DOUG GAROFALO

Word came this morning of Doug Garofalo's death on Sunday. And all the light immediately drained from what had been a pleasant summer day. The sad reality of his absence has just grown more insistent in the hours since. Chicago has lost one of its kindest, most generous and best architects. We've also lost the most gracious person I've ever known.

I first met Doug in New Haven when he was a finishing his Masters at Yale, and met him again a few months later here in Chicago at UIC where he had just started teaching and I had just started studying. He was my professor, my adviser, later a collaborator, and then a colleague and friend. I've never known anyone like Doug. I doubt I will again know anyone like Doug.

Now, as the hours pass and the news slowly assumes its brutal outlines, contemplating a world without him means having to accept a world that will have a little less color, less delight; a world missing some great portion of thoughtfulness, one where wonder is less available, and worst of all, one that is a lot colder.

BURNHAM PRIZE: MCCORMICK PLACE REDUX

The Chicago Architectural Club is pleased to announce the 2011 Burnham Prize Competition: “McCormick Place REDUX”. This year’s competition is co-sponsored by the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects and Landmarks Illinois and is intended to examine the controversial origins and questionable future of the McCormick Place East Building, the 1971 modernist convention hall designed by Gene Summers of C.F. Murphy Associates and sited along the lakefront in Burnham Park.

Built on parkland meant to be “forever open, clear, and free”, considered an eyesore by open space advocates, and suffering from benign neglect at the hand of its owners, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, Gene Summer’s design for McCormick Place East is nevertheless a powerfully elegant exploration of some of modernism’s deepest concerns. The current building’s predecessor generated withering criticism from civic groups so when it burned in 1967 its critics mobilized. The raw economic power of the convention business served to hasten rebuilding atop the ruins. But while Shaw’s previous building lacked any architectural merit, Gene Summers brought to the new project his years of experience at Mies van der Rohe’s side. The resulting building is a tour de force that succinctly caps the modernist dream of vast heroic column-free interior spaces.

The competition charge:

The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority claims the building needs $150 million in improvements and that the building is functionally obsolete, too small to remain viable as an exhibition hall. While the facility appears frayed, the building is in fundamentally sound condition. Connected to the larger McCormick Place exhibition complex by a covered bridge over Lake Shore Drive, the stronger connections are to the lakefront, the museum campus and nearby Soldier Field. Surrounded by an over-abundance of parking, served by CTA buses, and bordering the immensely popular lakefront walking/running/biking path, the possibilities for the building and the site would seem boundless. But so far, the only visions for its future to be expressed publicly been total erasure or reuse as a casino.

The “McCormick Place REDUX” competition seeks to launch a debate about the future of this significant piece of architecture, this lakefront site that was effectively removed from the public realm, and the powerful pull of a collective and public claim on the lakefront. This iconic building is caught in the crossfire of a strong, principled, and stirring debate. So the question posed by the competition is quite simple: what would you do with this massive facility? What alternate role might the building play in Chicago should it be decommissioned as a convention hall? And if the building were to go away, how might the site be utilized? What might you do with a million square feet of space on Chicago’s lakefront (along with 4,200 seat Arie Crown theatre)?

Clearly outmoded for its original use, sited on a spectacular stretch of lake-front, and undoubtedly of very significant architectural quality - what visions are there for a resolution?

Link to competition website is here

REYNOLDS PRICE

A fellow North Carolinian, the writer Reynolds Price, died today at the age of 77. According to the news reports he died of complications from a heart attack he suffered Sunday. 

He said once, of Macon North Carolina, “I’m the world’s authority on this place. It’s the place about which I have perfect pitch.”

I can't think of a higher calling for an architect than to be the world authority on some place. I love the idea of having the perfect pitch of a place. I asked Stanley Tigerman for some advice as I was about to finish grad school and he said that to be an architect you had to go someplace and stay put there for 50 years - then you maybe could figure it out. I think I've finally come to understand what he meant by that.

