels and medallions that decorate the unaltered second floor facade, you can imagine there had been a great ground level retail facade.

And unless the fortunes of the Lincoln/Belmont/Ashland neighborhood improve drastically as an upscale retail destination, it's unlikely there will be much motivation  for the building's owner to restore it any time soon. Still, there's an upside here. In a more aggressive real estate market, a two-story building would be a likely candidate for scraping and replacement with three or four stories of apartments.

Luckily, this one hasn't fallen victim. So even though the street level retail spaces have been changed beyond recognition, the second floor office spaces have survived pretty much intact: a rare example of a reasonably un-changed office interior of the 1920s. The cynic in me is thinking that it's survived in this condition because of benign neglect more than anything else. [Certainly more than some concerted preservation effort.]

I haven't done my research, but the camel motif in the decoration leads me to believe this building had some relation to the Hump Hair Pin company, whose headquarters building on Milwaukee near Diversey is now the Hairpin Arts Center - the terrazzo detail on the ground floor entry is in pretty good shape.

Clearly this was built as a fairly modest operation, but it's of a time when even a modest operation had stylish details. Who wouldn't like the marble surround at the elevator or the vertically striped glass tile wall treatment:

and marble stair treads

And when you get to the top of the stairs, the richness of the details continue with the central lobby area: a beautiful terrazzo floor complements the fluted, curved paneling -both are in excellent condition. In addition to the more obvious insertion of the glass partition to create an office space off the elevator lobby, the most glaring "modernizing" elements here are the dropped ceilings [I shot these pics four years ago, and I haven't been back, but I am guessing the blue tape on the floor moldings was temporary.]

The  simpler, but still great terrazzo floor in the hallway, with glass tile walls. 

This little gem can't be the only example of its kind. I'm determined to find more.

[visualculturist]

Wright As Usual

Another fine sale of Important Design at Wright Gallery.

If I ever get tired of going to the Wright previews, I guess I shouldn't be alive. The tactile nature of attending it really works to satiate my admittedly obsessive need to touch beautiful things, thereby providing me with a verisimilitude of ownership - brief though it may be.

The people at Wright are insanely skilled at mounting these showings. They scored big with the initial impression in the lobby, with the Robsjohn-Gibbings Mesa table [from an "important private collection" in Atlanta] and a cabinet designed by an Austrian who is UTM [Unkown To Me] named Herta-Marie Wietzemann.

Whether or not this merchandising ploy was responsible, the table was really the star of the auction. Estimated at $30-50,000, it actually sold for $106,250.

Items designed by Pierre Jeanneret for the High Court at Chandigarh - a staple of the past dozen or so sales at Wright - continue to appear as part of a seemingly endless stream. How much more can there be out there? Wright's people continue to find it and it continues to fetch high prices.

I've often had issues with Wright's pre-sale estimates - so often I think the house low-balls the estimates to goose interest in the items. But they've sold so much of this material in the past few years, they've more or less made the market, so their estimates have to account for the reality - the reality that they have created.

Also a trope at most of Wright's auctions is the obiquity of Italian made objects, which I guess it's just the nature of post WW2 design. Not that I'm complaining.

Several nice pieces designed by Osvaldo Borsani

I'm kind of surprised that Borsani's cool shelving system didn't get any bids [estimated 9-12K]- although the Franco Albini chair next to it sold for  $8125, above its 7K high estimate

I  particularly liked this sleek coffee table by Ico and Luisa Parisi

Note the Sottsass bookcase in the background. Estimated between 10-15K, it went unsold. By my count, more than 60 of the 316 lots failed to find bidders - it seemed like a high percentage to me. The Parisi table sold for $18,750 - well above its high estimate of 15K.

I have a particular fixation with Fornasetti, so I enjoyed seeing this table, although the fish-themed top is unusual and not in a really good way

Still, it sold for 5K - its high estimate.

Wright showed the table in a grouping with some interesting seating by Joseph-Andre Motte [another UTM designer], a small Retiveld chair and some storage pieces designed by Gio Ponti.

Several dozen lots in the sale were Ponti items. I particularly liked this pair of chairs.

Most sold quite well, but this Distex lounge didn't get any bids - maybe because, while it's suitable for "lounging," it's really hard to get out of it.

Among the lots were actually some non-Italian items: Paul Evans works remain popular with collectors

I was intrigued by a group of Tommi Parzinger pieces that came from a house in Chappaqua NY.  I am guessing the house for which they were designed was a cool MCM number that was probably torn down when the original owners went to their greater reward - and their heirs auctioned off the contents.  [In the pic below, my favorite thing is actually the Ruth Duckworth piece on the buffet. It sold for $9375, well above its 7K high estimate.]

