Results for “william kesling”

@Robt AM Snore: The architect of this "lame" building is already on the list you cited. And to rephrase my statement to fit your terms: I think evaluating post-modern, or "modern traditionalist" as Stern describes his style, is more complex than being creative vs. using it as a crutch.

@William: Johnson sure didn’t win his Pritzker for the AT&T Building, which was about his low ebb. Remember the Seagram Building? Or his Glass House? Bob Stern should. He used to hang out there all the time. Stern merely discovered there was easier money in pandering to nostalgia.

@Robt AM Snore: That has nothing to do with what I said. If you want to put up a list of architects that could do a better job than Johnson, it probably shouldn’t include Johnson. I know you said "last two decades" but that is a somewhat arbitrary delineation. I’m just saying its not a strong document to support your argument.

@William: Architecture should "draw inspiration from the past." Not use it as a crutch.

@Robt AM Snore: Not to validate Stern, but most architects prior to the mid 20th century were "copying" as all architectural styles relied on some historic precedent. TheBeaux Arts style would have been considered very modern to its contemporaries due to its implementation of rational planning and symmetry as a break from romantic and picturesque styles of the late 19th century. Even some successful buildings we think of as modern reflect forms inspired by classical architecture but manifested in the most current materials and in more abstract ways. I think revisiting past themes is a recurring exercise throughout architectural history. Stern’s work may or may not represent the best current exploration of these themes, but it seems natural to think that architecture is always going to draw inspiration from the past. His work draws on a period where the luxury apartment house was developing a glamorous reputation. It appeals to many buyers to try to recapture some of that nostalgia, Disney-esque or not. Maybe Sterns work doesn’t appeal to your aesthetics or your preferred image for the city, which is a fair criticism, but I think its more complex than being creative vs. out of ideas.

You folks did a lot of research here on these old homes, which is great — and then you bungled it completely by getting the simple things wrong. Things that were easy to check. Cyrus McCormick Sr. was NEVER an editor at the Tribune! That was his grand-nephew, Col. Robert R. McCormick, whose two grandfathers were Cyrus’s brother William and (on the colonel’s maternal side) Joseph Medill, a Tribune editor who was also Chicago’s mayor right after the fire (a job he didn’t handle well, BTW: after despairing about the misplaced focus of the corrupt city council on vice instead of rebuilding, Medill departed for Europe and spent the rest of his mayoral term there, not having the stomach for the job). Cyrus Sr. was Medill’s contemporary as well as an acquaintance of Chicago’s first mayor, William B. Ogden (when McCormick first moved to Chicago in the 1840s, Ogden loaned McCormick the money to build his first reaper factory in Chicago, on the north bank of the river’s main stem). Try more fact checking next time before you publish (or else get a reputable, know-it-all copy editor instead of relying on spell check). Just a thought.