MOSE AND IUAV WS09

We've nearly finished the text for the IUAV WS09 publication. Thanks to Luca Mezzalira and Vittorio de Battisti Besi for helping smooth the piece into a much better Italian than I could manage alone.

La Sfida del MOSE

Il programma proposto per il workshop si fondava su due principali idee: la prima è quella di considerare un workshop estivo di tre settimane simile ad un’avventura in cui direzione, energie necessarie e risultati sono totalmente imprevedibili; la seconda consiste nella volontà di considerare le più complesse questioni in architettura le quali, all’interno dell’esplosivo potenziale di un workshop estivo, possono divenire un mezzo ideale per un’indagine approfondita.

Il mio lavoro si sviluppa tendenzialmente in due direzioni: progetti su vasta scala e progetti di dimensioni molto contenute. Abbiamo recentemente proposto un parco lineare di 4,5 km di lunghezza nell’area nord-ovest di Chicago e un centro civico di 2.500.000 metri quadrati in prossimità del Midway Airport. La stessa modalità di lavoro vale per i progetti che ho sviluppato negli ultimi anni attraverso il mio insegnamento all’IIT. Progetti molto grandi o molto piccoli. Venendo a Venezia eravamo preparati a pensare in grande. E nel centenario del progetto di Burnham per il piano di Chicago, potremmo dire che the pump was primed.

A Chicago abbiamo visto recentemente completato un enorme progetto denominato Deep Tunnel. Si tratta di una riserva sotterranea per la raccolta delle acque meteoriche che si estende per 175 chilometri e può raccogliere fino a 60 miliardi i litri d’acqua. Il tutto è praticamente invisibile. L’unica cosa che si vede è quello che non accade quando cadono le consuete piogge torrenziali di fine estate: la presenza del Deep Tunnel ha portato ad avere cantine asciutte e un immenso buco nel bilancio pubblico. Il Progetto si è concretizzato nell’eliminazione delle inondazioni e nell’evaporazione di montagne di soldi.

Il nostro interesse per il MOSE dovrebbe essere evidente. Faraonico nella scala, sconcertante per la quantità di materiale necessario, terribilmente oneroso. Il MOSE è all’apice nella lista dei progetti a vasta scala in fase di realizzazione nel nostro pianeta, un progetto che sta ridisegnando in modo dirompente il delicato paesaggio lagunare. Le infinite controversie, i seri dubbi sull’effettivo funzionamento del progetto, i costi immani e l’impatto sull’ambiente che caratterizzano questo progetto sono elementi dai quali scaturiscono i nostri sforzi per ri-modellare il mondo. Ma nonostante l’intensità dello sforzo la parte visibile, tangibile, del progetto, la sua manifestazione fisica è sostanzialmente invisibile. Come nel caso del Deep Tunnel il suo eventuale successo sarebbe dato, semplicemente, dall’assenza dell’acqua alta.

Quindi la domanda che ci siamo posti durante il WS09 era se l’architettura fosse o meno in grado di partecipare alla concretizzazione di questo progetto ambizioso. O se il compito che le compete è soltanto quello di provvedere poi all’aggiunta di elementi decorativi, di aggiungere piccole finiture a progetti già definiti dalle grandi compagnie investitrici. I tanti programmi One Percent for Art fanno sorgere una semplice domanda: perché l’1%? Perché non 50%? Perché non un livello di parità? 100% per l’arte? Sei miliardi di euro per un’opera pubblica…e allora perché non sei milioni di euro per portare alla luce il progetto?

La sfida proposta ai 40 studenti che hanno partecipato al workshop era trovare un modo per rendere visibile questo vasto progetto, quasi completamente invisibile. Che il MOSE venga ultimato o meno, che esso funzioni effettivamente come è stato immaginato o che aggravi la situazione, non rientra nelle nostre preoccupazioni. Noi abbiamo affrontato il progetto nelle sue ambizioni, invadenza, e nella sua scala.

