[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by headcase

Oh, and congrats for pulling me out of a two year posting hiatus.

SSDD

Thanks.

Originally Posted by ardecila

Now MVVA is fixing to tear up one of the few nice, fresh modern parks we have downtown, by a world-renowed firm (not just some local hacks) just so the wealthy new residents can get a swingset and a place for their dogs to crap. It's like when Trump ripped out all the nice grasses in his riverfront plaza, except worse - and that plaza had the same original designer as Parkview West! Hargreaves can't get no love around here.

The park thing pisses me off the most, that park is not at all a failure. In fact, it is probably the only place downtown that I have seen people actually engaging in recreation. I see people playing frisbee or other games on the lawn there all the time. Now they are going to replace it with another Victorian sitting room of a garden where you can't play ball because your suit or hoop dress is too heavily starched.

Originally Posted by chris08876

Yea IDK what is up with the Chicago boards. This thread is 4 pages of negativity. Your right.
this is like the GOP of SSP. Always nagging and complaining. Too many Glen Becks in this thread.

Be glad Chicago is getting something like this. The city is really not flourishing in developments at the moments like it was pre-2008. At least this isn't designed by Gene Kaufman. Stern has the right idea. This design is classy.

Lol, yawn. This is Chicago, we are not going to settle for trash just because the city is "not flourishing" which is an entire load of bullshit anyhow. Downtown is adding 3,000+ units a year again and there are probably several thousand additional being added in the neighborhood. More importantly this boom seems much more broad based than the last. I was just down in Pilsen at Punch House last night and it's shocking how clean and hip that area is all of the sudden. Clearly you don't live here or you wouldn't be saying Chicago is not flourishing.

Originally Posted by yaletown_fella

Also 15 CPW isnt "nouveau riche"

Yes it is, it is occupied almost exclusively by self-made men (and women) who haven't a shred of taste. Buildings like 15 CPW are literally what that word was created to describe. People like Jeff Gordon and Sting mingling with a bunch of "struck it rich" bankers from Wall Street most of whom grew up in the Bronx or immigrated from the Midwest. The building is jammed full of sports stars who no doubt didn't inherit a dime. Same goes with the movie star sect as well. I won't even get into the whole "trashy Russian billionaire" set either...

Originally Posted by vandelay

These posts are pretty funny and confirm certain stereotypes about Chicago being in the thrall of modern architecture. Mid-century architecture is as historic now as 1930s architecture. Thinking modernism is the be-all and end-all of good taste in architecture shows a certain narrow-minded provincialism. But that's expected where near-sighted, local pride is concerned, and Chicago can claim SOM and Mies as their own.

But from what some of you fanatics write you would think that Chicago is a land of blue blooded, old money aristocrats who live in Mies high rises, and this sort of tower is only suitable for that architectural and cultural backwater New York City. And that Robert Stern should hide in disgrace to that fly-by-night architectural school where he's dean, Yale.

Another lol. No one is asking for a Miesian box here though that would be a far more appealing result. We are asking for something other than pomo trash. Make it out of brick, but keep it modern. Make it radical like that Jeanne Gang proposal. But don't make it backwards looking trash like this. I think most people here would rather not see a featureless glass box like the saran wrap garbage that Related shat out across the street, but we just know what happens when you try to go old with pre-cast and it ain't pretty. Just look how heinous the buildings over on the other side of Michigan Ave are after just 10-15 years. The Fordham is constantly being maintained (though that's poured in place) for spider cracks in the concrete. Some of the other buildings are getting no maintenance and just look downright haggard.

There is no appeal in a design like this when it will just look like a housing project in 20 years because it is made of shit materials.