I'm sure there was a reason he chose kelly green for the laquered portions, but I'm not sure what it was. Maybe unsurprisingly, the piece that brought the highest bid was the [non-green] cabinet below, which went for $8890, well above its 7K estimate.

Another  UTM designer, Pierre Guariche, designed this chair, which was only produced for a few years before being replaced by a completely upholstered model. I think this one is far superior.

Also enjoyed this "Silver Streak" c. 1942 iron, which sold for $2250 [displayed here next to an Hermes [c. 1930], which went unsold.]

When I posted my pics from the sale on the Mid Century Modern Facebook page, the pic that got the most "Likes" was of this Finn Juhl sofa, which sold for 22K [more than double its 9K high estimate

The item that I actually most coveted was a daybed by another UTM design source - Atelier de Recherche Plastique

Estimated at 10-15K, it didn't find any bidders.

But here's the thing: in July or August, Wright holds what it calls its "Mass Modern" sale, where it auctions more mundane items - well, not exactly ordinary, but pieces that [unlike what it sells in sales like this one] aren't unique or from very limited productions. The house will also include in that sale certain items that didn't sell at its regular sales. So what I'm hoping for is the inclusion of this piece in the Mass Modern sale coupled with either a lotto win or a bequest from a distant, forgotten relation. At which point I will post a pic of the daybed beside the bay window in my dining room

A guy can hope.

[visualculturist]

Going places/ showing places

Anyone who  looks at my Facebook timeline will quickly realize that I have succumbed to the selfie phenomenon in a big, and unapologetic way. When I go someplace,  in very 21st century fashion, I want to post my whereabouts on Facebook and other social media. But - maybe as proof that I was actually there - I want a selfie of me in the location.

The thing is, I try to make mine about the location, but my vanity makes them end up being about me, because I usually won't post what I consider unflattering.

I say "usually" because I didn't stay in the vain zone during my most recent trip to SoCal, beginning with a pic of me and my cousin Gene in the Ocean Beach Park parking lot as we were about to go boogie-boarding

Why didn't it occur to me that I looked like a member of the Kaiser's luftwaffe in that cap? Or that I look pasty and kind of bloated and am squinting into the camera? Irrespective of how either of us look in the photo, the location - what's in the background - doesn't offer any distraction - and, by extension, some redeeming value to the photo. But I posted it anyway because I could indicate I was at Ocean Beach.

After a couple of days in SD, my friend Bob came down to bring me to the Coachella Valley for a brief visit. The ride through the mountains is pretty spectacular; naturally there's a turnoff from the road called Vista Point, or some such thing, and of course I took the selfie:

Again, not the most flattering pic of me. And while it's obvious there's something scenic behind us, it's not clear it's the Coachella Valley.

In PS I stayed at the Movie Colony Hotel, a cool place near the "Design District" where I was able to take a bike ride in the morning through the Vista Las Palmas area to look at the Alexander & Co midcentury modernist marvels. I decided to take a whole series of selfies and choose one to post on Fb. So I took these

The mountains in the background are so scenic, they look almost like a stage set.

What I have learned over the past several years of taking selfies is that my right side is better than my left, so I try to take them where I end up in the left side of the picture. The problem with this approach is that the position of the sun sometimes makes it difficult to take a decent picture of the building and the self-photographer together.

This is the one I posted on Fb

because of the Avanti in the driveway. And it's interesting how many people made weird comments about me being shirtless in the picture. I mean it was 90+ degrees out. I was riding a bike through a desert community. Why is it so weird? Because I'm an old man? Very strange.

A Fb friend suggested this was the house where The Incredibles lived, but this is the actual shot from the movie:

I actually saw one of these on my ride, but it was facing north and I couldn't have gotten a decent shot shooting into the sun.

The selfie theme continued for me in Chicago this week, when I attended a number of the Open House Chicago locations, where the main attraction at each was actually the outdoor space, which offered excellent photo-ops, selfie and otherwise.

First up, the Skyline Club, on the top floor of the Old Republic building -- with which I was completely unfamiliar, although it's been in operation since 1927. The interior itself is a recycled English pub. I'd call it quaint.

But there's a great outdoor terrace.

Again, the lighting conditions weren't optimal for a selfie, but it was great to be so close to the gilded terra cotta wonderfulness of the Carbide & Carbon building.

