Harvard Graduate School of Design June 14- 18, 2006: An Architectural Tour of Chicago
Itinerary
Wednesday - June 14
6:00pm Meet at Daniel P. Coffey & Associates Sears Tower, 57th Floor 233 South Wacker Drive
The Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois became the world's tallest building when it was completed in 1973. It lost the title in 1996. However, plans to add an extra 22 feet to one of its twin broadcast antennas may put the Tower back in the lead. Tall-building enthusiasts often argue that antennas don't count. But, it isn't height alone that makes the Sears Tower remarkable. To provide stability against high winds, architect Bruce Graham used a new form of tubular construction. Two hundred sets of bundled tubes were laid into the bedrock. Then, 76,000 tons of prefabricated steel in 15-foot by 25-foot sections were put into place. Four derrick cranes moved higher with each floor to lift these steel "Christmas Trees" into position.
6:15pm
Welcome and overview Opening Cocktail Reception hosted by Dan Coffey, MArch ’80
8:30pm
Return to Park Hyatt 800 North Michigan Avenue
For Late Stayers: Possible film screenings of My Architect-Lou Kahn Documentary and/or Sydney Pollack’s Sketches of Frank Gehry followed by a window view (eye level) of the Lakefront Fireworks from 9:30pm-10:00pm
"My Architect" is a tale of a son in search of his father — and in search of the private Louis I. Kahn. The two-hour documentary takes us to various built works of the famous American architect, from the Richards Medical Center in Philadelphia to the Capital Complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh. For a lay viewer, the film is a good introduction to Kahn's buildings. But the documentary is primarily personal. Kahn's unusual private life is more often the subject of the interviews than the work itself. For architects already familiar with Kahn's oeuvre, the film may add little insight. “Sketches of Frank Gehry” portrays director Sidney Pollack and architect Frank Gehry talking about the terror inherent in starting a new project every single time. Pollack’s experience and artistry are evident in the intimate feel of the story-telling and the gentle handling of the diverse cast of clients, colleagues, critics and assistants (plus Gehry’s shrink) from whom he elicits absorbing insights and anecdotes
Thursday - June 15
8:45am 9:00am Depart hotel Walking Tour of Downtown Chicago, with Dan Coffey MArch ‘80 Beginning at Chicago City Hall’s Green Roof with Michael Berkshire, Director of Green Initiatives for the Department of Planning 121 North LaSalle Street
The City of Chicago Department of Environment (DOE) initiated the City Hall Rooftop Garden Pilot Project as part of the Urban Heat Island Initiative with the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The rooftop garden was designed to test its cooling effects and its ability to sustain a variety of plants in three different depths of growing media.
11:30am
Tour of Harry Cobb’s Hyatt Center with Dirk Denison, MArch ‘85
In plan, the 49-story Hyatt Center tower resembles a football with sharply notched ends presenting a slender, elegant profile to South Wacker Drive and Franklin Street. The long façade on Monroe Street curves gracefully back to accommodate a public garden that complements the sleek expanse of glass and stainless steel spandrels, softening the sharp lines and hard surfaces. The glazed reception vestibules are 50 feet high - the tallest spaces in the building. Glass ceilings pull in natural light and allow you to look up one side of the tower.
1:00pm
Lunch at the Art Institute of Chicago with Jim Cuno, President and Director 111 South Michigan Avenue Presentation on the Renzo Piano expansion
The Art Institute of Chicago exhibits world art from all periods of history. Over the past decade, the museum has moved into contemporary painting and sculpture, sometimes at the expense of traditional programs. At first, contemporary work was taken from storage and hung in a reclaimed area of the museum. During the late 1990s, the Art Institute announced that it wanted to build a new wing, primarily for contemporary and 20th-century painting and sculpture. Contemporary art was recently elevated to departmental status. James Cuno, former director of the Harvard University Art Museums, was hired as the new President and Director of the Art Institute in 2004.
The addition to the museum’s northwest corner, designed by architect Renzo Piano, will add 264,000 square feet of new space. The project will cost $258 million. Piano received the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 1998 and is probably best known for his design of the Kansai Airport in 1996. His current projects include the Woodruff Arts Center expansion in Atlanta, the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, the New York Times Building, the renovation of the Morgan Library and expansion of the Whitney, and the expansion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
3:30pm
Millennium Park with Ed Uhlir, Executive Director Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Monroe Streets
Grant Park is Chicago's principal downtown park. It is located between Michigan Avenue and Lake Michigan. After the Great Fire of 1871, much of the debris was pushed into the lake, creating the fill for what is now the actual park. The Park's structure is based on the French parks with geometric designs. It consists of a series of bridges which cross the Railway tracks that are still on the park's compound. After the bridges, the park is divided in sections with l awns, trees and monuments, one of them being a statue of Abraham Lincoln. First planned in 1997 as a way to create new parkland in Grant Park and transform unsightly railroad tracks and parking lots, Millennium Park has evolved into the most significant millennium project in the world. Among the park’s prominent features is the dazzling Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the most sophisticated outdoor concert venue of its kind in the United States, designed by Frank Gehry.
