I think you overestimate the number of people who know of Gang to be quite honest. If people were to walk through a Stern building and a Gang one, they'll be more likely to find prestige in the Stern building. There's reason for him being well known in New York of all places

Reason? You mean other than the fact that he is a NYC based architect? I guarantee you the average Chicagoan that can name a living architect is going to name Gang, but that's not fair either because she is Chicago based.

You're taking my quote out of context...My question was in response to a poster saying they'd rather buy in a Gang building than a RAMSA building. My question is: Which Gang Building?

......or a building designed by virtually any other residential architect, for that matter.........the list of exceptions would be very small - Lagrange would be on it, for certain - though after that, it would be much tougher to force such a list up to a handful or so......

It's more accurate to say that RAMSA buildings are building off of the prestige of older buildings, admittedly and by design, but there are no other architects that are carrying on that tradition at that level or scale.

The important distinction is that working from those luxurious old buildings designed by brilliant architects allows RAMSA to incorporate what makes those buildings so desirable in the first place, the components of what is considered graceful apartment living. Unfortunately contemporary architecture tend to focus more on exterior ostentation at the expense of interior livability.

The average person can barely name one architect - most people nowadays have no idea who Stern or Gang are, sorry. Some off us vastly overestimate how much people actually know about architecture or architects.

Most people in Chicago can name a few architects. I'm sure someone will accuse me of bias, but I rarely meet anyone here who hasn't at least heard of Gang. Chicago is probably a bit of a special case because people make such of a big deal of architecture here and are constantly going on boat tours, but most people that I talk to (and I talk about buildings A LOT) have at least some rudimentary knowledge of the topic and have a rudimentary awareness of Sullivan/Wright/Mies.

That's the thing though, they aren't "building off the prestige" of older buildings. They are aping them without adding any value. RAMSA is literally just stealing design motifs from nearly a century ago and cramming modern layouts and amenities like large windows into them. That is not building off of anything, that's bastardizing it.

Also, tradition? What "tradition" of Art Deco are you talking about here? Art Deco was a style that typified basically one decade of extreme economic exuberance and technological progression. It was heavily driven by the idealism and experience of that era. There was no Deco before it and, I would argue, no Deco can be built after it. Unless of course we somehow revert to an era of ocean liners, steam engines, and the invention of film and radio. I can see people making this argument for Neo-Classical design, but Deco? No.

Graceful apartment living? Deco wasn't even really a residential style, most Deco buildings are retail or commercial. Also, "graceful apartment living" was not a hall mark of the era nor does the interior of a RAMSA building have anything in common with anything built before WWII except a few FLW houses that radically proceeded the design standards of the second half of the century. If you consider cramped, tiny bedroom, tiny kitchen, tiny bathroom, chopped up victorianesque spaces to be "graceful apartment living" then yes, that's what made those buildings "so desirable in the first place". But that's the exact opposite of the interiors being provided here. What RAMSA is actually doing is wrapping a Mies apartment block in precast faux deco cladding. This building has far more in common with Mies than any Deco design from a layout standpoint. When Deco was in style the only person building layouts like this was FLW. Show me a single prewar apartment with a layout like this and I'll cede this point:

http://onebennettpark.com/wp-content...7_120516-1.svg
onebennettpark.com

And apparently you don't like contemporary design because you fundamentally don't understand it. This is literally the opposite of what is in vogue today. Radically contemporary architects like Rem Koolhaas take designing around the interior to the extreme. They literally outline their program requirements and then just stack them up in the most efficient possible orientation without regard to old school aesthetic rules that bind older styles like Mies' box or the streamlining of Deco. That's why you get buildings that seem very flashy from the outside, they are just a jumble of different uses where the exterior shell just wraps the use, it doesn't bind or constrict the use. Gang is an excellent example of this.