Next, the Cliff Dwellers in its "new" location [it moved from its longtime location atop Orchestra Hall in 1996, but people still call it the "new" location]:

I wanted a picture that showed a detail of the ornament on top of the Peoples Gas building

and which also showed the old Prudential bldg, but the one I posted on Fb showed more of Millennium Park, plus the Maggie Daley park under construction

And then finally, the Airstream trailer that architect Edward Noonan installed atop a converted Ravenswood loft building

It's an interesting view if you're a Chicagoan, but the skyline looks mostly unimpressive from six miles away.

In the pantheon of travel photos, many locations have developed one or sometimes multiple shots which prove you were there - in Paris, you have to be photographed under the Arc de Triomphe or in front of the Eiffel Tower in view; in DC at the Washington Monument; in New York at Times Square or the Flatiron Building.

In Chicago, that "proof" shot has morphed from what would have been a picture with the Art Institute lions or the Picasso sculpture in the Daley Center plaza or the old Water Tower to the now mandatory photo with the Anish Kapoor Cloud Gate/ "the Bean" sculpture in Millennium Park. I would not be the first of last to comment on the piece's monumentally photogenic quality

My friends Michael and Linda, who moved from Chicago in 1996, are tourists when they come back; while he'd been there once, she'd never been to Millennium Park. So a series of pictures at the Bean were more or less mandatory.

And what I really like is this: in the current selfie environment, a picture at the Bean takes on a real meta quality, as the already fisheye quality of the selfie image reflects the fun-house convexity of the sculpture itself.

[visualculturist]

Fair Deal

[This is an expanded version of a presentation I gave at PechaKucha Night on 9/9/14. You can see/hear the original here  if you are so motivated.]

Don't roll your eyes. Even if you consider yourself an erudite consumer of visual culture, you would be surprised - maybe even amazed - by a visit to the Minnesota State Fair.

At its root, a state fair is essentially a trade show that spotlights all the items a state produces. Traditionally, this has meant livestock and agriculture, and those are abundant at the "Great Minnesota Meet-Up"

cows

Swine - Pud, the largest boar this year, at 800 lbs.

Sheep

and chickens - who knew there were so many varieties of chickens? I have to wonder whether each breed tastes different.

And the ever popular Miracle of Life Center, where I'm guessing a lot of non-farm kids learn the basics of where babies come from

As at most state fairs, you will find a carnival midway, an open air market where vendors shill products and politics

I don't think I'm alone in concluding that if news media - particularly broadcast - covers the state fair at all, the coverage is somewhat fixated on its most freakish aspects, particularly the array of foods you can eat that are battered, fried and served on a stick. Didn't Oprah and Gail do a road trip to eat state fair fried foods?

I will own up to having eaten hot dish on a stick, and found it to be quite delicious.

Full disclosure: I've never been to another state's State Fair, so I may be taking a leap here to say that, despite these generic state fair components, the Minnesota version seems to have features that really put it into a special category.

For starters, even with attractions that you might find elsewhere, there's a particular flavor. While butter carvings are another favorite State Fair media target subject, there's nothing quite like observing Linda Christensen in her 43rd year of live carving the heads of Princess Kay and Her Milky Way in an octagonal refrigerated case in the Dairy building.

I'm more certain, though, that the physical campus of the Minnesota State Fair grounds, located close to the Minneapolis / St Paul border, is singular. The WPA era buildings give it a kind of permanence that are a far cry from the canvas circus tents I guess I assumed would house the exhibits. They remind me of pavilions from the Century of Progress exposition or the 1939 NY World's Fair.

The building where they show the "Creative Activities" exhibits is less imposing on the exterior, so I didn't photograph it. It's what's inside that counts here, anyway: the competition entries in quilting, weaving, needlework, knitting and crocheting, plus model-making, woodworking, apparel and metalwork,

in addition to all the cookies, pies, cakes, breads and other baked items

and also the pickles and preserves

With daily demonstrations from members of the state's craft guilds:

Because everything that is submitted in these activity categories [not just the ribbon and rosette winners] is displayed at the fair, they have to show a lot of stuff and it's kind of hard to look at the pieces with any real efficiency. They are crammed into the cases and if there's any kind of order, I couldn't figure it out. While it's a kind of visual cacophony, many of the individual works are outstanding and I just wish I had more time to look at it all.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, then, that when I visited the exhibits at the Fine Arts building, I found  the work to be equally impressive.

The Fine Arts exhibit, unlike the Creative Activities, is a juried show. I think only about 35% of what is submitted is exhibited, and while there are a comparably expansive number of categories and divisions in which one can earn a prize, the awards are announced on discreet cards next to the work rather than with big satin-y rosettes.

Although there's a definite range of approaches, a majority of the work is representational and figurative. You won't find many conceptualist head-scratchers on display. Even so, just about all of it is extremely accomplished. 

