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Chicago, Illinois
Take the train on up to the zoo, don't look back on what you've been through
After AIA Conventions in Denver, Washington, DC, New Orleans, Miami, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles, we head to Chicago and to a convention that I found myself really looking forward to. Sure, I’ve been to Chicago- in the past five years I’ve been there at least seven times, not counting airport layovers. But the reason I keep coming back is that there’s just so damn much to see, and I was certainly hoping that with the AIA Convention coming to town that the city would step up with tours and events and all sorts of once in a lifetime experiences.
This picture, as well as the one that came before it, is from ET 117: Residential Architecture, the first tour that I took and a hell of a good way to start. As you probably remember from reading seven years of emails about my time at AIA Conventions, ET stands for educational tour and not eastern time or electrothermal. and that I spend pretty much all of my time going on these tours. This one included some really interesting private homes and ended on a high floor, river view apartment at Bertrand Goldberg’s iconic Marina City, where even the view straight down is spectacular.
The particular apartment that we visited at Marina City included three balconies (it was apparently expanded over time) and it was furnished tastefully with all of the Mid-Century Modern furniture you would expect and probably buy yourself if you were lucky enough to live here. But the interior really didn’t matter all that much since everything was about the windows and the balconies and the views. And standing out on those balconies so high above the river and face to face with the tops of all of those towers, was a once in a lifetime experience where not even the bad weather (or all of those other architects constantly in the way) mattered at all.
Our next once in a lifetime experience is ET 301, a tour of the spectacular (still) new Aqua Tower designed by Jeanne Gang, who will lead the tour herself. Unlike the Marina City tour, we mostly stayed outside and in public areas, but none of that mattered since the stories by the architect made you forget about all that. Jeanne Gang (pictured on the left in the second picture) arrived by bicycle, walked really fast and was a hell of a good tour guide.
If you were wondering what the Aqua balconies are like, wonder no more. One of the advantages of visiting Chicago at least seven times in the past five years, not counting airport layovers, is that during those times I was actually doing and seeing things. This allows us to take a one time only time jump back to 2013 and Open House Chicago, when Aqua and an upper floor balcony were open for business.
The Jeanne Gang (whose office is somewhat menacingly called Studio Gang) pictures just keep coming with the South Pond Pavilion up at the Lincoln Park Zoo. This pavilion doesn’t really do all that much (in reality, most pavilions are kind of under performers when you think about it), but it does a good job of framing the views of the skyline and kind of looks just a little like the tortoise shell it’s supposed to.
As you know, I’m all about the tours at an AIA Convention. As soon as they come out, I start to rank them on several loosely defined criteria. First off, is this a really unique tour that offers special access to a building or architect? Second, is it something really interesting (or at least more interesting than the other available options) and third, is there something new I can actually learn? I will then check and recheck the schedule because often the best tours seem to conflict with each other, and then start to book them, usually on the first day and within hours of registration opening since history has taught me that the good tours sell out quickly. Then, and only then, I will check the holes in my schedule to see if a good option is available, or if I’m better off just taking the time off and doing things on my own. It is Chicago after all, and if you give me a few hours free, chances are damn good that I’ll find something good to do.
That brings us to ET 314, Edgar Miller in Old Town. I was a bit hesitant to book this tour and almost cancelled it after the fact. While it met most of the loosely based criteria I use to evaluate potential tours (like special access and learning something new), I really wasn’t familiar enough with Miller to make the tour feel like a priority in a city and convention full of them. Still, I ended up keeping the tour on my schedule and, despite going in with admittedly low, found real value in the buildings and tour. Truthfully all (or. more accurately, almost all) of the AIA tours are pretty solid and worth your time, and even a three start tour can often shine as much as a five star one.
One of the great things about Chicago is that you don’t need a car and it’s pretty easy to get around. From Helmut Jahn’s still beautiful United Terminal at O’Hare (see first picture), it’s a easy (although often a long, slow ride) on the Blue Line to the Loop, and I’ve taken the train often enough I think I can list the stations from memory. My hotwire hotel was actually the very nice James Hotel (or possibly just James) on Ontario Street, a few blocks west of Michigan Avenue and not that far from all of the action. Logistically though it was not all that easy to get to the convention center, although honestly, that’s kind of a problem from anywhere. In a city so connected, it seems to be one of the places that’s been forgotten.
Getting to the convention center started with a 20 minute walk over to Millennium Park Station (see second picture) and then a very, very slow (and relatively infrequently scheduled) Metra Train to a station technically at the convention center but always at the farthest possible point from where I needed to be that morning. Luckily getting back was a lot easier since I was able to sneak out after the tours which were all closer to my hotel (and the actual city) than they were to the convention center.