Il nostro insegnamento al workshop è consistito prevalentemente nel sollecitare un ragionamento ad una scala appropriata a quella del MOSE. I primi ragionamenti progettuali degli studenti erano fossilizzati a modelli tipici della Venezia storica, ad una scala di super-dettaglio più adatta forse ad una piccola costruzione in campo San Polo. Una torre veniva considerata “alta” ad appena 30 metri, gli spazi aperti verdi venivano chiamati grandi anche se solo di un ettaro.

Durante le discussioni con gli studenti l’obiettivo era quello di ragionare in termini spaziali all’interno dei 550 chilometri quadrati della laguna, con un budget di sei miliardi di euro.

CIMITERO DI LONGARONE

In spite of the years I spent living in Italy and hunting up significant buildings, I still occasionally stumble upon work of astounding beauty or power that is completely new to me. While in Venezia this past July, my friend Adolfo Zanetti took me up to see the Giovanni Michelucci church in Longarone, built to commemorate the Vajont disaster (nice church but nowhere near as unsettling as the Chiesa della Autostrada near Firenze). And then we went to see the town cemetery, a project Adolfo knew of (he studied with Tentori) but hadn't ever visited. So I didn't get much of a run-up as we approached. Generally worn out from the IUAV workshop and already looking forward to dinner at Adolfo's parents, I wasn't particularly alert as we wandered in. But what followed was a kind of rapid on-set euphoric experience as I quickly came alert.

Designed by Gianni Avon, Francesco Tentori, and Marco Zanuso, the cimitero di Longarone was built between 1966 and 1972. It's one of the best works of the period I've seen in Italy, and can match about anything I've seen anywere.

I'm still at a loss to describe the experience coherently, but my impression was of a long sinuous crevice cut into the ground plane and running away from the entry gate on an slight angle against the slope's fall line. The cut is retained by a series of walls in rough local stone and wanders through a range of exquisitly proportioned spaces and rooms. At the top of the wall, which appears to be the natural grade, grasses and other plantings run riot covering the seam. Just back from the edge the grass is mown like a rich carpet.

The view sweeps out over the 100 meter long expanse across the valley and to the opposite mountains. At your back is the mountain. There's a chapel at the gate and a large above-ground mausoleum at the head, but the sense is that the project is scored into the earth. Not unlike Carme Pinos work at Igualada.

My first thought, overpowering in its force, was this is where I would like to be buried. Second thought was peccato, non si riesce. Third thought was forgot both the camera and sketchbook. Of all the work I saw this summer, this is the place that continues to haunt me. Most of the work I do, and all of the work I do with students, poses the same basic and simple question - is architecture a viable form of cultural expression today? In this place I think I could say the answer is more likely yes than no.

IUAV WORKSHOP

Three weeks of very intense activity will end today with mounting the final exhibition. The students bore down this week and from cursory glances at the final boards as they filed through in the print queue I'd say the final projects will be very strong. We're in Aula 2.2 Magazino 6 - top floor over-looking the Giudecca canal. There should be a sort of vernissage this evening but the exhibtion opens tomorrow officially. All that remains for the larger Workshop 09 program is the reception at the director's house and a very big and rowdy party on the beach tonight.

The idea for the workshop "La Sfida del MOSE" came out of an on-going interest in infrastructure projects. I brought a very simple question (one I have been asking for some time) to the workshop: can architects contribute in any meaningful way to projects whose scales radically outstrip our normal, or traditional, range of operations? Several architects from IUAV have been working with the Consorzio Venezia Nuova on small pieces here and there - a control tower, tool sheds, whatever. Considering the scale of the project these are barely bread crumbs. Do we have the range to stretch out to the scale of this project without playing at being city planners? Are there skills and insights we can deploy across the breadth of such a complex project, or are we doomed to the 1% for art allocation?

Like the Deep Tunnel project under Chicago, MOSE will absorb billions of euros but remain virtually invisible. The success of both projects measured by what doesn't happen in a successful deployment. The eventual delivery of the project will in many ways squelch the endless debates over the operation. There were few public polemics concerning Deep Tunnel, but MOSE has been and remains extremely controversial. The project is not supported by the current Venice city administration. So the WS09 project charge is direct: render the MOSE project visible. The physical manifestation of the project (gates, jetties, locks, technologies and techniques), but also the debate, history, massive operational programs, and obviously the costs.

