Shaky Danny

Start with fire. You are going to build a fireproof house. Once you have a plan to build a fireproof Los Angeles house build an architectural model using the same materials, say an aluminum foil roof etc. Then take a blow torch and hold it to your model for a day. Dena means valley, Pasadena, Altadena…A valley is a wind tunnel. Say you have a surviving model. Then blast it with your garden hose, raising the water level to half the level of your model. Desert valleys flood. Make sure your model is somehow anchored, so it doesn’t float or slip away. Check your model for mold. The seals on your model must survive fire and flood. Then take a large pail of gravel and dump the gravel from some height on the steel framed model with the fancy Swiss made seals. Valleys also have rockslides. Make sure your model can withstand the landslide without moving. After that, take the entire diorama, including the model, lift it up and bang it on the table as hard as you can. Earthquake proof means...

Many people in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, are installing sewer valves for their homes. Some years back we had an impressive deluge and this is a reaction. Your stack or stand pipe may drain directly out to the street sewer. Putting a check valve or flapper in the way means that when the system hits load those houses refuse service and the overall pressure on the system will increase precisely at the time it is stressed. If you don’t have a flap then super tough on you, the effluent has to go somewhere. A product that creates its market. Once everyone has flaps there should be popped flaps or broken pipes. Flaps are necessary on flood plains. As flood plain construction is common it is difficult for other municipalities, such as Oak Park, to deny their use. Chicago used to require a basement floor drain. You were expected to share your suffering with your neighbors. Most people have their stack drain into their own sewer that then drains into the street sewer. This is a nice fea...

I thought of this term while visiting Indianapolis and seeing their library and a nearby church converted to residential. Mullet refers to a hairstyle that is: -business in the front and party in back. A mullet is a type of catfish. Mullet head is a derogatory word implying poor and therefore stupid. This word became associated with the hairstyle a few decades ago. While I claim credit for Chicago Facade, peeling the facade off an old building then pasting it on a new one to satisfy nostalgia, the Mullet Architecture term already exists. Examples given are Frank Lloyd Wright’s Winslow house in River Forest and modernist houses built in Nazi Germany which maintained a severe front. I am extending the term to Mullet houses that meet the requirements of historic districts while allowing large family rooms and kitchens. This type of restoration arises from envy of the Ranch styles with their dramatic living/dining and open kitchen areas. People living in Craftsman, Victori...

Trip Advisor recently picked The Art Institute of Chicago as its best museum . I like museums that have a flavor of subversion to them.  The worst museum in the world might be Epcot Center.  It doesn’t claim museum status but it is supposed to represent Future World, sort of a perpetual exposition. There is nothing subversive about Epcot. Drained of content it is nothing more than a people containment facility, which may well represent their view of the future. My current favorite is the  Door County Historical Museum  in Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin. It is jammed with the usual historical knickknacks. They have a discussion of fish boils. There is also a fascinating wildlife diorama constructed by a true obsessive. In the middle of the museum is a leftover jail cell with the key.  While I was there a girl locked her little brother in it. What little girl hasn’t wished to do that?  That is what a museum is for. My favorite exhibit is the  Mathematica Ex...

You can do this for any city.    Here are my picks for the Chicago buildings to use for the four ministries in 1984: Ministry of Truth: http://www.chicagoarchitecture.info/Building/1063/Leo-Burnett-Building.php Ministry of Peace: http://www.chicagoarchitecture.info/Building/1051/The-Boeing-Corporate-Headquarters.php For those who like that sort of humor it is located on Riverside. Ministry of Plenty: http://www.chicagoarchitecture.info/Building/1031/Chicago-Board-of-Trade.php Ministry of Love: http://www.blueprintchicago.org/2010/12/22/metropolitan-correctional-center/ Obviously Orwell’s descriptions are bleaker, give it time.

Large office buildings are unoccupied during the weekends.    Even when they are occupied, office management, by custom if not fact, feels entitled to turn down the heat.    On Monday mornings the heat is turned up again and the ice that has collected on these buildings falls off onto the streets below.    Certain buildings seem designed to take maximum advantage of this effect.    In particular the diamond topped Smurfit Stone building at Michigan and Randolph used to be the best example of this effect.    The diamond roof dropped all the ice directly on the entrance.  If there ever is a nuclear disaster I am sure that Chicagoans will still go to work.    I vividly remember people inching along the walls of the building hoping to get to their offices before being brained by the ice.    The ice dramatically shattered in the plaza before them sending fragments up into the air. Since then the building has constr...

When I was a kid, there was urban renewal.    This meant many vacant lots with construction debris, rebar, huge piles of dirt; they were perfect.    When they rebuilt the neighborhood, the adults asked us what kind of playground we wanted.    We tried to tell them: construction debris, rocks, huge piles of dirt, what we were saying is that we wanted our vacant lots.    So they put a bump, a little hill, in the middle of the playground. LaSalle Street is an architectural success, in large part, because the buildings have a common proscenium.    I have heard that word used to describe the theatrical nature of the buildings street level.    I think of it as a kick plate, like the ones at the bottom of kitchen cabinets or doors.    Even the State of Illinois Thompson center has a line distinguishing the bottom of the building from the rest.    On other streets, the buildings kick plate/proscenium, in deferenc...

When a Universalist temple requested a proposal from an architect some years ago, their principal requirement was that the new addition not be architecturally significant. They were terrified that architectural significance would deny them autonomy in the use of their building.      I’m put in mind of this story by the fuss over the old Northwestern Prentice Women’s Hospital.   Hospitals tend to favor neo brutalism and this building is no exception.    Four concrete towers are suspended around a central core.    The new Prentice is a glass Michigan Avenue style building with no more interest than any other department store, but time will tell.    At least it respects the neighboring buildings. Prentice has valet parking. I wonder how good the tips are. The point of the old hospital was to meet the challenge of the home birthing movement.    In the 1800s, all births were home births but now most births take place in hospitals...

Some time ago, in Chicago’s Hyde Park, well, on the border with Washington Park, Laredo Taft built a statue of a concrete very close to sandstone.    It was a variety of people, sharply cut, in a procession.    He built the statue around a fountain and over time, it eroded as he meant it to do.    The statue was the  Fountain of Time  and it was a performance piece.    Eventually it eroded to nothing and then some stupid people decided to rebuild it at considerable expense since he obviously hadn't made it correctly.    Today you can see a replica of Laredo Taft’s performance piece desecrating the site.    Thank heavens there isn’t an afterlife or he would be furious.    Admittedly, it still will eventually erode, but they completely missed the point. Over a hundred years ago, some Scots in Oak Park decided to build a temple.   They wanted to stick it to all the other churches in the area.  ...