People complaining about the loss of the Goose Island building over in the Wrigley thread made me think of another commercial building of the same era that actually was worth saving: the old HUB theater on Chicago. I don't know if anyone else has been to Forbidden Root brewery who took over that space, but it's a real adaptive reuse treat. Whatever remaining historical elements they could salvage were cleaned up and exposed from the old "The HUB" mosaic entrance tile to the original plaster ceilings. All the new elements are tastefully modern and made of reclaimed materials. I highly recommend it for the architecture, but the food and beer was pretty darn good too. Also, the exterior facade really shines now that they fixed it up a bit and added some lighting. Quite an eccentric building really.
glad im not the only one who thought it looked awful. this has the same sort of massing problems the proposed Uptown TOD project does. why is this still so difficult?
it's ugly, but it replaces a freaking gas station at a prominent intersection.
chicago has WAY too many freaking gas stations ruining prominent intersection all over town.
i don't like it, but i'll gladly take it.
death to all gas stations!
But why does it have to be one or the other? Too many times it seems the option is surface lot/strip mall/gas station or Ugly Ass Development; why are their so few quality developments in the neighborhoods?
I ask that more seriously and less hypothetically, is there some reason we don't get many good looking developments? I'm truly curious. I don't believe money is the only reason.
yea, im pretty sick of the "be glad youre getting anything at all" argument. we will never get better if we dont demand better. theres nothing inherent about this development that dictates it needs to look like that.
it looks like a prison, and i wish that was an exaggeration but its really not.
theres no way the gas station would still be there in 50 years (or even 5 or 10). theres a good chance this building will be though.
its a moot argument though. the lot is being developed. but they should absolutely be sent back to the drawing board. who designs something like that and is proud of what theyve put forth? how do you even graduate architecture school? id love to know the names of every institution the people who worked on the design aspect of this attended. they should be dragged in front of their former professors and openly mocked. and if their professors are the ones who taught designing a hotel after a maximum security prison is a good look, i think that goes a long ways towards explaining half the design fails this city has gotten in the past 20 years.
looking closer at the ground floor design, it looks almost entirely given over to automobile use. so yeah, this development probably wouldn't be substantively better than the gas station in any meaningful way.
in general i can live with ugly (taste is extremely subjective) if we're trading-up on the urbanism scale, but in this case it doesn't look there's much of an urban trade-up going on.
__________________ "Missing middle" housing can be a great middle ground for many middle class families.
At just 7 stories it should be a nice basic red brick building. Pay attention to the corner and streetwall, build to the lot line, done. But too many people would say "that's boring and common and traditional, we need something new." Well, it's none of those things is it?
When the economical brick building (what do you think all those vintage Chicago Common buildings were??) is rejected, that's what we get.
I have no problem with brick. All of the new stuff going up in Fulton that references the old warehouses I think looks great. Its what I wish we had been getting all along.
Just be honest with what youre doing. People have issues with the throwback designs because usually what we've gotten is some version of "Ye Olde Condo" or some overwrought post-modern disaster.
Unfortunately its obvious people are trying to go the "modern" route without even the foggiest notion of how to execute on the idea. Which is pretty sad considering its at least a 50+ year old concept and there are plenty of good/bad examples to reference by this point in history.
is it any surprise the proposal is coming from the current owner of the gas station? im guessing he has no experience with this sort of project. it shows.
I have no problem with brick. All of the new stuff going up in Fulton that references the old warehouses I think looks great. Its what I wish we had been getting all along.
Just be honest with what youre doing. People have issues with the throwback designs because usually what we've gotten is some version of "Ye Olde Condo" or some overwrought post-modern disaster.
Unfortunately its obvious people are trying to go the "modern" route without even the foggiest notion of how to execute on the idea. Which is pretty sad considering its at least a 50+ year old concept and there are plenty of good/bad examples to reference by this point in history.
And speaking of the architect, I think it speaks volumes that his website appears as an 8th graders half finished school project, most current "news" is from 2010, and contains a blank "Projects" page
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