Chicago Textures

I have a couple of major posts, on projects I'm working on, planned for next week. For now, though, you'll have to make do with yet another random photo post. It's a really cool one, though. Below are photos of the Bachman House, by Bruce Goff. As you probably know, Goff was an extremely eccentric, and extremely talented mid-century architect. His style was completely his own. His work has been referred to as "UFO"-like. What made him great as an architect was his ability to simultaneous balance the specific needs of his clients with his own very personal design explorations. Goff's designs have a tendency to use very unique materials and have very unique forms - but, despite all that, they are extremely functional.

Did you know we had Goff houses in Chicago? Well, he's buried in Graceland Cemetery, not far from Mies (the triangular headstone and green crystal on top match his personality perfectly.) That was my first clue. There are actually two Goff houses. One is the Turzak House located in Edison Park (on the northwest side, almost into the suburbs), and the other, this, is smack dab in the middle of the city, a five minute walk from the Red Line Argyle station, at 1244 W. Carmen. It is actually one of his less crazy, and very little known, works. Built in 1947-1948, it was actually a renovation (or perhaps we could call it a complete reworking) of an existing house that had been built in 1889. Both Goff houses in Chicago are designated Chicago Landmarks. There are several more of his works out in the suburbs.

My favorite part of Goff? He's from Tulsa, just like me :-) so we're kin, kind of. And I've seen some of his work, there, from when he was less than 20 years old, and it's pretty amazing. I'm not gonna lie, a perfect gift for me would be a copy of Bruce Goff: Toward Absolute Architecture by David G. DeLong. But the lowest price for it online is like $175. Sad but true. One day I'll have an attack of spontaneity and buy it anyway.

Sorry the pictures are all kind of the same. There's only one perspective to photograph this house from. And yes, that is unpainted corrugated metal on the facade...

This is a building I know nothing about. It's just kind of a forlorn remnant of Chicago history, but you can see that some effort was made to make it beautiful once upon a time. This is located directly under the Red Line a couple blocks south of the Lawrence station. I would assume it was built when the embankment above it was, about 1920. It looks all to be terra cotta.

I work behind the cornice level of the Carson Pirie Scott Building on State Street. As you might imagine, you can see some interesting stuff from up there. Here are some shots:

Just down the street from the Overton Hygienic Building is the Chicago Bee Building. It was built by the same man, Anthony Overton, but seven years later, in 1929. It is actually a combination of two buildings, a smaller brick one and a great Art Deco edifice. All the Art Deco ornamentation is rendered in shades of green. From 1929 onward, this building held all of Overton’s businesses, of which the Chicago Bee, one of Chicago’s African-American newspapers, was one. Overton Hygienic, the cosmetics company, continued to be headquartered in this building until the early 1980s.  The architect for both the Overton Hygienic Building and this one was Z. Erol Smith, whom I've never heard of - was he an African American architect? There would have been very few of those in the 1920s.

From the 1980s until the mid-1990s, the building was abandoned until the Chicago Public Library stepped in to save it.The first two floors of both pieces of the building were restored and integrated together into the current Chicago Bee Library.  It’s a weird location for a library because the Martin Luther King branch is only half a mile away, and given its usage patterns, it’s pretty much a glorified computer lab. Still, I’m glad it’s there because they did a nice job of saving the building.

The Chicago Bee Building is another of the nine buildings that make up the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville City Landmark District, which was created in 1998, and has also been on the National Register since 1986.

I was down at IIT last week and wandered by this grand old edifice in Bronzeville. I’d heard of it before but never really stopped to look at the details. While I personally like the Chicago Bee Building down the street more, this building is still really nice. A cornerstone building in what used to be “The Stroll,” the grand African American Main Street of Chicago, it is located at 3619-3627 South State Street. The building was built in 1922, commissioned by Anthony Overton, who ran several businesses from within the building, including Douglass National Bank, Victory Life Insurance Company, and the Overton Hygienic Company. Overton Hygienic was one of the biggest-name African American cosmetics companies during the early to mid-20th century and remained in business until the early 1980s. In the later 20th century, Bronzeville fell on hard times, and the building became a 375-bed flophouse. It was recently restored by the Mid-South Planning and Development Commission as an incubator for small businesses. There were lights on in the upper floors but the retail in the first floor is vacant, looking for new tenants.

The Overton Hygienic Building is one of nine buildings that make up the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville City Landmark District, which was created in 1998, and has also been on the National Register since 1986.

Stateway Gardens, formerly located along State Street from 35th to 39th Streets, was among the most dangerous public housing projects in the city. Before Stateway was built between 1955 and 1958, the area was a low-rise African American community. While not a great neighborhood, it had a grand history near “The Stroll,” and many of its mid-century problems were due the racial covenant policies of the city, which had caused severe overcrowding in the African American districts. Like all public housing, Stateway was built with good intentions, but through both problems of design as well as persistent neglect and disinvestment, the eight sixteen-story highrises became severely run-down. By the 1970s, they were a hot spot for murder and drug sales that not even the police could control. In fact, the police often took part in the problems rather than solved them.

Public housing is a topic I am fascinated with, so you will see more on it on this blog in future posts. For now, enjoy these pictures I took of the demolition of the last building in this complex, in 2007. Note the bright colors a lot of the tenants painted their units – a way to fight the dark conditions that surrounded them in life, perhaps.

Good books to read if you are interested in the history, architecture, and sociology of public housing in Chicago:

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh, 2008.

The Poorhouse: Subsidized Housing in Chicago, 1895-1976 by Devereux Bowly, 1978.

There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America by Alex Kotlowitz, 1992.

These are from an article from 1938 in Architectural Forum in which the Esquire Theatre was honored as their Building of the Year.

Front with marquee and unspoiled scallops


















Vestibule at front doors. This theatre, like many of its era, touted its cooling system. With modern climate control came the need to keep that climate inside the building.


















View of the lobby. What you don't see in this photo is that the colors were salmon, bright blue, and brown. Vibrant and plush.
















Second floor hallway (access to the balcony, art gallery, bathrooms.) Circles are a common decorative theme throughout the theatre.
















This space is known as the "Little Gallery." Because the Esquire catered to a high-class clientele, it offered them an art gallery in which to relax before and after shows.
















The incredible auditorium. Believe it or not, the Esquire was a movie theatre from the beginning.


















A side view of the auditorium, including the balcony.


















As with any grand building of its era, the womens' bathroom included a lounge for socializing.














The mens' room, on the other hand, looks surprising uninspired, given the grandiosity of the building. This could easily have been built today.