6:00pm
River and lake front cruise on Chicago’s Little Lady with Mary Ludgin of the Chicago Architectural Foundation Return to hotel
9:30pm
Friday - June 16
8:30am 9:00am Bus departs from hotel Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio 931 Chicago Avenue, Oak Park Walking tour of Oak Park, including an outdoor perspective of 7 private Frank Lloyd Wright homes
The walking tour in the Oak Park neighborhood features the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio, Robert P. Parker House (1892), Thomas H. Gale House (1892), Walter H. Gale House (1893), Dr. William H. Copeland House (1908-09), Nathan G. Moore House (1895, 1923), Arthur B. Heurtley House (1902), Edward R. Hills House (1906), Peter A. Beachy House (1906), Frank. W. Thomas House (1901), Mrs. Thomas H. Gale House (1909), Francis J. Woolley House (1893), H. P. Young House (1895), George W. Smith House (1898), and the Unity Temple.
11:30am
Lunch and a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple 875m Lake Street, Oak Park
Upon its completion in 1908, Frank Lloyd Wright said that “Unity Temple makes an entirely new architecture…and is the first expression of it. That is my contribution to modern architecture. And that, to me, is modern architecture.” Much of the architectural community quickly agreed with Wright’s own assessment of his design. The most interesting feature of Unity Temple is Wright’s manipulation of the flow of interior spaces. His use of multiple receding planes can be seen in the arrangement of the seating, the organ screen, and the windows in the auditorium, which focus attention on the pulpit and central performance area. Wright’s ingenious use of wood trim draws the visitor’s eye around the building, flowing in and out of balconies, around columns, and snaking up stairwells.
1:30pm
Center for Green Technology with Kevin K Pierce, AIA Principal, Farr Associates Architecture and Urban Design 445 North Sacramento Boulevard
Chicago Green Tech's building was originally constructed in 1952. Since then a number of different companies have owned the building. In 1999, after removing over 600,000 tons of concrete and other debris that had been left on the property, the Department of the Environment was the proud owner of a cleaned site and vacant building. Rather than simply renovating the building using traditional methods, DOE seized the opportunity to create an energy efficient building using the highest standards of green technology available. The building opened to the public in May of 2002.
3:00pm
Skybridge Condominium with Ralph Johnson, FAIA, MArch '73, Firm Wide Design Principal, Perkins + Will One North Halstead
Defy the conventional. That was the design objective of this award-winning 39-story residential tower in the "Greektown" neighborhood of downtown Chicago. The 800,000 square foot tower's innovative vertical and horizontal organization creates a random, village-like quality while allowing forwardthinking design flexibility — height, width, or the number of living units can change to accommodate fluctuating market conditions.
3:30pm
Contemporaine Condominium tour, including exclusive penthouse visit with Ralph Johnson 516 North Wells
Located on a corner lot in the downtown Chicago River North area, this 28-unit, 96,000 square foot condominium building includes a four-story retail and parking base below the 11-story residential tower. Tight site restrictions required innovative design solutions. The base of the building fills the entire lot yet achieves a pedestrian scale. Mirroring the tower above, the structure of the parking garage is exposed with floor-to-ceiling glass.
4:30pm Neisser Condominium with Margaret McCurry, FAIA, LF '87, Partner, Tigerman McCurry Architects 900 North Michigan Avenue
The question of details--their absence and presence--crops up frequently as Stanley Tigerman, FAIA describes the voluptuously spare high-rise apartment he and partner Margaret McCurry, FAIA created for client Judith Neisser. The architects' differing design sensibilities proved singularly compatible in producing a space Tigerman characterizes as "deliberately empty, so you focus on the art." The space's impact comes from a serene austerity, achieved in part by the relentless elimination of extraneous detail. Sumptuous materials, like the soft Portuguese limestone floors and the leather that covers the built-in banquets, were chosen for subtlety, rather than showiness.
5:30pm
Return to hotel Evening free
Saturday - June 17
8:00am Bus departs from hotel Jackson Park, site of 1893 Columbian Exposition 6401 S. Stony Island Avenue
Neither as popular as Lincoln Park nor as stately as Grant Park, Jackson Park is instead more of a peaceful sanctuary, comfortably buffered from the crime and poverty for which the South Side is known. It is located about 8 miles south of the Loop, adjacent to the Hyde Park neighborhood and University of Chicago to the northwest and Lake Michigan to the east. The park provides 600 acres of lush vegetation, lagoons, and beach area.