Not surprisingly, portraits make up probably the largest group.

Todd R Bridigum, of Bloomington, won 1st prize in Class 4: Drawing/ Pastel for "Buster in Green"

I liked Linda Lee Nelson's The Conversation. There's really a whole narrative here: she could be a character out of O'Hara or Updike. Plus, there's a lot going on technically: the composition is excellent and she's displayed a wonderful use of perspective and light.

I am unsure whether Judy Lieber's "We Lost the Farm" - which took 3rd prize in Class 4 - Drawing/ Pastel - is to be taken literally. Did they really lose their farm? Or just blow it all at the roulette wheel?

 also impressed with the 2nd place winner in the Drawing/ Pastel class, Daniel Voulenc's "Home Coming"

and Jeanne M. Long's "Watching or Watched?" which took an honorable mention in Class 3 Watercolor

Another inescapably popular subject matter area here - and equally well executed - is the landscape. Maybe it's too obvious, but for a state fair competition, art that depicts the land itself couldn't be more appropriate

[even if one of my favorites, Florence F Hill's oil on board "Brittany" - appears, at least from its title, to have been inspired by a landscape of France rather than Minnesota. Although it really looks to me like the stylized decoration on a Newcomb Pottery vase

The landscape lends itself to a rich store of approaches and media. Greg DeGrace's "Midwest Composition 3: the Mississippi Tributary" - essentially an illuminated tophographic map - won first place in the Class 1 - Acrylic/ Oil category

I can't escape the idea that many landscape painters today are influenced by Google Earth and other satellite mapping programs. Tom Maakestad's pastel "Above the Farm" won the Minnesota Museum of American Art Purchase Award [and a red dot on the sticker! - some of the work in this show is available for purchase]

Scott Lloyd Anderson's "Green Space" won fourth place in the Class 1 Oil/ Acrylic/ Mixed Media category; it's so beautifully lit and idyllic you really have to look closely to realize it's a picture of a strip mall

Equally interesting, and probably a bit edgier, are the three-dimensional works - Karen Sukut's great paper origami "Dragon Cycle"

Frederic Vilna's "Skateglass" - yes, it's skateboard made of glass - won Honorable Mention in Class 2 Sculpture.

Danny Saathoff's "Paper Airplanes Can Dream" took first place in the Sculpture category, plus the Anoka Ramsey Community College Award and the William and Jennifer Oliver Award

I thought Keith Raivo's "Arachne's Repose" was really clever and finely executed.

And then, of course, the quilts. I have always been a sucker for quilts - probably the major reason I so enjoy the Creative Activities exhibits. So it's interesting to see so many of them in the Fine Arts area.

Arden Harrison-Bushnell's "Joyful Garden" won the 3rd place award in Class 6- Textiles. 

Wanda Shelton's "Scrappy Triangles" took Honorable Mention and also the Minnesota Quilters, Inc. Award in the Textiles category.

and I also really liked Barbara Otto's "Flying Free - Minnesota Lakes Memories"

But the question I couldn't help asking was why these pieces are in the Fine Arts exhibit, but so many other wonderful quilted pieces were in the Creative Activities building. The answer, as it turns out, doesn't involve any dissection of the interrelationship between "art" and "craft." [And the similar discussion about "art" and "design."] Here, it's entirely about where the creators choose to enter their work - and, by extension about how they perceive themselves - as "artists" or "craftspeople."

But take a look at this pair of works:

This US flag composed of painted bottle-corks, which won a second prize in its category [regrettably, I don't know the name of the maker]

and "Midsummer Eve," a glass/stone/ceramic tile panel by MIchael Sweere

Both of these are essentially mosaics - and each is really aping another form: the flag is a copy of a textile, and the scenic panel is channeling a stained glass window. But is one inherently less craftsmanlike - or more artistic - than the other?

It's this issue that brings me to what is probably my favorite attraction at the fair: the display of Crop Art in the Hort-Ag building,

Not to be confused with large-scale environmental installations sometimes called crop circles, works of crop art are pictures made from seeds, legumes, grain and other plant materials and it's been a competitive category at the Fair since the mid-sixties.

The idea of crop art wasn't novel when the Minnesota fair introduced it. But in 1969, Lillian Colton, a hairdresser from Owatonna, won First Prize with her first entry - a portrait of Richard Nixon - and re-made the genre.

Although she died in 2007 [and actually had retired from Fair competition in 1984], she remains the undisputed queen of the form; her family loans a few of her pictures to display next to the competition entries.

Although the Minneapolis Institute of Art gave her a retrospective - as a folk artist - she and her acolytes insisted that they were craftspeople, not artists.

You can find out more about Lillian Colton here.

