Chicago/NY

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I went back to the home town and visited friends and family in Chicago, Illinois. After living in New York for a while, I've gotten to know certain parts of the city, and from my upbringing from outside of Chicago, I think I know at least a little about Chicago architecture as well. I wish I could make an adequate compare/contrast list of NY to Chicago, but obviously, that's impossible. But being a fan of both cities, I'll do my best to at least begin to talk about one point. If anyone has any further comments, please feel free.


History.

Chicago and New York both have elaborate, fantastic histories. Chicago's is more specific to the topic of architecture, with FLW, Sullivan, Van Der Rohe all initially gaining recognition in the city by the lake. The Columbian Exposition(aka the Chicago World's Fair) was one of the most important architectural events of the 19th Century, no matter how few people know about it. It shaped the city of Chicago, thereby shaping most of the rest of the cities which cropped up AFTER Chicago.

New York's history is much more deep, meaningful and interesting - but in a cultural way, rather than an architectural one. Of course, the story of the Chrysler Building (My office building) vs. the Empire State is interesting, the Flatiron Building, Central Park (pseudo-architectural), and of course the World Trade Center and it's collapse. These are all incredibly interesting, important stories about architecture. But nothing in New York compares to the social and political stories.

But, in these two cities' varied stories of history, a very strong basis for "meaning" emerges. What I mean by "meaning" is still basically undecided in my head. But I think that "meaning" is what makes Architecture such an important art - it's what creates atmosphere in a city, it's what creates memory in one's mind and it's what creates history in concrete, wood, steel, and glass. Without "meaning," architecture would fail to be anything more than shelter.

In Chicago, "meaning" exists through the elaborate facade of Carson Pirie Scott, or in the corner clock at Marshall Field's (which it will always be known to me as), or in the blocky, masculine stepping of the Sears Tower, or, more contemporarily, in the sleek, perfect, mind-bending reflective beauty of Cloud Gate (another example of Chicago being the ONLY city in the world to show successful public art. No other city has ACTUAL "public" "art" like Chicago.) And in the last example lies the key. As time goes on, architecture grows older. Cities grow older. But obviously, developments continuously change and refine the city's definition and attitude. This is why History plays such an important role. Without any old buildings still standing around city, there is nothing to compare the new construction to. There is no Geiger to set up checks and balances. There is no Datum to define quality from crap. And this is the success of both cities of New York and Chicago.

With deep, meaningful histories, both cities set up landscapes to compare the new constructions to. In Chicago, the Sears Tower contrasts the Home Insurance Building. 860/880 Lake Shore Drive, by Van Der Rohe, is compared with the yet-to-be-built Aqua Tower. And of course, IIT Campus and Soldier Field both contrast themselves. In New York, the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building contrast the Citigroup Building. The Flatiron contrasts the Seagram Building. And the World Trade Center contrasts the yet-to-be-built Freedom Tower(don't get me started on that one).

So for good or for bad, the age of buildings and the relationship that they create with their city sets up a dynamic and always interesting discussion. Cities such as Chicago, New York, London and Paris all participate in this discussion. Cities such as Los Angeles choose not to. Getting caught up in constant contemporaneity has created a one-liner. It's excused itself from the discussion. I can't comment on LA as much as I wish I could, because it is what it is - nothing more or less will or has ever existed.

And then there's Tokyo - a city which is obviously near and dear to my heart - but one that also cannot enter into this discussion. This time, it doesn't have itself to blame, but its sad past which was brought upon by the violent acts of WW2. Since Tokyo was completely firebombed to the ground, a new Tokyo had to emerge in the 1950's - and that resulted in the most contemporary city in the world. The ironic thing about this is the Japanese' famous respect for their past. So while NY and Chi both have a physical past which they can relate to, Japan has only a memorial (or, meta-physical) past, but since this is such a strong attribute of the Japanese people, the two are almost equal. And while Tokyo doesn't have physical architectural past, most other Japanese cities have much older and more wonderful architectural pasts than any Western City. Kyoto and Nara, the two most famous old Japanese cities have wooden buildings over 1000 years old. To touch a building which is older than your entire COUNTRY is something special.

This will prove to be an incredibly fragmented post, but I have to go to the grocery store. I hope this will satisfy some of the anti-football readers out there (if you actually got this far - hello!) for a little while. And again, this is only a small portion of what could be said about this topic. And there are plenty of other topics to discuss. I encourage some comments to get our thoughts going.