Why Chicago Needs Another Green River

Chicago's Eisenhower Expressway
Present

 

Chicago's Eisenhower Expressway
After

"Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet ..." - Agent Smith THE MATRIX

Some years ago I started this blog with a proposal to make a high place for Chicago. Not a high place for religion or height. Although it could be. Not a high place of government. Although government would have to be a player. Not a high place of business. But who would pay for it? Lincoln Park, Grant Park, and so on would not exist if it were not for the philanthropy of Chicago's big business Olympia. Not a high place, or state, of being. This is not enlightenment. On the contrary, this can be a very real place for the City and for the non-City. Chicagoan and non-Chicagoan. Human and non-Human. It is for the better.




"Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not be realized" - Daniel Burnham




The idea of burying our highways is not new. Boston did it with its Big Dig, realizing a plan a quarter century in the making. Chicago has done it with Millennium Park, an expensive but priceless gift to the City. This proposal follows in the footsteps of these two great plans. It is not a little plan. It is a big plan that places a green roof over the entire interstate highway system of Chicago. These roofs will become a natural habitat. It's tendrils will connect all of Chicago's natural preserves creating a green network where there were six lanes or more of asphalt. The plan is a great grandchild of Burnham's boulevard system. Here, instead of a green that is Parisian manicured splendour, prairie grasses will be allowed to grow free. The roof will be designed with an exhaust filtering system that is more catalytic than mechanical. Cars will be put in their place. Thereby, creating a Green-network where forest preserves bordering the City and the Lake are interconnected.  Flora and fauna can once again migrate throughout the whole of Chicagoland. And Chicago will have a new Green River.

Tulip Days 2008

This is a design for a kinetic sculpture on Chicago's Magnificent Mile, Michigan Ave. The theme for the year called for celebrating architecture in the Windy City. I was part of a team from VOA Associates, Inc. that came up with this final design. The concept was that the City is not a static thing. It is always changing, growing, evolving. Our sculptural skyline was built with parts that responded to the wind. Solar powered lighting illuminated the whole from within. Good times.

All I Want for Christmas is the Empire State Building

In the 9/2009 issue of Architectural Record it suggests, "Ask architects what their favorite toy was growing up, and LEGO will likely rank among their top picks." Well it was true for me. I clearly remember tinkering with LEGOs for endless hours on end in my family's Rogers Park home in Chicago. I was in kindergarten or 1st Grade or so. An immigrant Filipino boy learning the Pledge of Allegiance in Mrs. Sterling's class, learning how to chicken fight on an asphalt playground without cracking my head open and learning how to cross Pratt Blvd with the help of an angel in the form of a yellow raincoated crossing guard, again, without cracking my head open. It was around 1974.

Well, LEGO, sparked by a bright, brilliant and colorful idea by Illinois, USA architect Adam Reed Tucker, has added more models to its year-old architectural line. Now kids and kids in their 40's can build their own Empire State Building, Falling Water and the Chicago John Hancock for starters. Tucker, in the above photo from his website, is an artist in his own right. LEGO is his medium. And he uses it to "Imagine - Invent - Inspire". So much so, his work is displayed in an exhibit in the Museum of Science and Industry of Chicago. Thanks LEGO and thanks Adam.

Oh ...

... Santa?

... in case you're listening ...

I have been a very good boy this year.

Live Forever - The Michael Jackson Monument Design Competition

This is my entry to Live Forever - The Michael Jackson Monument Design Competition. The competition is being hosted by Archinect and Bustler. Two great architecture/design websites. I love these competitions because they help me keep my design-chops limber. My description and photo source credits follow:

_____________________________

Inspiration
Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World”

Concept
A single reflective orb centered in a field of grass. The 30 foot sphere represents the world. Visitors at the field’s edge are beckoned to touch the reflective surface. Crossing the field is an act of coming together. Once the surface is touched, the world is healed. Upon seeing their own reflection, people realize that together they are healing themselves.

Location
Gary, IN, USA on reclaimed industrial shoreline.

Healing
The location shall be an example of how we can heal the world, a fitting tribute to Michael.

photo sources: Flickr users “Claudio.AR” and “fakebook” with last.fm user “Fish777-ka”.

_____________________________

Another inspiration came from Chicago's Millenium Park "Cloud Gate". But looking on YouTube, Michael Jackson's Superbowl 1993 Performance must have been somewhere in my psyche. As far as Jackson's legacy, I do hope all the controversy rusts away and the message of this song remains.

The Art Institute of Chicago's Modern Wing

Chicago has a new glass house ...

 

I walked around a bit. My mood was delighted by the floating Grand Stair. It appeared weightless in complete contrast to the grounded Grand Stair in the classical original building.

 

The LORD said, "Nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."

An artist's concept of the biblical Tower of Babel below:

Athanasius Kircher, Turris Babel 1679

Genesis 11: 1-5

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

Ground breaking for the Burj Dubai was 9/4/2004. There is a similarity between the Kircher drawing of 1679 and the under construction photo by photographer Calajava. People have been writing, blogging, taking photos of the new tower being built in Dubai for years now.
And I would think there have been people writing about the Tower's similarity to the Tower in the Bible.