I love the aggressively unpretentious display, "salon style" on pegboards

And there's a great range of treatments, some of which just amaze you in their innovative use of organic materials and others that are all about detailed execution and still others that are amusingly cheeky. And whether you want to call it art or folk art or craft or just kitsch, it is an enduringly popular exhibit at the Fair.

A beautifully rendered promotional piece for a Minnesota not-for-profit won a first premium ribbon for JoAnne Lorenz in the Novice category

A fangirl's homage to America's Sweetheart won Linda Paulsen a second premium

Kimberly Cope figured that puns could be fun with a current pop culture reference, and netted a first premium in the Dyed or Painted category

Carolyn Senko got a pink ribbon for Happy Pi Day in the Special Occasion category

I love it that Perry McGowan - who won a first premium in the special occasion - amateur division - made a piece of crop arts in which the subject matter is  - crops.

The grand premium prize this year went to Elizabeth Schreiber for her portrait of Nicola Tesla

and I had to include a pic of the legend which must accompany each of the entries, verifying that all of the materials used were cultivated in Minnesota, because it's emblematic of what makes the Minnesota State Fair - and maybe every state fair - so worthwhile: It's the quintessential celebration of the locally-sourced and home-grown, the hand-crafted and bench-made.

I saw this poster in the Dairy building, and while it's obviously about milk, it could apply to just about everything exhibited in competition at the Minnesota State Fair. Which has got to make you feel good about Minnesota.

[visualculturist]

Old and new in Belmont Cragin

What I discovered on a brief ride out Belmont Avenue

The corner of Belmont and Central remains intact - each of the buildings at the intersection have been there since at least 1930. I've always had a particular fixation with the single-story retail block at the southeast corner.

I haven't done the work to research the building, but I don't know what I'd find, because this really isn't a "building;" just the kind of single-story retail space that's just a series of units on slabs - I don't even know if they have basements. In any event, the terra cotta facade is the building.

You've got to figure that the ornament came either from the American or Northwestern companies, and if I were a serious researcher instead of the dilettante that I know I am, I would get access to the info. In the meantime, I just want to appreciate the enduring beauty of the design.

Afternoon shadows make photographing the cool central element in the afternoon a little problematic:

The neighborhood around the intersection is also reasonably intact, with nice bungalows

and 2-flats

One block east of the polychromed building along Belmont is another facade that has to be one of the weirdest in the city: the Bim Bom Lounge, which one Yelp commenter described as "Polish heavy metal heaven."

I'm wondering if it's supposed to be an homage to the Pritzker bandshell. My friend Carey Wintergreen said he thought it was an homage to the Flintstone residence.

The real surprise, though [and I guess I'm burying the lede here] is the new Intrinsic School, a brand new charter on Belmont in K-town.

[Wonder if I'm risking abuse of the panoramic feature on the camera]

Wheeler Kearns designed the building, which was just completed - I had seen it under construction a couple of months ago. Clearly it wasn't a commercial building - It didn't have any kind of sign identifying what it was. I thought it was a police station. But now that it's done, I think it's pretty great - so high tech and streamlined. Really like the cladding materials, the geometry of the window wall and the simple, tailored landscape/ hardscape.

If you look at the Google street view from last September, you realize they hadn't even broken ground for this then. Must have been a ridiculously short construction schedule.

[visualculturist]

Urbs in Horto Inversion

I can't be the first person to notice that there is no monument to Ulysses S. Grant in Grant Park. Within the last several years, I discovered that the equestrian statue at Michigan and 9th Street which I had assumed was of Grant is actually a likeness of the Civil War general and later senator from Illinois, John Logan.

- also the guy after whom they named Logan Square. It's a truly heroic work credited to the great American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. 

The famous statue of Grant is actually in Lincoln Park - just southeast of the Zoo. Also an equestrian work, it's perched atop a grandiose Romanesque stone pavilion

The statue itself, installed in 1881 and designed by the Italian-American sculptor Louis  Rebisso,is quite impressive

but for sheer drama and, well, monumentalism, the Logan statue in Grant Park has got it going on.

In a similar inversion, there is a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Grant Park: the "seated Lincoln"

- yet another Saint Gaudens masterpiece, situated in a Stanford White-designed excedra

It's a pretty grand urban gesture, but it really doesn't compare with the spectacular-ness of the Saint-Gaudens "standing Lincoln" in the appropriately-named Lincoln Park. Faithful readers of this blog may remember my perseveration on that monument here.

So, given the prominence of General/ Senator Logan in Grant Park, I shouldn't have been surprised when I took a closer look at the park in the center of Logan Square and realized that the monument there has nothing to do with him

[thanks for the image, Wikipedia!]