Rafael Viñoly’s University of Chicago Graduate School of Business 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue
Designed by world-renowned architect Rafael Viñoly, the Hyde Park Center, located on the University of Chicago campus in the Hyde Park neighborhood, features a six-story glass atrium topped by curved steel beams that form Gothic arches, a signature of the university's architecture.
10:00am
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House 5757 S. Woodlawn Avenue
The Robie House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for his client Frederick C. Robie, is considered one of the most important buildings in the history of American architecture. Designed in Wright's Oak Park studio in 1908 and completed in 1910, the building inspired an architectural revolution. Its sweeping horizontal lines, dramatic overhangs, stretches of art glass windows and open floor plan make it a quintessential Prairie style house.
11:15am
South Shore Drill Team Center with architect John Ronan, MArch ’91 7200 S. Ingleside Avenue Lunch at Zapatista 1307 S. Wabash Ave.
12:00pm
1:00pm
IIT Tour with Mies van der Rohe Society and Jeanne Gang, MArch ‘93 3201 South State Street
Student Center by Rem Koolhaas The McCormick Tribune Campus Center is located at the historic 120-acre (50-hectare) campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. The new Campus Center, designed by Rem Koolhaas, includes two primary components: A 10,690 square meter, one-story building, sheathed in metal and glass, and a 161 meter (530 feet) long stainless steel tube that sits directly above the building’s roof, significantly muffling the noise and vibration generated by passing trains. New Student housing by Helmut Jahn State Street Village, located at State and 33rd Streets, immediately west of the Chicago Transit Authority’s Green Line elevated train tracks, was designed by noted Chicago architect Helmut Jahn. It is Jahn’s first student residence hall design and his first new building in Chicago in a decade. Constructed of poured-in-place concrete and clad in glass and corrugated stainless steel panels, Jahn’s Village also features concrete and glass sound walls, to reduce commuter train noise and vibration. Interiors boast exposed concrete walls and floors, stainless steel fixtures and flexible room furnishings to meet the needs of today’s students. Renovation of Mies van der Rohe’s Crown Hall Mies van der Rohe’s Crown Hall, home to the Architecture School at IIT, is one of the purest expressions of the late Modern Movement and a cherished icon of 20th century architecture. Atelier Ten and Transsolar were hired by IIT to explore how the many comfort problems in the building can be addressed in the upcoming renovation without changing the appearance of this masterpiece. Furthermore the Architecture School wanted a solution that reduced energy consumption and would allow them to use the building’s original mixed mode ventilation strategy. Through energy and daylight simulations Atelier Ten and Transsolar developed a renovation plan that greatly improves comfort, reduces energy consumption by fifty percent, and restores many of Crown Hall’s original architectural details.
2:30pm
Return to hotel
***BREAK***
6:45pm 7:00pm
Depart hotel Dinner and discussion with Professor Alex Krieger at the Cliff Dweller’s Club 200 South Michigan Avenue.
Alex Krieger is a co-founding principal of Chan Krieger & Associates and a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he serves as a Chairman of the Department of Urban Planning and Design. A former director of the NEA's Mayor's Institute in City Design, he is a frequent advisor to mayors and their planning staffs. Mr. Krieger received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University and a Master of City Planning in Urban Design degree from Harvard University. The Cliff Dwellers is a private club founded at the turn-of-the-century for the city’s artists, musicians and architects and patrons of the arts. One hundred years later, the Club continues is to provide a forum for all who love and support the arts in Chicago. Harvard’s expansion in Allston Harvard began to develop a campus in the Allston neighborhood of Boston in 1925. In 1908, Harvard established a graduate school of business administration located in scattered sites throughout Cambridge. By August of 1924, an architectural competition for the new Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration on the Allston site was announced, which attracted some two hundred proposals. From these, twelve firms were asked to compete and in January 1925, a jury awarded the design to McKim, Mead and White of New York. The renowned Fredrick Law Olmstead designed the landscape for the campus. Today, Harvard facilities in Allston include 28 buildings for the Business School, nine buildings associated with the athletic field and nine buildings for other university purposes, totaling 2.5 million gross square feet. The Soldiers Field athletic area, in Allston since 1890, includes the Harvard Stadium, a National Historic Landmark. Today, Harvard faces a major challenge. The development potential within Cambridge is limited: individual academic units reside in collegial precincts, and face scarce siting choices as they seek to maintain a sense of coherence. Most remaining sites in Cambridge involve conflict at the interface between Harvard and the wider community. In addition, the estimated development potential in the Cambridge campus is likely to be reached in 10 to 15 years. How to best expand Harvard facilities into Allston is currently a high priority issue.
10:30pm
Return to hotel
Sunday- June 18
10:30am 11:00am Depart hotel Closing brunch at the home of Avi Lothan, MArch ‘82 838 West Webster Avenue, Lincoln Park Event Concludes
1:00pm