The American Scene; Landmarks in Chicago

This is Howard Vincent, doing the arts. Good morning again. Last week, you may remember, we talked about the art of literary biography. Now, the book that we used was not a book about Chicago, but it was a book by a Chicagoan. And I mentioned last time that the main idea of the series is that we are going to examine a few of some of the significant achievements of Chicago in the arts. Now, this is a good topic because we hear so much about the dearth of culture in this city. Chicago is a materialistic city. And yet, you and I know better. We don't, we have to watch ourselves. We don't go into a great whirlwind of showinistic pride. At the same time, there is a great deal to be proud of. And today, we take up a subject in which Chicago is preeminent. That is architecture. That is the achievements of Chicago in her short, one of the last 50, 75 years, or perhaps since the fire, have been preeminent. The creation of the skyscraper, for instance, which owes very largely to

Chicago builders and architects and planners. And this achievement has been brought out recently by the Chicago commission on landmarks, the architectural landmarks, which has decided to put 30 plaques on 30 significant buildings. And this, we think, a very fine thing to do. Now in discussing the arts from week to week, it is our plan to bring in some distinguished person in the field to talk it over, bring his information and his wisdom on the subject to add to my general amateur remarks, my amateur interest. And today, we're very fortunate to have Professor George Danforth, who is head of the Department of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology. Illinois Institute of Technology itself a significant architectural landmark in Chicago, according to the commission. We have Professor George Danforth here to talk to us or

talk with us about these landmarks, which we're going to go over, not all of them, some of them. And Mr. Danforth, what do you think of this idea of having these landmarks plaqued? It's a wonderful idea, Howard. As a matter of fact, I was very happy to see the mayor's commission continue with this. By continue, I mean, in 1957 it was an October I was connected with the program here in Chicago called Chicago Dynamic, in which with the support of the mayor's committee, many of the people who are on the same group, we placked about six buildings in the loop area, this was done because of timing and so forth, that we had to do this. But we gave plaques to six buildings in the loop area that were important in the Chicago School of Architecture, which occurred in a period of time from about 1883, I think it was in about 1893. And I was very glad the hope at that time was to get my group to continue this interest of finding ways of bringing to the knowledge of the people on this tree, to have no way of getting this information,

the importance of the architectural heritage that they have right here in Chicago buildings. Well, apparently then this committee there suggests to take the 30 buildings is really a development from that. I'm sure it is, I believe it is. Excellent idea. Well, you're making a point, George, about the awareness of a large public of all of us, to the visual surroundings. We want to develop that a little bit. Well, my feeling has been, I think we architects are somewhat maybe at fault in the planners. My feeling has been that we talk about the effect of architecture, the effect of the space, the effect of the structure, the environment, that it has upon the way people live, upon the way they think and the way they conduct their lives. We talk about it, and we try our best to make this a happy environment, an enrichening environment, as we do our buildings and plan our cities. But I think sometimes to get it to the people in the streets, so to speak, who are not architects and who are maybe not attuned to

visual qualities, we need such means as the mayor's commission to do this. Because very, very obviously, I think if anybody who's listening to this program, who is not an architect, stops to think about it, the kind of room that they live in, small or large, affects their very feeling, or as they pass from a room or a space of one particular architectural quality into another, which is quite different. They have a change in feeling, they have a change in thinking, they have a change in outlook. They're effective profoundly. Well, they know it or not, they're effective profoundly. And that's true. That's true. In fact, it's profound. It's in the depths where they're not aware of it. That's not only in your own private building, but the buildings around you, the monuments. And there's something about a city having these monuments. It gives a quality of the city, as again, say an ordinary city. I won't name any others because we would get mail on there. But there are cities which you think are dull. That's right. Chicago is not a dull city. It has a lot to offer. And

