Mandel Brothers Department Store - One North State

 by: chicago designslinger

[Mandel Brothers Department Store - One North State (1900/1905/1912) Holabird & Roche, architects /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

If you take a stroll down Chicago's State Street today, you will most likely find crowds of students walking to and from class or hanging out near the curb having a smoke. There will be a smattering of people who look like they might work in nearby office towers, or tourists on a visit. Occasionally you will come across shoppers leaving or entering one of a string of global retail chains along the street selling items available almost anywhere around the world. It wasn't always like this, and when architects Holabird & Roche designed a new store for Mandel Brothers in 1912, State Street was at the epicenter of the world's most dynamic, locally owned retail centers.

 [Mandel Brothers Department Store Building - One North State, 1 N. State Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

The brothers had been selling dry goods on State near Madison since 1874, and commissioned Holabird & Roche in 1900 to design a building for them on a piece of property they'd just gotten their hands on, sitting directly behind the State Street store on Wabash Avenue. The lower two floors of their Central Trading Company Building would be used by the Mandels, while the upper stories would be rented to other retail and wholesale dry goods businesses. By this time the architects had become well known for their groundbreaking use of the barest minimum of exterior cladding to maximize the wide open rectangular spaces created by slender steel structural supports, and filling those openings with expansive areas of glass. Plus they knew how to throw-in a few decorative elements to keep things interesting while working within a client-comfortable budget.

    [Mandel Brothers Department Store Annex - One North State/Central Trading Company Building, Loop Retail National Historic District, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

The architects were brought back to the site just 5 years later to expand the Trading Company Building along Wabash Avenue as the Mandel's department store traffic grew larger. By 1909, the Wabash property had become the Mandel Annex, and the time had come to take down their old, 6-story, 1890s-era Second Empire building on State. The store owners called on Holabird & Roche once again, and in 1912 a 16-story, attic-arched building rose at the corner of State & Madison, conjectured to be the busiest intersection in the world.

  [Mandel Brothers Department Store - One North State, State Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Mandels survived the Great Depression, but struggled to turn a profit by the late 1950s,  and the store was taken over by another Chicago-based retailer Wieboldt's in 1961. In the mid-70s in an effort to attract shoppers who were leaving State Street for Michigan Avenue and the suburbs, the Wieboldt company stripped the ground floor of Holabird & Roche's terra cotta facade and "modernized" it with flagstone piers and metal awnings in an attempt to visually tie-in the building with the company's suburban store design scheme. By 1987 they were out of business, and the building became the home of clients like the International Academy of Design & Technology, as well as retailers whose headquarters were well beyond the borders of State Street and the city of Chicago. In the early 90's the new owners of the One North State building stripped-off the suburban themed facade and restored a modern day version of Holabird & Roche's original design.

Crate & Barrel, Michigan Avenue

 by: chicago designslinger

 [Crate & Barrel, Michigan Avenue (1990) John Buenz, Solomon Cordwell Buenz & Associates, architects /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

In an age of seismic shifts in the world of retailing, Gordon Segal may be the last of a dying breed. Following in the footsteps of empire builders like fellow Chicagoan Marshall Field, Segal and his wife Carole opened a 1,700-square-foot store in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood in 1962 with the hope that people their age, in their mid-20s, would want to fill their homes with Arzberg china and Marimekko fabric as much as the Segals did. It turned out to be a spectacularly successful idea.

  [Crate & Barrel, 646 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

By the time the flagship Crate & Barrel store opened on North Michigan Avenue in 1990, the Wells Street store had spawned a chain of 30 locations spread across the continental United States, and the Crate & Barrel brand was known by millions of consumers who purchased hundreds of millions of dollars of well designed products for the home. But the signature store wasn't Segal's first Michigan Avenue address. In 1975 he opened a Crate & Barrel at the corner of Michigan and Chestnut in a classic, 20s-era, low-rise; before Water Tower Place, the well-heeled stores at 900 N. Michigan, or a Best Buy. Then in the late 1980s, he found out that his prime, people-packed Michigan Avenue location was going to be torn down to make way for one more large scale retail/hotel tower, filling block after block of the once low-scaled Avenue.

  [Crate & Barrel, Michigan Avenue, Magnificent Mile, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

After strolling up and down the length of the street from Oak on the north end all the way down to the Chicago River at the southern edge, a new store site was selected on the southwest corner of Erie Street. The lot was small, farther south, and came with less foot traffic. It was risky choice, but after 27 years of taking big chances, he took the plunge. The original plan was to build an income producing office tower with a store on the ground floor. Unfortunately, given the lot size, and what with entryways and square-foot devouring elevator shafts, there wasn't much room left over for the store. So Segal, taking a financial leap of faith, made the decision to ditch the tower and had architect John Buenz design a stunning, 5-story structure that defined the Crate & Barrel aesthetic as simply and elegantly as that first set of Arzberg from Germany.
Although day-to-day management was eventually passed on to others, the 75-year-old entrepreneur still serves on the corporate board. And this once lonely section of Michigan has become jammed with pedestrians who crowd into the retailer's visually exciting, always stylish, in-your-home universe. 

