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Originally Posted by patriotizzy
You literally lost any weight of opinion you may have had with this nonsense.
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No, I agree. The Morrison Hotel was one more massive block in a city filled with massive blocks. Looking at that photo, I can see why a lot of people thought downtown Chicago was unpleasant back in the day. The details on the tower were very typical for the period, nothing unique. It was just big and bulky. Compare that to the form of Chase Tower, which is not only soaring and dramatic but powerful and derived from form<function.
Chase Tower is not only a Modernist masterpiece itself, but also provides much-needed breathing space in the heart of the Loop, along with Daley Plaza and the Federal Center. Without it, the Loop would be just as unpleasant as Midtown Manhattan. If you show up at noon on a weekday, you see countless office drones getting a chance to take a breath, catch some sun and enjoy their lunch. The other two plazas don't have that human dimension, maybe because they provide very little seating. Daley Plaza is getting better, with the food truck program, but Federal Plaza is still a sterile, over-policed space, beautiful but cold and abstract. And no, please don't throw Grant Park into this. Grant Park isn't a useful open space for somebody in an office on Franklin or LaSalle, and it can't function as a replacement for open spaces within the Loop.
I don't get this notion that old=better as a tautology, it's just a pessimistic outlook and is not helpful in planning our cities. We can't build new old buildings, why spend so much time wrapped in nostalgia? Preservation has to be a balancing act.