Alumni

Chicago's Famous Buildings
(Fifth Edition)

If you are architecturally inclined and have never owned a copy of the indispensable Chicago's Famous Buildings, the one to buy is the new fifth edition by Franz Schulz, Lake Forest College Betty Jane Schultz Hollender Professor of Art, Emeritus, and Kevin Harrington, Professor of Humanities and Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

First published in 1965, the book has seen a succession of authors and editors, but now it has been completely rewritten.  The new edition brings the entries up to date with developments since the fourth edition, published in 1993.

The new edition broadens the architectural net cast over the city.  Now, for example, we read about some of Chicago's ethnic neighborhoods, such as Pilsen and Bronzeville, as well as the newest additions to Chicago's architectural oeuvre.  These include Millennium Park, the Museum Campus, Symphony Center, the AT&T Corporate Center, the Arts Club of Chicago, the new buildings at Northwestern University (Evanston and Chicago campuses), the University of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the redeveloped Navy Pier complex.

These recent structures do not fare well architecturally by the authors' standards.  "Grant the newly reconstructed Navy Pier this much: the local architectural profession may hate it, but the public loves it.  Seen from the shoreline, it is a muddle of disparate forms, while up close, its materials look cheap and its detailing careless," the authors decry.

The Museum Campus at the south end of Monroe Harbor (which includes the Field Museum of Natural History, the Adler Planetarium, and the Shedd Aquarium) gets higher ratings, with the glaring exception of the "recent ungainly addition" to Soldier Field, which is characterized as "grotesquely overpowering."

In this fifth edition, the authors make a point of commenting on the issue of preservation.  "With the turn of the twenty-first century, it is apparent that Chicago's mayoral administration has given a major place on its agenda to the preservation and restoration of historic structures and the purposeful reconstitution of whole areas of the city."

In a section called "Ghost City" at the back of the book, the authors present a list of several important buildings that have been destroyed, a sad reminder that, as the authors put it, "Buildings cannot be consigned to storage—the way books and paintings that go out of fashion can be—while waiting for tastes to change.  We believe that buildings are gifts from the past held in trust for the future."  Whether you are or not, make certain that you add to your library this time-tested mainstay of Chicago's architectural literature.

By Betty Jane Schultz Hollender Professor of Art, Emeritus, Franz Schulze and Kevin Harrington
Chcago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003
Review by Spectrum Guest Editor Kim Coventry