I think that it not only comes from their very, the city is very having these monuments, but also, then, the recognition of this and the bringing to the awareness of the people. You know Chicago, you know the Chicago School of Architecture. I'm sure you've had, you know the world. Let's define that. Well, it's rather difficult to define. It was not a school in the normal sense of the word. It was not a school in that there was a building and there were people who studied and there were people who taught. But it was actually a kind of way of thinking. It was an attitude. It came right after, wrong to be speaking, right after the Chicago fire of 1871. Given opportunity. Given opportunity. There was a tremendous opportunity. It was a great revival of building because of the situation with the fire. And a great number of very wise and maybe not so wise, maybe circumstances had a lot to play in, but important people in time came to this city. Important architects and important builders. They seized upon the opportunity to rebuild the city. They also had the foresight. Many of them had the foresight

or the insight, shall we say, into realizing that here was an opportunity, maybe to do something that was not done before. You know Chicago before was practically all framed buildings. This is where we're highly combustible. And the architects, Louis Sullivan, who did the auditorium building and we'll see that in a moment. And Frank Lloyd Wright came to the school. The first two buildings. Let's take a quick look at them. Yes, the Carson Perry Scott building, which everybody just thinks of Carson Perry Scott as a department store. It is, but it's a very, very important building. This picture of it, I think everyone knows the Carson Perry Scott building. It was known by another name at that time and that slips me at the moment, but that's unimportant. But this building in the hands of Louis Sullivan, the architect, had a different architectural expression because he realized that there were new structural means which did not exist in years past. That's great windows basically. That's right. And this, the structural system that I'm referring to and haven't mentioned is

really what is we know as the skeleton. The isolated columns, which allows the wall to be something which is no more than just a skin. This whole contribution to American and world architecture was rooted right in the work of the men, the architects and builders of what is known as the Chicago School, this way of thinking. Above all, Jenner, maybe. Jenny. Yes, William, the baron, Jenny. The William, the baron, Jenny building that he did, the home insurance building where the field building is known. And Adams and Derborn Clark, I believe it is, was the side of the home insurance building and it was the first tall skeleton building in the world. I think that building isn't left. It was a fine monument. Yes, the commission should have been going then. But this is a very important contribution to the world of architecture, the development of the skeleton system. That is really the team contribution of the so -called Chicago School or just one of several. I think it's the main, the important, what has come from this. The realization of what the structure or what structure can be

architecturally is something which is still an outgrowth of this concept. Which is against the baron, you know, where the wall held up to be the loads of the building. Well, this is a tremendously important creation, a really great creation in the sense of symbolic. Symbolic of the new technology, the new materials, the new means. And it's symbolic of the America, the characteristic of America. It's better our firm work. You may not like it or not like it, but there it is. It symbolizes us and it's a thrilling site. Chicago has its own achievements, but other cities have imitated certainly. And this has been symbolized, I think, in not only in architecture. You have a quoting the other day, are talking to me about equipment. Yes, equipment and Emerson. It's very appropriate to see the whole ceiling. Emerson said, and I'm sure since Louis Sullivan was a devoted fan of walled equipment and Emerson, he had read this passage in self -reliance. Oh, let me see. It goes something like this. If the artist, meaning architecture, anything else, creator, if the artist will study the thing to be done by him, the

length of the day, the quality of the light, the government that people live by, their customs, their manners, and their needs. If you will do all these things and put them into his work of art, then the thing will be beautiful. Yes. And this is the essence of their attitude, I think. Yes. They did not rely upon historical imitation. They realized here were new techniques, and even though they didn't realize or bring out always the most optimum situation architecturally from these new techniques, they realized at least there should be no returning to past styles. And unfortunately, this period of the Chicago schools' important work from 1883 until 1993 was short, as I've just seen in Chicago, the world's Columbia Exposition wasn't in 1893, when there was a great return to the imitative classic for styles. And Louis Sullivan himself said that the effects of this exposition, the architecture of this exposition, the architecture of it, he pointed out, will set architecture in this country back at least 50

years. And it's very interesting, as facts are now, we see that really not until 39 or 40, was there a man or was there an effort in the city to come back to the spirit of the Chicago school? It's idea of finding an expression from the means, from the ways of building it, from the techniques, and to find an architecture from it. I think really a great gap. And the man, of course, we must not overlook the importance of Frank Lloyd Wright, who existed. He was a liaison between the Chicago school group and the time of 1938. But his work was never a continuing of the development of this, we have a picture of Wright's building. Let's take a look at that one of the Robe House, which is out in the 58th anniversary. It's out in the 18th anniversary, yes, which of course, now - I come back to Wright for a moment because he did not continue the development of the idea of the skeleton structure. No, he didn't. But nevertheless, his