Take a look at her U of C dorms on her website. It outlines where the seemingly random or arbitrary shapes of the 3 buildings come from. It's all driven by the requirements of the university's house system and the common area uses like dining halls in the base. Each building is divided up into three story layers on top of a common area base. Every three stories is a house and then that layer is divided into pods. Each of those pods contains a series of stepped back shared spaces around a cascading three story atrium. The living quarters are all oriented around the shared areas. The exterior comes last, but even the angular dynamic facade is reflecting the stepped interior orientation of the pods. The site plan is influenced by the layout of a classical university quad bent around the paths of least resistance to pedestrian traffic (we've all seen how formal quads develop informal pathways where they don't reflect the shortest route from dorm to class). None of that has to do with just making outlandish wild exteriors for the hell of it.

Not to jump in with a very narrow comment, but what are ceiling heights like in these contemporary towers?

That to me is the main attraction of pre-war apartments ("period" buildings in UK parlance). My current flat in London has 12 foot ceilings. I wouldn't even consider living in an apartment built in the 1960s or 70s because the ceiling heights are almost universally too low.

edit: I've taken a look at the website and see the ceilings in this are 10' to 13'. Count me in as someone who values that over exterior aesthetics or architecural significance. Obviously better architecture is great all else being equal, but I would also rather live in this building than Aqua or anything that Mies built.

At least try to be objective. 2 bedrooms are the minimum configuration, of course they're going to be limited. The middle configuration, 3 is far more illustrative:

http://onebennettpark.com/wp-content...8_120516-1.svg

Central foyer, separation of public and private spaces, separation between master chamber and children's bedrooms.

I've had these conversations with some people who aren't all into architecture, construction, etc - which is most people - and most people only know a few architects like Frank Lloyd Wright. Most people in the city know of Aqua, but I've met and know so many people who couldn't name the architect (Gang) even if they had a gun to their head.

Our experiences are different, but I'd guarantee if you put a poll out there, truly a random one, you'd find more people who couldn't name these architects than people who could.

https://assets.dnainfo.com/photo/201...extralarge.jpg

Personally I think this looks perfect. Keep in mind that buildings all need support columns. I'd rather have the column in the corner be boxed out and give a space to hand artwork or place a table against, rather than a round column that floats six inches in front of the windows, with nothing but dead unusable space behind. That's not luxury nor impressive.

As for the baseboard section below the window, I just moved into a new office with floor to ceiling windows. There is a heating register that runs the entire length of the windows and which also floats six inches in front and to me just looks silly. Would have been better to build the heating vents into the wall. Make it look integrated and planned instead of an afterthought. (Probably was).

To me, the full floor to ceiling wrap around window looks cold and cheap.

THANK YOU! I believe you can achieve better interior design when there isn't full glass walls. Sure the view is nice. But at night you get a lot of back reflection and daytime you are out and about.

I was looking at a listing at lakepoint tower and all I got out of the photos was floor, glass wall, ceiling with furniture floating in space. Maybe that's okay for some people, but I want to renovate the interior to my tastes.

February 22, 2017

I and about 1,500 other people went for a run along the Riverwalk last night. From the south of the river, OBP is casting a noticeable presence. It's going to be quite visible from the south.

Thank you for those great shots SolarWind! This building's profile and dimensions when completed will be killer.

I understand Aaron and your points, but for me personally, having lived in both, I'm never going back from floor-to-ceiling/wall-to-wall glass...the views, the openness/airiness, the connection to the external environment.....superior all-around to me.......

13 floors down, 55 to go!

I agree with you here - I love floor to ceiling windows. That being said there is value in high rise apartments that more closely recreate a traditional living space. I have been in classic high rise apartments in NYC that were in a wonderful traditional style. And to forget you are in a skyscraper and then glance out a window or step out onto a landing and have that moment where you're like ' Oh yeah, I'm 40 stories up' is also a nice effect.

^^ I think that's a good way to put it. To me, this building seems like the kind of building that an older wealthy couple moves into after their kids graduate college and they want to leave the suburbs. A more traditional style lends itself better to that clientele from an interior design/decor standpoint. That's not based on anything factual, of course. I'm just looking at renderings and saying what kind of person I imagine living in this type of building.


As earlier stated, while not floor-to-ceiling, the windows aren't "small" by any means, anyways.

Feb 21