BP Bridge - Millennium Park

 by: chicago designslinger

 [BP Bridge - Millennium Park (2004) Frank Gehry, architect /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

It's been called the bridge to nowhere. Even architect Renzo Piano, designer of the Art Institute of Chicago's Modern Wing was quoted as saying that the snake-like overpass went from "somewhere to nowhere." The "somewhere" he was referring to was Millennium Park, while the "nowhere" he mentions is the rather forlorn and forgotten section of Grant Park known as Daley Bicentennial Plaza. But back to the bridge, architect Frank Gehry's 900+ feet of winding stainless-steel-scaled pathway is part pedestrian walkway and part sound barrier as it crosses over the tunnel-like, concrete-walled and very noisy, 8-lane Columbus Drive. As well as taking an stab at trying to join the gleaming new $475 million Millennium experience with the its older, aging, Bicentennial-era sibling.

  [BP Bridge - Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Gehry's bridge is a part and parcel of his much more prominently displayed music pavilion. When asked to add the bridge to his design, he saw an opportunity to not only link two pieces of park real estate but to also provide a buffer between the traffic noise generated by adjacent Columbus Drive and the ears of the concert going public. Then there was the problem of traversing the gash-cutting roadway.

  [BP Bridge- Millennium Park, Chicago / Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Not only was the challenge to bridge the gap, but the pedestrian path also had to be handicap accessible, which meant that the slope had to be gentle enough for someone in a wheelchair to easily maneuver the incline. Gehry's solution was to wind the structure over the Columbus trench like a snake winding its way across the landscape. Without its twists and curves, the 975 feet of gently sloping overpass would have stretched in a straight line from the edge of the pavilion to the far end of nearby Lake Shore Drive.

  [BP Bridge - Millennium Park, Grant Park, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Park patrons made their first crossing in July, 2004 when the park officially opened. After being enthralled by the wonder of Gehry's molded forms, anyone curious enough to wander across the enticing curvilinear span often found themselves disappointed when they exited at the other end. The 1970s-era Daley Bicentennial Plaza and its cheerless but well used skating rink, was somewhat of a let-down after the splendor of the park across-the-way. But all that is about to change. In December, 2011 the city announced that a facelift was in the works to be overseen by New York-based, landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. The estimated 2015 reveal of North Grant Park's sinuous 20-acre landscape may provide park goers with a much more complimentary experience to Gehry's seductive, undulating forms.

Jay Pritzker Pavilion

 by: chicago designslinger

 [Jay Pritzker Pavilion (2004) Frank Gehry, architect /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

In 1931 Chicago mayor Anton Cermak thought that holding free concerts in the city's recently completed, Beaux-Arts-inspired-redo of its magnificent front yard, might boost the spirits of a citizenry struggling in the Great Depression, and a bandshell was quickly erected in Grant Park just in time for a summer of music. Seventy-three years later, Mayor Richard M. Daley unveiled the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra's 21st century version of a bandshell, architect Frank Gehry's Jay Pritzker Pavilion.

 [Jay Pritzker Pavilion, 201 E. Randolph Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Soaring 120 feet into the air, the structure was born out of the desire and determination of a mayor, a well respected business leader, and a donor with deep pockets, to take what had originally been a rather ordinary music bandshell and turn it into something spectacular. The new music pavilion was one piece in a giant undertaking dubbed Millennium Park. The mayor had recruited businessman John Bryant to help navigate the now budget-busting project which had morphed from a nice but average park into a major statement about art, architecture and landscape design for a new century. The new music venue would replace the orchestra's old home, the Petrillo Bandshell, a 1978 cube-with-a-stage which itself had replaced the 1931 steel and plaster shell. And as the scope of the project expanded, Bryant and Daley's friend, one of the city's wealthiest citizens Cindy Pritzker, stepped-in with a donation of $15 million and her friend Frank Gehry as designer. His vision for the new bandshell-cum-music pavilion would be anything but last century.