It's actually a monument commemorating the centenary celebration of Illinois' admission to the union. The monument is composed of an eagle perched atop a 70 foot high fluted Doric column. Henry Bacon, the architect for the Lincoln Memorial in DC, designed the column but the real artistry of the site comes from the bas-relief figures around its base

designed by Evelyn Beatrice Longman, depicting figures who are supposed to convey the history of the area, although it's unclear why some of them look to me like the kind of classical figures you'd see on Wedgwood vases.

In any case, they are almost completely unrelated to John Logan.

How, then, to explain this apparent slippage of nomenclature and attribution?

 My friend Todd Davis suggests it's mostly about timing: the Grant monument was installed in 1891, and Grant Park, which was called Lake Park until 1901, didn't really take its full shape until well into the 20th century, as a part of the Burnham Plan.

[visualculturist]

NEOConning

For an event which  for some time been one of my most eagerly anticipated annual milestones, NEOCon fell kind of flat for me this year. Certainly I'm not sorry I went, but I was just kind of underwhelmed.

While there's no getting around the fact that NEOCon is simply a trade show - and trade shows can be fun - even when the stuff being marketed was less than spectacular, at NEOCon you could depend on an abundance of salesmanship and merchandising creativity in displaying the goods. And occasionally the products reflected real innovation and even an edge.

This year, for me, nothing really stood out. At Knoll, for example - where you could always depend on the introduction of something cool, or a new twist on their old favorites, I just didn't see it. The tableau at the entrance underscored this:

What does it say, really, that the Rem Koolhaas-designed "Counter" - introduced at NEOCon 2013 - is still the most interesting item in the Knoll space?

Or similarly that the elegant  chair by a "re-discovered" Charles Pollack that Bernhardt released, also last year at NEOCon

are the most appealing items on display there, too.

And while I've made this observation before, I've never quite understood the economics of the contract furnishings industry. It's just always amazed me that a trade show for an industry that doesn't generate  anything like the kind of dollars that hardware or restaurants do can attract the same crowds as the Hardware Show or the Restaurant Show.

But they do.

What really distinguishes NEOCon from most other trade shows is the venue. McCormick Place - where most trade shows in Chicago take place - is, architecturally, a remarkable complex in many respects.  But it's a convention center, much like convention centers all over the country.

When you live in Chicago you lose sight of how singular the Merchandise Mart is. There are other design centers in other places, but the vastness of the Merchandise Mart - as well as its colorful legacy and its architectural distinction - put it in its own category.  

So one of the highlights of the show was the Herman Miller Company's display of Eames shell chairs, making great use of the Mart's central lobby.

But on to the show.

Again, what distinguishes NEOCon from most other trade shows is that much of it takes place not on some convention center floor but in the show rooms the manufacturers maintain at the Mart [I'm guessing Market Week in High Point is probably similar]. So one of the best things about NEOCon is how the show room spaces transform themselves for the show. 

 If any vendor has consistently provided a distinctive presentation at NEOCon, it would be Maharam. Not that it's changed much in the last few iterations: The showroom space displays lengths of their carefully curated textile offerings  draped over rods suspended from the ceiling, with samples of the most recent Maharam Digital Projects on the side walls. The intention is always to present the merchandise as if it were fine art - and the quality of the textiles the house manufactures and certainly the artistic merit of the MDP works justify the treatment.

This year, they wanted to spotlight a new line of rugs, so they made a conscious decision to go completely minimal with the wall treatment. Instead of showing panels from as many as a dozen different of the MDP works, they've only used one this year - it's called Grid, by the Dutch design team Scholten & Baijings.

I guess part of the idea is to realize how it complements the accompanying textile

but I really missed the experience of seeing the MDP pieces at full size. They're very cool to look at on the firm's website, it's great to stand next to them.

While my impressions of Maharam's installation mirror my experience as a whole, there were plenty of positives.

It's harder to make an artistic impression when the product you're hawking doesn't lend itself to presentation like an art object. But the Interface flooring company managed to do something clever to promote their "Human Nature" brand of carpet tiles.

To reinforce the connection with the natural materials in the product, they've created installations that are huge versions of a diorama you might see at a summer craft fair

Vicki de Vuano, one of Interface's creatives, told me the "biophilic" approach to the installation suggests how nature inspires us - and its tactile nature is palpable. "It's all made of materials that beg to be touched," she said.

One of the things I like best about NEOCon is a certain reinforcement that furniture manufacturing continues to thrive in the midwest. Among the items Nucraft manufactures in Grand Rapids are the designs of Joey Ruiter

His "Kai" table is a really sleek object  -  the  walnut veneer top [here in a "Zinc" color]  really gives the impression of floating on its brushed stainless legs.