spirit of finding an architecture from the means, from the situation involved. Total it may be, was performing to the spirit of it. Fitting to the landscape. That's right. Yes, that is certainly the same pattern. And it is, of course. Aren't these three buildings, the Carson Perry Scott, the Auditorium and the Robe House, perhaps the three most famous buildings? Probably so, yes. I know my friends come here and they talk about these buildings, they want to see them right away. Well, we have lots of visitors out at Illinois Tech. Well, we're very interested. They're very interested, not only in the Illinois Tech campus, which is world -known as a campus, which Misevande Robe is the architect, as you know. But also, they're very interested and knowledgeable of the historical buildings in Chicago as an important development in architecture. The, it's rather interesting too, that this mayor's commission on historical landmarks did not only include the old buildings, but they came up to date. But what I was trying to say about a little ago, in 1939, as I see it, and as I

believe it, the first building that really was a restatement of the principles, the kind of thinking that was existing in the Chicago school back in 1883 to 93, the first restatement in architecture of the spirit was in the building, the first building that Mise did on the campus at Illinois Tech, which was the metals and minerals building. We don't have a copy of that. But I think we do have a picture that we could see now of a particular shot of the campus, which shows the idea of how Mise has made architecture of structure. Yes, yes. You know what people said when that building went up, and when the alumni hall went up right after, or it looked like a factory, you know. Now, now, of course, they go into poems about them. Well, I think by this time, the sensitive people I've realized that through the handling of the proportions and the quality of the detail, they gain the materials, there's a difference between a structure which may be very similar to this in kind that serves a factory need to that which serves an educational or something at a different level. Well, this is a landmark Georgia indicated one night

in Paris four years ago. I was at a party and I was introduced to a young chap who's recently graduated in architecture from the Bozar, and he said we exchanged information about each other, and I said I was from Illinois Institute of Technology. Why, you would have thought I was one of the greatest men in the world, because I had been on the same campus that Mise van der Rohe had created and had talked with Mise van der Rohe. I gained great glory from this. It's internationally known. Oh, yes. I went down to Marseille one time and I was working over the embassy at the time. I went down to Marseille and helped to open up an exhibit down there, and I walk in and the exhibit of Mise van der Rohe and his achievement. Oh, the French are keenly appreciated. Oh, they appreciate it. We have some of the other buildings in the apartment house, for instance, on the apartment house, which is a part of the Illinois Tech campus. This is a picture of it which is done in scum of reinforced concrete, and probably the most famous building,

or the building which is the outstanding one in the campus development up to this point, which is up to now, as Mise has done it, is the next shot, which is a crown hole. Oh, yes. You know this well, and I'm sure the people here in Chicago through many, that's a publicity honor, are familiar with it in some form or another. It houses the architectural department and the city planning department and the department of the Institute of Design, the product design. That's a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful hole. It's really the finest example, I think, of Mise's idea of how structure can be brought to an architectural to an aesthetic level, where it can be something of beauty or just a function. That brings up a phrase that you'll hear all the time, these buildings are sculpture. Oh, you hear about the mining metal buildings there, pieces of sculpture. What has meant by that? I think I know. That's a hard one to put in just to a few words. It's farm -filling space. It's farm -filling space, that's true. It's making those elements of the building, which serve its purpose, or

which serves to create its purpose, a function. It makes an architectural thing of those. It does not make them subservient to what is later applied as ornamentation. They in themselves, the architecture, they are still being become part of the pattern. That's right, pattern. It's its own decoration. Are you at your point the alert sculptural in this sense in that it is what it is? That mechanics building was first put up. Remember the facade of it, the steel beams were showing, and it looked just like a Mondrian painting. Yes, that time magazine. You made that order. Yeah, that order. By a kind of yes, happenstance. They're often making analogies between architecture and painting in a way, and there may be something. I think it's unconsciously done by the architecture painters. It's that they're going in a direction again, which brings us out as a result. Speaking about the interest in the broad in the Chicago architecture, this next building, it seems to me the Glestner building, is an example. Were you telling me the other day that when the Muse -Vandaro came to this country, it came to Chicago. The first

building he wanted to see was the Glestner. That is true. By Richardson. That's true. That's surprised all of us. We knew it, of course, that he would be aware of it, but that he wanted to see it first was an interesting observation. It's a building, which is at 1800 in Prairie, and I think it still exists. Yes, you know, I tech did happen. We ended for a while. I don't know what to do. And the building, the next shot of it, also, is the interior. Oh, yes, the interior. It's the building by Richardson. He was an eastern architect. He was. That is right. Yes. But the nice solid. That's right. This is the court. This is not the Chicago school, really. Not really. It was somewhat of a precursor of it. But even in this building, you see the spirit of it, and that Richardson did not recall in his building any historical ornamentation. He tried to find through the material, which was a heavy use of stone. He tried to find a quality and an architecture that came from this. He wasn't thinking of Egypt or Greece or anything like that. He handled these things. He knew the function, and he tried to solve it in the most straightforward way. Look down, this is, again, what Emerson said, why should we worship the distant and the past? Yes. Richardson isn't doing it, or me, certainly isn't doing it. No, indeed not. You're not in that slavish way.