  [Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Gehry's directive was to build an outdoor, acoustically sensitive concert hall, that included auditorium style seating for 4,000, as well as space for 7,000 people spread-out on a great lawn. Acoustics are tough outside, so in addition to a musically sensitive proscenium stage Gehry devised a plan to deliver better sound to lawn listeners as well. At the old music cube speakers had been installed on poles scattered across the grassy area of Butler Field, which didn't deliver much in the way of sophisticated sound vibrations. So Gehry decided to drape a trellis of stainless steel tubing over the lawn which would then be used to suspend well-placed speakers above patrons heads, and in turn give the blanket-sitters a much better musical experience.

  [Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Grant Park, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

When the design was revealed in November, 1999 it was met with delight and controversy. In 1836, when the city was not much more than a fort, a few log cabins and lots of marshy sand, a map was drawn-up by the government that included an open area along the lakefront which included the words, "Forever open, clear and free." It was the opening salvo of a battle that has been fought ever since. Park advocates said that Gehry's 120-foot structure violated the intent of the 163-year-old mandate. The city countered that it wasn't a building at all, but a piece of sculptural art and therefore not subject to the decree, so up it went.
Wrapped in part by panels of stainless steel, the large, sail-like petals are supported by a structural frame which Gehry chose to reveal instead of bury. From certain angles the entire thing looks like it could be blown away as it catches and is scooped-up Chicago's notorious lake breezes, but it is not going anywhere. And while many have criticized its overwhelming size and trellis-hovering cage, the Pritzker Pavilion has become a very popular exclamation point in a very popular public space. 

Donohue Building, Chicago

 by: chicago designslinger

[Donohue Building, Chicago (ca. 1883-86) Julius Speyer, architect /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

In the late 1880s South Dearborn Street was a beehive of activity as it came to an abrupt end at the front door of the recently completed Dearborn Station train depot. Just north of the station, Michael A. Donohue and William P. Henneberry contracted with architect Julius Speyer for a large, red brick, 8-story loft building in which to house their burgeoning printing and publishing business with room to spare. As a March 20, 1887 advertisement in the Chicago Tribune proclaimed:

Stores Offices & Entire Floors - To Rent in the new
Donohue & Henneberry Building on Dearborn-st. near Harrison;
steam heat and power, passenger and freight elevators,
partitions to suit, double front; size of floors 201x73, stores 23x73.

Located 150 feet from the station, the building not only provided the printing partners with easy access to train lines that spanned the continental United States, but their new brick and mortar investment would be attractive to tenants whose businesses would also prosper in such close proximity to a hub of Chicago's expansive railroad network.

   [Donohue Building, Chicago, 711 S. Dearborn Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Donohue & Henneberry ended-up leasing their easily partitionable floors to other printing trade operations, as this section of Dearborn became the focal point of the city's giant printing industry. Within the next two decades five of the largest printing houses in the country were located nearby, and the neighborhood was not only echoing with the sound of horse hooves, wagon wheels and train engines, but humming with the sounds of thousands of presses churning out millions of pages of printed materials every day. In 1899 Donohue bought-out Henneberry's share of the business which by this time had grown into a publishing concern as well as a for hire printing house. In 1900 the company's title was changed to M.A. Donohue & Co., the same year they released The New Wizard of Oz, which was also published at the same time by another Chicago publisher George M. Hill & Co. with the title, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Donohue went on to publish entire series of children's books, as well as general titles like the Ladies Manual of Art, while still cranking out mundane but lucrative printing jobs ranging from election ballots to sheet music. Donohue was doing so well that in January 1913 he purchased the property just south of his building and built a 10-story annex.

  [Donohue Building, Chicago, National Register of Historic Places, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

The printing party was over by the late 60s. Modern off-set printing required large clear-span, single-story floor plates which were cropping-up in surrounding suburbs, and the old 1880s wood, post and beam structures just couldn't compete. In 1971, Michael's grandson Richard J. Donohue closed the family owned concern and sold the building. That same year the last train pulled out of the 86-year-old Dearborn Street station. But as the the printers left the city and their old work spaces were emptied, a new urban dweller began to show an interest in moving into the vacated wood-beamed loft buildings. In 1979, the Donohue was converted from industrial space into contemporary live/work space, followed in quick succession by the Rowe and Mergenthaler buildings across the street, and today's reinvented, re-imagined, rejuvenated, revitalized Printers Row neighborhood is once again humming with activity.

John Hancock Center

 by: chicago designslinger

 [John Hancock Center (1969) Bruce Graham , architect; Fazlur Khan, structural engineer, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

You couldn't miss it. When the John Hancock Center was topped-off in 1968, it soared so high above everything else in Chicago that not only did it become an instant landmark, but came to identify Chicago in a way that the Eiffel Tower identified Paris. Not long after the building was completed, nearby Sears Tower became the tallest building in the world, but the tapering walls of "Big John" remained a Chicago favorite.