But in case the Michigan story isn't strong enough, the super-slick version of the table [below], finished in super glossy automobile paint - is a literal and conceptual allusion to the state's manufacturing legacy- here dazzlingly white, but you probably could do any color.

Similarly glamorous was Prismatique's enormous round conference table of back painted glass.

Molo

As in many previous years, I discovered that there are always personality stories.

I guess I must always have known that there was an actual person named Heller who developed all the Heller items we've seen at certain high design retailers for decades. The company has a tiny little space in the Mart that is only open during NEOCon.

But of course there is. He's a guy named Alan Heller.

What had never occurred to me, though, was the connection to Massimo Vignelli, who died earlier this year.

Heller told me he was selling restaurant equipment in the early 1970s and developed a taste for Italian design. Vignelli's stackable tablewares were first manufactured in Italy in 1964, but the original manufacturer quickly discontinued it. Heller tracked down the original molds and developed a long relationship with Vignelli.

What's interesting is the obvious connection between Heller

and Knoll

and the store which probably sold more of the Hellerware than anyone -

[visualculturist]

Ephemerality

I am so not a poet, but I am sure that a popular topic for poetry must be the fleeting nature of spring flowers. Given that, I am guessing someone has to have written a poem about the magnolia tree.  It probably occupies some important place within the great mystery of our eco-system, but  its peak is so brief and so fragile that you've really got to wonder why they have survived botanical evolution. 

These two were planted near my house about 6-8 years ago, and they've pretty much become my barometer for the onset of what passes for spring around these Great Lakes.

Here's how they looked on 5/3:

And on 5/8, in full flower

5/9, after a major rainstorm:

And on 5/14, after rainstorms on 5/12 and 5/13. 

[Also notice the flowering dogwood right behind, similarly denuded by the elements]. 

So if I were a poet, I would have some trenchant, insightful method of expressing the ephemeral character of the seasonal transition, and maybe suggest what it all means.

Maybe one of these days.  

[visualculturist]

There goes the neighborhood redux

I hadn't been down George Street east of its intersection with Lincoln and Lakewood in a couple of years, but I noticed a construction site just off the corner recently and realized it was the residential conversion of the last remaining commercial buildings on the street, so I had to check it out.

I ended up finding more than I had expected.  

Thanks to the amazingness of Google Maps Street View, here's a pic of what the building previously looked like [c. 2011]

The shot from 2011 shows the building in its most recent incarnation, as some kind of a nightclub. But until the 1990s this block of George was largely industrial - if I'm not mistaken, this building housed a meatpacking operation. In fact, Lakewood Avenue was an industrial corridor until well into the 1980s. I actually wrote a feature for the Reader about Lakewood's transformation many [many] years ago, and - again due to the amazingness of the Internet, and the Reader's comprehensive free archive - you can read it here. 

If you don't feel like plowing through it, the gist is that there used to be a spur freight rail line that ran up Lakewood, veered east at Belmont and ultimately terminated at Wrigley Field. The train line remained active until maybe 10 years ago, when the Peerless Candy Company, which was the last business to use it, went out of business. The disuse of the rail line mirrored the end of industrial uses for the warehouse/ industrial properties that lined Lakewood. Over the years, some of them were converted; others were demolished, but by now, Lakewood Ave is solidly residential throughout the Lincoln Park and Lakeview neighborhoods. 

When I wrote the piece for the Reader in 1987, we were still questioning the propriety of residential uses pushing out commercial ones. Now, that ship has definitely sailed; the last commercial enterprises along the Lakewood spur - on Henderson and School - closed within the last 2-3 years.

So what's replaced them? 

On George Street, some of the commercial buildings have been remodeled as above. But mostly they've been eliminated and replaced by the generic red brick slabs with various neo-traditional facade treatments you see everywhere. Here, the developers apparently thought they would be doing something innovative by applying these Prairie-inspired facades

which I guess they thought would give them some kind of marketing distinction when compared to what was more commonly offered as spec, like this:

but I can't imagine the Prairie variety are any different than the thousands of single family spec houses built all over the city in the past 3 decades. 

Not everything on the block follows the general pattern, though. 

You have to give it to the developers of this one for trying to do something different, although it's hard not to see how they just tried to do too much. Some of the individual parts work pretty well - I really like the cantilevered "butcher block" element and also the enameled panels - but overall it's a mess. 

There's a big surprise on the block, though: a great example of new construction. 

