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By Ed McDevitt, Class of 2010

In Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”, a character utters these words: “Comparisons are odorous”. I offer the following essay titled: Odorous Comparisons

An architect who is a Facebook friend recently posted an excellent photo of the Lincoln Tower on his page. The responses were, of course, quite laudatory of the photo. But the commentary was far too reminiscent of the “things-were-so-much-better-in-the-good-old-days” stuff that I remember from my youth. It bespoke a reflexive pining for the past that selectively remembers and uses that recollection to bemoan the present.

I do love the Lincoln Tower. Let me not diminish its beauty. But there’s not much to love about disparaging the architecture of our times as these responders did: “When I took the river tour boat a few years ago, I honestly became depressed over all the new buildings sheathed in glass,” and, “A confusion of solid and void, of object and definer of space, and most of all the relationships of scale…’, and, “Too much unbalanced design work. There is a loss of the sense of what a building can be for people.”

The dismissal of later architecture in this fashion is like comparing a 1920s car with a contemporary one. Yes, the older buildings that have survived, despite problems they present for modern use, are wonderful to look at. And of course some contemporary buildings are pedestrian or worse. But many buildings in our city from the 1950s on are thoughtful, eye-catching, even brilliant! As for scale, use of glass, and people-centered purpose, I commend the creativity and sense of artistry many of our contemporary architects show by their clever marrying of function, footprint, and form. All of them? No, not at all. But of late we have had some fascinating buildings to contemplate, just as fascinating as the London Guaranty/London House, The Rookery, Carbide and Carbon and others.

Different solutions to similar issues present us with the examples of 150 North Riverside and River Point. Innovative? Yes, very much so. Are there buildings worthy of careful view and admiration? For sure. Aqua, the in-process Vista, as well as others invite appreciation. But the beige apartment armada in River North? Not so much. Some of the cookie-cutter apartment buildings in the West Loop? Please, no. But the about-to-be-completed One South Halsted is, despite concerns about its size in that neighborhood, a great complement to Skybridge, its 2003 award-winning neighbor to the north, a building that was far larger than anything nearby. So let me suggest that sniffing at anything that rose up after the Depression is not appropriate or edifying. We have a lot to delight us among our new buildings.

And as for “scale,” I invite an historical perspective. While we feel the Marquette Building, the Monadnock, and the aforementioned Rookery, are in scale with their environment, at the time of their construction they certainly were not. Each of them when completed was larger than its neighbors and built at or close to its lot lines. Nothing near the Monadnock was more than a few stories high. It was a monster at its completion, never mind that critics thought it crazy to site it in such a location.

Compared to the blatant, even in-your-face and sometimes out-sized designs of the post-modern period (many of which we now revere), our best newer buildings are muted and even rather subtle. They’re certainly not “out of scale” or sheathed in glass in a way that should depress a person.

As for “confusion of solid and void,” I am at a loss. Does the writer refer to the tops of One South Dearborn or 515 North State (the former AMA Building) or to the Apple Store near the river?

Whatever the case, I find these odiferous comparisons of earlier buildings with those of the present to be both unproductive and precious. The architects of the past designed and built edifices that used available materials in innovative and eye-catching ways. There are very good reasons architects and developers designed differently after 1950; they did not use, for the most part, stone or terra cotta other than as a reference to the past. They built larger in smaller spaces not only because they could, but because the market demanded it. Did some styles – mid-century modernism, for example – ultimately bore people to tears? Indeed. But we are fortunate that we have many new, innovative buildings to admire and talk about.

I present this argument because I think we need some discussion. I strongly believe that we have an opportunity right now to look at things with renewed vision. CAC is in a new location that provides an opportunity to look at things we haven’t much looked at before, to journey on paths we haven’t much trodden before, to greatly broaden our appreciation of the buildings, public art, walkways, and thoroughfares that were mostly in our peripheral vision.

Come on over here. Let’s talk!