  [John Hancock Center, 875 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Originally the plan was to build two structures on the city block that stretched from Michigan Avenue east to Seneca Street between Delaware and Chestnut, an office building and an apartment building. There were concerns though that the north Michigan Avenue location was too far removed from the central business district and therefore might not attract the commercial business community. But the bigger problem was the one-story building located in the northeast corner of the property which housed one of the city's more exclusive private fiefdoms, the wealthy and powerful Casino Club.

  [John Hancock Center, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Developer Jerry Wolman offered the club a variety of financial incentives to relocate, including space in the new tower, but they didn't need the money and were very happy in their little home, thank you very much. So the plan shifted to a very tall single tower which would include a retail component on the lower levels, a parking garage, office space, and to top it all off, rental apartments with views no other building could possibly offer. For architect Bruce Graham the problem was how to get the most bang for your buck trying to accommodate apartment sizes that ranged from single room studios to four bedroom duplexes. The studios were the challenge. A single room containing a tenant's living, sleeping and eating space was harder to work into the floor plan of a 100-story building than the four bedroom duplex because of the depth required for a functional studio. But if the tower walls gradually drew inward as the building climbed higher, the 48 floors of apartments would be much more efficient, spatially and monetarily. The problem was holding the thing up. That's when structural engineer Fazlur Khan, who worked with Graham at the architectural firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill, stepped-in to help the architect with his problem. Build a tube with all the structural support on the exterior of the building, and help with the extremely heavy load by shifting some of the weight to diagonal braces. Not only would the building be tall and slanted, but those diagonal structural supports would become one of the towers identifying trademarks.
The Hancock transformed the area. Today the building is surrounded by other tall structures, and there are more people living within the blocks bordering the sleek, dark skyscraper than in any other census tracts in the city. Shoppers and tourists flock to the neighborhood providing city coffers with much needed revenue. And the 43-year-old structure still has the loftiest public dining and drinking space in Chicago, providing patrons with views from the 95th floor.

Esquire Theater, Chicago

 by: chicago designslinger

 [Esquire Theater, Chicago (1938) Pereira & Pereira, architects /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

In 1938 Harry and Elmer Balaban opened the Esquire Theater in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood. The 1,400-seat house with its Streamline details and elegant appointments was dubbed the city's "classiest" movie house. Unlike other theaters around town, the Esquire candy counter would only offer patrons imported sweets from Belgium and France, and not serve any popcorn. It would be the only theater in Chicago, if not the world, that would contain an art gallery within its sweeping two-story lobby, featuring local artists in a rotation of exhibits. The Esquire would also only have one movie playing on its large screen, rather than the standard double feature. It was a formula that worked successfully for the next 35 years.

  [Esquire Theater, Chicago, 58 E. Oak Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

The Balabans were the younger brothers of Abe & Barney, two men who transformed the movie going experience in Chicago, the Midwest and beyond. Abe & Barney Balaban, along with Sam & Morris Katz, built the Central Park in 1916, the city's first movie palace, and in the next 10 years built some of the country's most spectacular movie palaces. In 1925, B&K merged with Paramount Pictures, and in 1936 Barney became the president of the studio and Abe retired. When their younger brothers decided to open their own theater in 1937, Barney told Abe to come out of retirement and give the boys a hand.

[Esquire Theater, Chicago, Near North Side, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

By the time the brothers hired architect William Pereira and his brother Hal to design their Esquire theater building, the days of the extravagantly decorated, over-the-top, 4,000-seat movie house had drawn to a close. It was a different time and elegance was defined in a much more subtle and sublime way. The late 1930s Streamline version of 1920s Art Deco fit the bill, and the Pereira brothers delivered a theater that fit the times and the Balaban's definition of refinement and culture. Soon after the theater was completed, William headed out to LA, where in a long and profitable career produced a number of iconic buildings like LA's original County Museum of Art, the and San Francisco's TransAmerica Pyramid.

    [Esquire Theater, Chicago, Oak Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

The Balaban boys opened a few more theaters around town but none were considered in the Esquire's league. By 1956 Harry and Elmer were ready to move on to other entertainment ventures and sold their small chain to Paramount Pictures, where older brother Barney still served as president. Elmer had been buying up radio and tv stations and was looking to expand. The Balabans actually installed a "television salon" in the Esquire in 1952, offering patrons the opportunity to watch news and sporting events before seeing the featured film. Over the intervening years the theater changed owners a number of times, and in 1988 the building itself underwent a huge change. The entire interior was demolished and a 6 screen multi-plex was constructed in the space that had once housed the single 1,400-seat auditorium. The theater closed for good in 2006 after 70 years in operation, and is currently being converted into a retail mall, removing about half of the Pereira facade while preserving the vertical Esquire sign.