Based on our work here at IUAV and my project last semester at Midway Airport, I would suggest that there might very well be space for us to work at this immense pharaonic scale.

Time for thanks: first to the IUAV administration for the invitation to participate in the WS09. Second to Prof. Luigi Croce for securing that invitation and offering up his house, Luca Mezzalira my assistant from IUAV who was the most critical element in the entire endeavor, and finally to the students themselves - siete bravi ragazzi, sono contento avere l'oppotunita per lavorare con tutti voi. Vi Ringrazio.

jean nouvel’s quai branly

Getting close to the summer Paris program's end now and the range of work we won't see is daunting. In spite of an ambitious agenda and the group's noteworthy stamina. One month in Paris simply isn't enough to do much more than conduct a quick survey. But I recall saying the same thing when I was running the semester-long programs here. In fact, four months was about right to develop some familiararity with Montepulciano, not a very big place.

Last week we were at Jean Nouvel's Musée Quai Branly. It was my second visit since it opened and the most striking change was the greater density of the plantings. Now there is some sense of the potential for the buildings to recede somewhat into the gardens’ lush landscaping. This second visit also reinforced several of my earlier less-positive impressions.

One is that Nouvel seems to have been trying very hard to provoke some stale and generally inert body into a reaction against the idea of a free-wheeling architecture. Trying really hard. The plethora of materials, the long elaborate entry sequence, and the general exuberance that may somehow symbolize youthful energy. I find the museum to be a fairly strong project and one that succeeds on most of its terms (especially in integrating landscape and architecture). But the feeling that we should somehow be scandalized persists. I’m not even sure who the stand-in for the stale body would be since the museum was pretty lavishly funded by the state and benefits from official sanction via every imaginable channel. Nonetheless, the driving force of the design would seem to me to be a tantrum of sorts; even though no one said little Jean couldn't have the ice cream cone.

The other impressions I recall had to do with the interiors mostly. The theatricality serves the individual objects well but its relentlessness begins to dull the overall reception of the extraordinary collection. I felt as if I was in a Disney version of what an anthropological museum should be. Worst of all is the pervasive darkness. Naturally, one needs very low levels of ambient light to create the dramatic spotlighting of the objects under glass, but after two hours I was dying for some light. I wondered if the hanging boxes were meant to be light controlled but the area devoted to displaying light sensitive objects ate the entire floorplate. Finally, I just can't understand the French love of tiny, packed, airless museum spaces. Too much beautiful work badly crammed into too little space, jammed with too many people, and filled with warm, humid, very stale air.

RENZO PIANO IN CHICAGO

First visit today to see Renzo Piano's Art Institute addition from the inside. First impression was light, then space. For those of us here in Chicago I think it's hard to see the project yet outside the context of the immediate past. The entry point into the new wing is in what was one of the Art Institute's most unlovely corners. It has been even more depressing in the interval without the Chagall windows. But now one looks north into the spacious atrium filled with natural light and the effect is very nearly breathtaking. (The upper level entry is off the odd balcony fronting O'Keefe's cloudscape and does not work so well.) So the spaciousness and flood of natural light is a real departure from the other parts of the building.

What strikes me, while my impressions are still fresh, is the measured and relatively modest character of the addition. The Art Institute is a messy complex and Piano has not made sense of it, nor given it an identity strong enough displace the Michigan Avenue entrance. That would probably be an exercise in futility. But he holds the NE corner and cements the eastward relationship to the park. The connection to the north is fine especially in framing Gehry's project, but the key adjacency is to the east. That works very well.

I see the addition as fitting into the tradition of seriously competent buildings in Chicago. The AI publicity mill's hype and high expectations clearly surpassed what is actually a very modest building. The care taken in developing the building's systems counts for a lot. My sense is that Piano has delivered a building we can appreciate and one that isn't less for being something less than stellar. And as I get more and more bored with the slew of buildings straining for an iconic presence, deep competence is ever more engaging.