The story of Tower of Babel has always been a stickler for me. Why would God deliberately divide us so that we can not reach our potential? Despite all the answers that I've studied and listened to, such as the Babel Tower was not for God but for Man's Pride, there is still a question in my heart as to why would an infinite God (or a god) be so threatened by the finite Human that this God would deliberately act to put us in our place by messing us up? Even human parents wish and give everything so their children can excel.  Why would a Father in Heaven be any different to his own Children?  Puzzling ...

Well, Bible or not, God or not, messed up or not, the Dubai Tower is almost finished with a delayed opening in 12/2009. Just in time for Christmas! Even before its december opening, the Burj Dubai stands as a 818 meter (2683.73 feet) symbol of what we can accomplish. God went on the record saying, nothing will be impossible for us. And it makes me think ...

What is next on the to-do list?

Chicago: Beanstalk City

02.02.2009: Humanity has grown to not only live off the planet but dictate how it will develop. With our abilities of controlling the environment, lengthening our life spans, our ease at circumnavigating the globe, we have pioneered the earth to find that it has its limits. Our suburbs and farms have taken away earths natural habitats. The wild is becoming increasingly difficult to find. And the wild we find, we cage into preserves. We can not continue on this course.

“Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet …” Agent Smith from The Matrix

We now have a responsibility to give back what we have taken. We need to create a habitat for ourselves. Abandon our suburbs. Contain our sprawl. Concentrate our lives and allow the earth to heal itself. Our cities shall be our habitat, our preserve, as in Chicago above. Our cities will use completely solar, wind, geothermal and other new sources of energy that do not make our atmosphere sick.

Similar in diagram to our own neural cells, our cities will house mega-populations in superstructures interconnected by a vast network of underground tunnels. Through which resources such as food will be transported, information and energy shared. Our concentrated way of living will relieve the earth of its burden to grow our food by constructing our own farms within the mega-structures of our cities. Farm land will be given back. Resources will be more conveniently shared by our proximity to each other. Our cities will be located throughout the world, like outposts, beanstalks to the sky, living among the wild life. We will allow the earth to self-sustain as we sustain ourselves in our cities.

We will use our earth-shaping abilities to save it, saving ourselves. We will be blessed to witness the resurrection of the earth’s natural habitats. By bounding ourselves, nature will grow beyond the fences we have constructed to allow lost ecosystems to replenish and redevelop. The entire earth will be a wildlife preserve. It is our honor to be stewards of how the earth develops. Let us step up the challenge.

When Architecture = Art

These models were being exhibited at MoMA in New York City in December 2008. I like the way they blur the boundaries between architecture and art.

Angels in the Architecture May 2009

I took this photo from the top of the Howard L Platform ...

Bungalow 2006

This is my take on the Chicago bungalow ...

Painting March 2009

Here is a painting I did over the past couple months. Acrylic on canvas 30x40. It is the Chicago Red Line crossing over Montrose looking south. I've always loved while living in Uptown on the northside of Chicago in the late 1990's.

New York December 2008

While visiting the family in Bergen County, NJ in Dec. 08, I was able to take some pics with my camera phone of New York. Magnificent!

Michigan in April 2009

After my most recent lay-off, a couple of friends wisked me away to southwestern Michigan. I was treated to a Grand Tour. Gracias, Jesus and Rolando.

Grand Rapids Arts Museum

Grand Rapids Storefront

 



Michigan State Building - Dome

Grand Rapids Storefront

Michigan State Building

Back to Architecture and the Circle Interchange

And to get back to business, there this great competition for you architects who have been practicing for 10 years or less. Go to http://www.metropolismag.com/nextgen/

I have some ideas of my own but I'm too old. It involves my favorite subject of getting rid of our dependence on cars. Let's bury the Circle Interchange!

Go Obama!

Visit to Beijing

It's cold here

Cold Chicago weekend! -5 F. Doesn't seem like much but just step out into it. Brrrrr

Thinking about adding more different stuff to this blog. Other than just architecture stuff. Art in and of itself seems to be coming back into my life. The business of the past year has been grueling and I'm really thinking, "Where have I been?! Where am I going?"

Went and bought art supplies at Dick Blick in the Loop. Walking through, putting acrylic tubes and brushes into the shopping basket, I forgot that I used to do more of this, not too long ago. what happened to all those supplies? Then I remember the fire at my Uptown apartment some years back. I guess that's when I lost all my materials. Boyfriend helped me get some hardboard to paint on. Need to get some wood to create a box for the frames. Here's my first attempts at murals some 10 years ago ...

The arched one for for a theater and the columns was for one of the actors in the theater.

Some cheasy subject matter. I was looking at how to paint clouds, shadows, perspective. An the actor wanted something with columns. Would Diego be proud? I doubt it. Would he take me under his arm and show me the way? Hopefully. Would Michelangelo take me in? Probably not he hated to paint! In any event, I realized at that point I liked to work big. Here's a dresser I painted. I kind of like this one. He he ...

This was also done some 10 years ago. It sold within the week.

Seeing these images again and buying those art supplies and hanging around other cooky creative types reminded me what I really love to do. Celebrated my 40th birthday this past December. Got me thinking about things. Like, "Ain't nothing left but to do it." So stay tuned ...

Westin Solved

Well it's done!

It was a real challenge for me and so many people were involved. Almost 2 years of my life were devoted to this project. Oh if these walls could talk ...

There was this cool engineering company that presented their skills today. Novum. Check them out. Amazing long expanses of glass.

Saw the work they did in Milan. Pretty cool. Gives me ideas for the high place I was talking about earlier...