In 1922 the Chicago Tribune held an architectural design competition for its new Michigan Avenue headquarters. The judges selected architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood’s proposal: a neo-Gothic tower, the kind typically seen in 12th- to 16th-century Europe, denoted by a buttressed crown and heavy ornamentation such as gargoyles, fantastical engravings, and scalloping. At the request of Colonel Robert McCormick, who headed the Tribune at the time, correspondents took stones from such monuments as the Great Pyramid, the Parthenon, Notre-Dame Cathedral, and 145 other architectural triumphs. Those archeological crumbs are included in the building’s facade, and according to the Tribune, “symbolized the newspaper’s global reach.” At the time it was built, the Tribune Tower was a revolutionary reprisal of the past: Howells and Hood appropriated an elegant but outdated style and installed it in a city that was in the midst of rapid invention and innovation.
Johnston and Lee have recruited more than 150 firms from all over the world whose practices embody the most innovative (and sometimes unusual) ways of applying history to their contemporary work. Many of these firms will be exhibited in a massive installation downtown in the maze of corridors and rooms in the Cultural Center.
The downtown exhibit will, however, address themes that relate to citizens’ relationships with the built environment. The Cultural Center show will be divided into four themes: building histories (the design of historic architecture and the stories that those buildings tell), material histories (the materials that make up buildings), image histories (how architecture is typically depicted), and most importantly, civic histories—a theme that might manifest itself in works by architects that address the city’s complex relationship with its own design.
“It occurred to me that I had relationships with five of the six directors,” Guthman says. “I knew they are diverse, and I knew they have quality curators.”
The DuSable Museum is taking a more specific look at Chicago’s south side through the lens of architectural photographer, critic, and now vice president of the DuSable Museum, Lee Bey. Bey’s photographs have documented the unique structures at the University of Chicago, including its hodgepodge of neo-Gothic buildings and works by modern masters like Mies van der Rohe and Eero Saarinen, as well as the surprising appearances of stark modernist structures, such as Pride Cleaners on 79th Street. At the upcoming exhibit, entitled “A Southern Exposure,” Bey’s images will continue this tradition in a manner that asks how the neighborhood, and the broader city, might go about making a new history for this area.
Other neighborhood sites plan for exhibits that make clear associations with their immediate architectural and civic assets. Beyond the NMPRAC and DuSable, anchors like the Beverly Art Center are exploring their neighborhood’s unique architectural legacy on the fringes of Chicago. Its exhibit, entitled “Elevations,” will be divided into three parts: the area’s real estate history and its unique topography (Beverly is the highest elevation point in Chicago), as curated by architectural historian James Gorski; the present (contemporary architectural photography by photographer Rebecca Healy); and the future, in the form of urban planning and architectural drawings. The Hyde Park Art Center will focus its efforts on material studies: architect Amanda Williams will draw on her practice of highlighting blighted or discarded buildings to lead a seminar with Illinois Institute of Technology students that discusses reused and salvaged building materials. Their explorations will be displayed in one of HPAC’s galleries. The Art Center will also mount a large-scale installation by artists Sara Black and Raewyn Martyn that reconnects architecture’s relationships with Chicago’s former lumber industry.