This is what we try to try to, we hope, will be made clear in the work of the modern architects, in the good examples. We will not try to define good and bad at this moment. But examples, similar to which we have shown you, is that applied ornament itself has no real primary purpose in the building. It can be put in such a way that as a perspective of what the building is in itself, not to cover up, as was done quite frequently. Look at the broke architecture and in the broke period. It was more frozen music, in a sense. But to try to find a new ornamentation, if I may use that word in quotations, out of the elements needed for the solution of the problem, the architectural problem. Well, I handle them in a way that they become an ornamentation, but a part of it. You're being a complete amateur. I would argue for allowing this kind of, this other kind of ornamentation, which you think is a bit cheesy. But for this reason,

but for this reason, I would also like, I like your point of view, either it forces the creative artist to examine what he's doing much more intensely, and this other is a very easy, relaxed section and taking the imitation. Well, I didn't mean to exclude ornamentation, but ornamentation. No, particularly Sullivan's ornamentation. Yes, I mean, ornamentation in a sense that it really covered up that architecture. Yes, ornamentation, as we see it, like that, in the dirt under the road. Well, look at the, I don't know whether you've seen it or the people who are listening, no of the UNESCO building in Paris. There is much ornamentation in that, in the form of murals, sculpture within the spaces, gardens done by the Japanese architect. This is a kind of an ornamentation that complements the architecture, and the architecture complements it. One is not a substitution for the other. Or one doesn't fight the other. That is right. That's a

very interesting building. It's the tallest building I believe in the world, certainly the tallest one in this country, which is all world -bearing. That is the outside walls support all of the loads of the floors. Now with that was sort of the end of it. That was the last statement of the bearing wall. That's right. It came after the home insurance building that we mentioned earlier that Jenny did, which is a true skeleton. And it came after that, but it was really the last statement. There again, though, as you see in the picture, there's no recall of any historic style that we know of. It's on it. It's a straight thing in brick, sloped slightly for visual reasons of refinement, but very much what it is. A brick building that's tall and bearing walls. You know those walls are 11 feet thick at the base. Well, the auditorium is just about that. Yes. Well, what I interest me about since I said, because landmarks in general, is that how many of us look at them in that night building, very intensive, very hard, and think about it in terms of what it means, significance, its place in history. And this is, I think, one of the advantages of

the commissions placketing in these places. I think two few of us look at things anyway, that are around us, as we walk along the street, study a tree, study a view. I wonder how many people in Chicago, unfortunately, that they can't all live along the lakefront, but I wonder how many realize the uniqueness of the Chicago lakefront as compared to some other cities. How it's been developed, intelligent planning, intelligent planning. I'm told, I'm not sure whether this is absolutely capable of being authenticated, but I'm told that one of the strong forces back in the early years of Chicago, of keeping the lakefront for the people in a park, was Ward, who was a part of Montgomery Ward, and that when there were industrial interest wanting to develop the lakefront, and bring industry there, and bring the boats in, he fought against this. I think with the help of later on at least of Burnham, the H -Burnham Park, but he got little plans. Indeed. He felt that if it were to be given over to industry, it would be lust. Well, we would have been. Look at New York,

and look at San Francisco. Absolutely marvelous situations in the water, but where within the city, unless you go to the top of a building or a hill, are you aware that there's water around you? The people can never get to it. They've recovered grandeur as cities in another way. That is right. They haven't done it by using their resources. And they were there. They could have added to it. The grandeur that is over there. It's very sad. Yes, it is very sad. And to think what our city would have been, we had this lake shore been entirely cladded out. Oh, it's quite beautiful. Well, this is only a point to instill an awareness in people to see what's around them. Good and bad. It's a family. What water does to a city, to make it, to make it, because you've got that wonderful contrast between the firmness of the stone and the fluidity of the water. One time in the Riggly building, I was sat there at some sort of meeting, and I was looking out, looking at those tremendous masses on Wackard Drive. But looking at the Chicago River flowing. There's a beautiful side. You can't play of texture. You can't play of texture. Oh, everything. The greatest silver. There's a nice transition from the buildings through the park to the water in Chicago, too,

