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With advances in
architectural scholarship (and a corresponding loosening of
the self-conscious Modernist manacle), and the settling of certain (frequently,
but not always, Gebhardian) formatic traits, there was greater broad-based
refinement to the run of architectural guidebooks in America over the 1980s and
90s, even in those which carried the AIA's imprimatur (of which Atlanta's is, to
Canadians, noteworthy for being authored by Ernest Cormier scholar Isabelle Gournay).
Of this latest long-term wave, the AIA Guide To Chicago (Alice Sinkevitch, ed., 1993)
can be singled out, not least for the universally acknowledged architectural renown of
its subject city. ("The liveliest and most wide-ranging guide ever to Chicago's built
environment", as the back cover says.)
Given how Chicago, more than any other place in North America, has successfully
exploited and marketed "architectural tourism", it is astounding that it took
so long--a quarter century after its AIA counterpart for NYC--for a Chicago
architectural guide with this kind of scope and authority to be published.
That said, on very many levels AIA-Chicago is an exemplar of its type, and a
model to be regarded. The time lag, in fact, may have been a blessing in
disguise; it allowed the excessive fixation on the Chicago School-FLW-Mies-SOM
canon to subside, and research on Chicago's "other architectures"--including
landscape and urbanistic issues--to arise as a mature counterbalance. A comparison
with the previous "standard guide", "Chicago's Famous Buildings", is instructive;
while the earlier work presents the buildings as inert objects, AIA-Chicago presents
and implies a fabric, and elicits an broad-ranging, knowledgable intimacy with said
fabric. It's a true perambulator's guide. Like all great architectural guides--the
Pevsners, AIA-NYC, even Buffalo's--AIA-Chicago can lead its user, including the armchair
user, to feel as comfortable as a local...even, arguably and within reason, with regard
to "dubious" neighbourhoods. And without the touristy need to fidget over restaurant
and club listings, et al...
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On many levels, AIA-Chicago
sets an example to be followed, starting with
physical format; a handy coat-pocket "longbook" a la AIA-NYC, with a relatively
light grade of paper that doesn't scream out too-fashionable "architectural text"
gravitas. It is well, cleanly designed, and thankfully (miraculously?) sidesteps
the "Modern" quirks some think befit this town; it is clearly geared toward the
broadly enlightened beholder, and not merely the architect. Nor is it unduly
"biased" either toward or against the vaunted mythos of "Chicago Modern"; any real
or implied criticism it directs at the product of recent times is, by 90s standards,
perfectly normal and natural and more often than not justified. And to give added
gravitas from diverse realms, not only was it sponsored by the local AIA (as indicated
in the title) but the Chicago Architecture Foundation and the Landmarks Preservation
Council of Illinois. As the acknowledgments drive home, AIA-Chicago was a true team
operation, with Sinkevitch as coordinator rather than over-dominant personality--supremely
apropos in a city which has come to epitomize the revolutionary heroism of high-quality
"anonymous" production, whether in architecture and planning, in industry, in retailing
(think Sears and Montgomery Ward), et al.
In a general way, AIA-Chicago follows Gebhardian lines, but with an
interesting twist in that the more noteworthy buildings and districts are
highlighted through mini-essays; these, as well as the chapter
introductions, are given specific author credits (which reinforce the
"team" aspect), and collectively portray an eclectic and sometimes quite
luminous cast of willing contributors. (The apotheosis: Vincent Scully's
magnificent waxing over the Harold Washington Library.) Yet even the
uncredited capsule entries have zip and zest as they invite us on the ride
through sundry Chicago neighbourhoods, parks, streets, boondoggles, and the
like. (I'm most of all eternally captivated by the
just-gentle-yet-biting-enough deflation of the 60s pretensions of SOM and
their contemporaries at the University of Illinois at Chicago.) And of
course, in case you come by air and have time to kill (as I did on New
Year's Eve 1996), there's a chapter on O'Hare...
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If there's a
problem with AIA-Chicago (and it's a problem more for the
Pevsner/White-Willensky diehards), it's that despite its breadth, it still
refrains from "total coverage"; when one examines the key map, surprisingly
large swaths of the city remain uncovered (though admittedly, many of these
zones are not only anonymous but outright dangerous). Also, while Oak Park is
(naturally) given its due, it's the only one of Chicago's suburbs to be covered--the
truly appetite-whetted might wish for a "Greater Chicago" guide, even at the risk
of AIA-NYC bulk (still quite managable, by the way).
Curiously, AIA-Chicago hasn't been given the due it deserves. Perhaps
it's a bit because of the crisis of confidence which blew a lot of the wind
out of architecture's autonomous sails over the 80s and 90s (or else drove
it into more arcanely theoretical realms); also, such enterprises as
Richard Saul Wurman's Access Guide series, geared at the more general
enlightened "style tourist", pilfered some of the traditional architectural
guide's thunder. And in a pluralistic era when practically anything
within built culture (or, for that matter, unbuilt culture) could in some
way be cherished or reflected upon, and within a more thoroughgoing,
multi-aspected context--a far cry from the prima donna days of the
1960s--the necessary selectivity of even the best and broadest guidebooks
came to appear as paradoxically limiting. A shame, really--and it's a
dilemma shared by preservationist organizations, also exponential victims
of their own success. Perhaps we've just been conditioned to expect and
love too much. (And the advent of electronic technology brings other
questions in its turn.) But in a seemingly unwieldy multidisciplinary age
such as ours, it presents new and useful challenges, including that of
filling in whatever critical gaps still exist.
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Introduction
Pevsner and WPA
America: the first wave
AIA Guide to New York City
David Gebhard: America's Pevsner
Goldberger, Banham, and Moore (and more).
Buffalo: Vindication
Chicago: Maturity
The Buildings of the United States series
London + Vienna + Berlin = Cartesian Europe
One Vancouver, many Montréals
Toronto: Opportunity
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