Soldier Field: Fusing the Past and the Present

The Chicago Loop is a fascinating architectural artifact. It’s unlike the central business district of any other city in the world. Paris’ business district, La Défense, is a collection of skyscrapers on the city’s periphery that’s totally set apart from the mid 20^th century buildings that comprise the city center. Places like Dubai jumped straight from living in small villages to dwelling within what are now the tallest office buildings and residencies in the world. But not Chicago. Chicago is where the skyscraper was born and the loop was its nursery.

One can trace the evolution of the skyscraper, and of the scale of most modern urban architecture, in the Loop. We usually don’t realize that Chicago in the late 19^th century, like most other industrializing cities, rarely had buildings greater than four or five stories. Due to the introduction of steel frame construction, the need for large office spaces, and the spread of the elevator, buildings got bigger throughout the 20^th century. Much bigger. Figures 1 through 4, taken from a photo of Michigan Avenue, demonstrate the massive difference in urban architectural scale that was created in the space of less than 100 years. A small figure on the right gives some human scale to the buildings.

Orders of Scale: Michigan Avenue

So what does any of this have to do with Soldier Field? Much like the Loop itself, the stadium has one foot in the past and one in the present. Originally built in the 1920s then rebuilt in 2003, Solider Field uniquely posses the architectural scale of both the early 20^th century and the early 21^st century. Its massive Greco-Roman colonnade was probably one of the grandest structures in early Chicago, but those columns are insignificant compared to the scale of the new sleek glass-and-steel structure occupying the stadium’s center. Its old, empty concrete bleachers look helplessly upon the exterior of the new stadium.

On one level, it’s as if a giant hand scooped out the old stadium and built a new one in the resulting pit. The new stadium presents some energetic sculptural forms independent of the vestiges of the old stadium around it.  However, on another level I think the styles and scales of the old and new are put in an interesting dialogue.  Whether you like its appearance or not, there’s no doubt that it’s hard to find a better exemplar of the past meeting the present and future within a single space.

Soldier Field: The New Dwarfs the Old

Solider Field: The Old was Monumental in Scale for its Time

Solider Field: Sculptural Forms 1

Soldier Field: the New in Dialogue with the Old 1

Solider Field: Sculptural Forms 2

Soldier Field: the New in Dialogue with the Old 2

Photo Study: John Hancock Center

The John Hancock Center is a powerful symbol of Chicago, in good part thanks to its unique facade. It's exterior beams, which rise up from the plane of its windows as they criss cross its surface, make for a very distinctive figure. Its simple grid of supports is made beautiful by virtue of its simplicity and its (massive) scale.

I've tried use that scale and simplicity in these photos. These images, taken without a frame of reference, force you to see only the patterns within the Center's exterior. In these images I also see Burke's notion of the sublime. Burke describes the powerful feeling we experience when we are faced with something incomprehensibly massive and vast, such as the stars or the ocean. On one level, the Center's height, somber coloring, and massive lines make it appear great and terrible, like some sort of Leviathan. On another level, it seems wondrous and magical. That's the duality of the sublime.

 John Hancock Center Study 1

 John Hancock Center Study 2

 John Hancock Center Study 3

John Hancock Center Study 4

Bus Stops at Night

For an inaugural post I thought it would be appropriate to share the three images which prompted me to start this blog. They're studies of bus stops, all at the same intersection. These photos were taken late at night when the streets were empty and after a storm left the pavement slick and reflective. I love how such quotidian structures can transform themselves into beautiful, even magical spaces, with the help of such simple architectural features, namely a lit display case and  plate glass walls.

Bus Stop Study 1

Bus Stop Study 2

Bus Stop Study 3