This past weekend, I went to Wrightwood 659’s Romanticism to Ruin: Two Lost Works of Sullivan & Wright. In a truly serendipitous fashion, this exhibit works really well with last week’s post. It’s a similar theme of temporary vs permanent architecture but shed in a different light. Let’s dive in.
Dank Adler & Louis Sullivan (Adler & Sullivan) and Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) designed buildings that were seemingly permanent. (FLW was actually working for Adler & Sullivan in the time of Schiller, but that’s for a different history lesson). The respective clients had every intention, at the beginning, to build something that would stand the test of time. Schiller Building was a beautiful auditorium with offices above, breaking the ceiling of what a skyscraper should look like (height joke). The Larkin Building emerged with innovative building technology and reimagined interior office environment, including a new-to-the-time open floor plan. But in short, both buildings met the same fate with a wrecking ball. The permanent quickly became temporary. (Larkin was replaced by a surface parking lot, which is twist of the knife).
Both of these buildings mark a sad time in preservation history. Activists weren’t able to sway the decisions of the city nor private developers. However, the seemingly guilted retrospection of the Schiller Building did lead to a preservation movement here in Chicago that is still active, and successful, today (yay Thompson Center!).
With all of that said, I want to examine how this exhibit, in particular, has brought the buildings back into the permanent realm, after they had both been prematurely stripped of that identity, over 60 years ago. What are the tools that resurrected the Schiller and Larkin buildings’ permanence?
Documentation
The Schiller Building is a unique example of this because the city allowed a small team to document ‘existing conditions’ before the building was torn down. Extensive notes and photos documenting color, texture, material, etc all funnel into a fascinating, albeit sad, story of the dismantling process. The Larkin Building is a different tale. Photos of the finished product, both exterior and interior, circulate the architecture community, but not much was documented for the actual demolition. But nonetheless, all of this documentation becomes permanent, which breathes new life into the legacy of these buildings. (I’ll save you the philosophical debate of what these images represent and whether they themselves are a different entity of permanence)
Primary Sources
In the exhibit, original sketches, architectural details, and engineering drawings are displayed. As a 21st century draftsman (read: I use a computer), I am completely in awe of the craft behind these drawings. Every single drawing is a work of art. But I digress…. These drawings, like documentation, are permanent! Even if the building itself is not there anymore, these drawings communicate important design ideas and spatial details, at times better than what I think they would be in person.
Contemporary Fabrication
With the help of documentation and research (maybe those are one in the same), students and professionals were able to create replicas of various details from the Schiller Building. A full scale replica of some of the ornamental friezes (lights and colors included!) hung on the walls. A beautiful scale model of the entire Schiller building allows the temporary to become permanent (although, I am not sure of the future of the model). The interior space was 3D modeled, allowing for rendered fly through of the space. It was a great way to allow people to place themselves in the space, but I do wonder if their imagination could have done that for them. But, I think I am biased since I work and think that way all day long.
The exhibit was a great example of how to celebrate and honor a building’s legacy, even if the structure itself is not here anymore. It also highlights the importance of documentation and research. The Schiller portion of the exhibit was exhaustive (in a good way). The Larkin portion was lacking (they told more of the tale of the company than the building), but I imagine that’s just due to lack of resources. In short, recognizing the history of architecture (and how it is communicated!) is an important part of our architecture dialogue. With that foundation, then, we can start to understand how it impacts our present and future projects.