From this vantage point, it seems crystal clear why the White Sox want Michael Jordan to play for them this year: They’re trying to fill an upper deck that’s too steep and too high off the playing field.
Of course, there may be other reasons for including Jordan on the roster. But remember: Last year’s American League West championship, the Sox’s first in a decade, couldn’t prevent the embarrassment of empty seats at new Comiskey Park’s upper deck.
In contrast, the prospect of Michael at the bat will almost certainly attract the curious to the squeaky-clean, sky box-bloated stadium, which was designed by the Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum Sports Facilities Group of Kansas City.
But wait until paying customers get a glimpse of Jordan from the 20th row of new Comiskey’s upper deck. Even Big Frank Thomas looks tiny from up there. M.J. will look like a gnat.
– Frank Lloyd Wright lovers planning to head to New York City for the Museum of Modern Art’s big Wright retrospective can put another exhibition on their list of things to see.
In addition to Wright shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Lobby Gallery across West 52nd Street from the Museum of Modern Art, Columbia University will present “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Wasmuth Folios: Representing the Ideal.”
The exhibit, which opens Saturday and runs through March 12, will display 30 lithographs from the 1910-11 edition of Wright’s early work published in Berlin by Ernst Wasmuth. The edition, which helped spread the gospel of Wright’s architecture in Europe, was titled “Executed Buildings and Designs of Frank Lloyd Wright.”
Shown alongside the lithographs-high-quality prints of Wright’s drawings of his buildings-will be photographs of the finished structures. The idea is to contrast Wright’s idealized versions of his architecture with the actual work.
The exhibit is presented by Columbia’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture and the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library. It can be seen in the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery in Buell Hall on Columbia’s Morningside Height’s Campus, Broadway and 116th St.
In addition, a two-day symposium on Wright is being sponsored by the Buell Center and the Museum of Modern Art. Titled “Frank Lloyd Wright: The Perspective of a New Generation,” it will be held Feb. 18 at the Museum of Modern Art and Feb. 19 at Columbia.
For more information on the show and the symposium, call 212-854-8165.
– Chicago architects Hammond Beeby and Babka won one of four national urban design awards announced last week by the American Institute of Architects. The prize was for their Paternoster Square Redevelopment Master Plan in London.
The plan covers a seven-acre district, including Sir Christopher Wren’s domed St. Paul’s Cathedral, which is in London’s historic center. It seeks to restore human-scaled streets and lanes to an area that was devastated by bombing during World War II and brutally scaled modern office buildings constructed in the 1960s.
Prepared for a consortium of developers, Hammond Beeby and Babka’s plan seeks to weave new offices, shops and restaurants into the district. A key part of the plan is to reopen views of St. Paul’s, which had been obscured by 1960s high-rises.
The jury commented: “The new plan for Paternoster Square integrates modern, large-floor office buildings into a scenographic urban precinct that will be a major improvement over the nondescript commercial district built after World War II. The new plan responds to the presence of St. Paul’s Cathedral and creates a pleasing variety of streets and public spaces.”
– Deerfield-based O’Donnell Wicklund Pigozzi and Peterson Architects, the fifth largest architectural firm in the Chicago area, has moved its Chicago office to One North Franklin Avenue from 168 North Michigan Avenue.