in most of the areas. Isn't another thing here? Perspectives. We get into our lake front. We get these marbles perspectives. Vistas. Vistas, that's right. It makes very important a great city. Yes, doesn't it? Yes. You have some of that here. The park system in Chicago. Yes. It's a very unique thing. Yes. And adds much to this. Yes. Well, we have domestic buildings, don't we, too. I think our next one is on the near north side. Let me see. It's on Aster and Schiller, I believe. It's called the Charlie House and Mr. Wright. Frank Lloyd Wright, the late Mr. Wright, did this. I'm sorry, I forget the exact date. It's quite early. I believe shortly before 1900. It's still standing. It's still used as a residence. And through Mr. Wright, who, as I say, was a connecting link with the Chicago School and today, he kept the spirit of it alive. When everybody else was returning to classical forms or doing nothing, poor Louis Sullivan, you know, died, broke, and just gave up completely against this onslaught of copying classic architecture, but Wright, who has built

many residential buildings in this part of the country, has contributed much to this. Unfortunately, we are aware of this now. Partly, that meeting you had that program you had two years ago, it brought. Right. Thank you. That was very interesting. You remember there was Wright and Sandberg and Alistair Cook, and that wonderful meeting of those two, it's Cook moderators. It was quite a nice thing to get them together. It saddens me to see, to say, one or two Wright buildings I've seen turned into, not merely turned into restaurants, all right, but turned in and changed, altered, radically, so that the pattern, the design, the structure, the beauty of things. It's lost its character. It's lost its character. It's become a piece of junk. That's right. And a beautiful thing to become junk is really junk. The lilies that fester smell far worse than leads. Well, this domestic architecture, I think the, the, this is a worldwide example. Everybody knows this. This building. Yes. This building is coming up. The, well, they called their nickname the Glass Houses, but they're actually the 860 and

880 Lakeshore Drive apartment buildings in Chicago, nested these back in the late part of the, of the 1940s, a lot of part of the 1940s. Very important buildings as a development of his work and as a development of structural architecture in the world. They're, they're world renowned. You know, it interests me. In terms, let's be very commercial at the moment. We're very snob. The snob appeal, if you have an, an address in these buildings now. Oh, my. It's, it's a conversation. That's right. It's for the evening. And they're very small apartments too. They're not all luxury apartments. No, they're not luxury apartments. I was talking with a chap the other day who he says, we have just a little one room. We said, I don't have much, but I have this apartment. And it gave him a cashier, if you agree. That's very true. It's very interesting within the framework of the skeleton, which is brought, really, to an ultimate expression in that building. How Mice has achieved a freedom of plan arrangement. Yeah. To a tremendous degree with the limitations and the, and the, yes, it's

very, very free inside. Yes. And the, this next building, which is the last one picture we have, the, is, of course, our, about our last significant landmark in, in point of building, isn't it? I think the, yes, that is completed, at least. That is done by an office in Chicago, New York, two branch, of course, of Skidmore, Orange and Merrill. It's very interesting. The Mice and Influence is shown in this. Yes. In that, they have taken structure. They've taken the simple elements unadorned and made architecture of them. Yes. It's a very, very beautiful building. And again, is a building that visitors from out of the city know more about, I think, is important than maybe many of the people living in town. Yes. Oh, well, again, the importance of such appointment. That's a curious thing about people coming to town, asking you about these things. Yes. And then you have to. You feel a little embarrassed. Yes. Yes. We know them ourselves. Well, I'll look it up. I'll see. I'll find the building to see. Well, it was a fine building. You're the, but the, the way they, they raised about these things. They want to see these buildings. They want to see the stockyards, of course.

They want to see the iron institute, that these buildings, that these landmarks, and that they come back to our point we started with, that the, that these are now, we're thinking historically instead of wastefully, that we are preserving. I take it that this means we preserve these buildings. I hope so. I don't know that the building may be clear. No guarantee, of course, but I hope so. And no guarantee you have hydrogen bombs. No. That happens. But I hope that it's being preserved in some form, if not actually, that, that there's a great deal of documentation made on the building for historical references later on. Well, now the point is, look at your Chicago landmarks, appreciate them, and see about building more. See you next time.