It's a really handsome single family residence that looks like a conversion/ expansion of what was originally a manufacturing facility, but is actually about 95% new construction. While the parcel on which it sits is three lots wide, when you look at it in satellite view [it's the large building east of the alley on the south side of the street, plus the smaller building to the east]

you realize that because of the angled nature of the alley, the lots where the house sits are actually quite shallow - probably only 50 feet deep. 

I've discovered that the owner is a real estate developer, but I haven't found any information about the designer; whoever he/she may be, he/she is very talented.  

I think its scale is outstanding - mostly a product of the way it's massed - with a lot of density on the western 2/3 of the property, and open space facing the street - at grade

and also on the second floor, kind of an urban rarity - plus a roof deck, that's mostly invisible from the street.

I'm also impressed with the contrast between the orangey brick base and the grooved metal panel extensions; along with the massing, the totality   makes it seem organic - as if it somehow evolved there naturally.

While it looks as if it's been there forever, it's almost completely new construction, save for a round element at the back of the lot that must have been a smokestack 

but now appears to be some circulation element leading from the garage to the house - on three levels 

None of this should suggest that this block is any way emblematic of gentrification trends in Chicago - or even in the Lakewood corridor. But I do like the mix of elements here: some really bad spec, respectful recycling of existing stock, a vain attempt at something "different" and a truly unique concept that's a great addition to the streetscape. 

[visualculturist]

Drive-by

An entirely mundane thought that crosses my mind dozens if not hundreds of times a day is: how did we exist before the Internet? Here, it's turned what would have simply been a casual observation about a small decorative gem on the city's commercial streetscape into  a surprising story about modern life.

I have a thing for glazed brick - particularly the cobalt and the vermillion, and while I have no idea how long this building on Elston Ave has had this facade treatment,  it's obviously something  added well after the building was built [probably the 40s or 50s]. But it's pretty great

The way it's detailed with glass block insets is really terrific.

I've wondered what went on inside the building and discovered the name on the door belonged to a photographer named Paul Sherman. Of course I had to Google him when I got home; when I did, I discovered that he'd been busted last year for operating a pot-growing enterprise on these very premises.

When I discover something like this, another completely mundane thought emerges: what is behind so many opaque facades in the city?

[visualculturist]

Open House

Open House Chicago is a great idea, although it's a little bit of a tease, because it seems to me that most of the venues are open to the public on any given weekday [if not necessarily weekends]. That said, the one place I really wanted to visit was the Elks memorial building at Diversey and Lakeview, because it's so rarely open to the public; although I know I've been inside before, I  had forgotten how what a spectacular space it is.

The rotunda itself is really majestic. It's not just the space, which is impressive enough, but the materials and decorative work are really over the top. The brochure that the Elks organization prepared identifies Eugene Savage as the painter of the murals on the upper and lower parts of the rotunda, although the lower artwork  looks a lot more modern and WPA-like and seems like they were done by somebody else. [Yeah, it's hard to tell from the enlargement detail below.]

As dazzling as the rotunda is, I must have forgotten about the adjacent space that they call the Grand Reception Hall - or maybe I'd never been in there. It is not just "grand," it's positively palatial.

If they had to do a photo shoot in Chicago at a location that would stand in for Versailles, this would be it.

Here's my own personal takeaway from visiting the Elks: the panorama feature on iOS 7. It took me a while, but I finally figured out how to use it.

It was almost the end of the day when I left the Elks and had just a little time left to go to the Mother Cabrini shrine, which is now a component of the execrable 2520 Lakeview condo. I had been curious to know how the new building would incorporate the shrine, which I learned during my visit only dates from 1955.

The space - like many churches, a cruciform plan that essentially feels circular, like the Elks rotunda - is Romanesque, and very nice.

But again, it's the decorative elements that provide the wow factor.

Unfortunately, the docents who were staffing the shrine that day were extremely knowledgeable about the life and works of Mother Francesca Cabrini, they didn't know much about the design features.

There's a large black marble altar in the center of the space, and at the corners of the nave are four "side altars," each dedicated to a specific religious figure: The Sacred Heart, St Joseph, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit; each containing statuary depicting its subject. The first three are similar to one another, with limestone and marble facing and realist sculpture. This is the Blessed Virgin Mary altar

But the altar for the Holy Spirit is really a revelation: a striking, impressionistic object depicting the spirit itself, inside a niche faced in a stunningly modernist gold mosaic.

  I couldn't find out who designed the beautiful sculpture, but according to the materials the Shrine provides, the mosaic is the work of the Vatican Mosaic Studio - details of which are hard to retrieve.

Whoever they are - or whoever they were in 1955, when the interior was first completed - had a great eye. Look at the detail: