It’s Chicago’s great urban square-home to the Picasso sculpture, political protests and pigeons by the dozen. Now, the Richard J. Daley Center Plaza is about to get a new granite surface and a redesign that will try to stay faithful to the modernist roots of the plaza and its identity as a civic gathering space.
The $7 million plan, still in sketchy form, is being prepared by Chicago architects Decker Legge Kemp and is expected to be presented to Mayor Richard M. Daley in October, according to a spokeswoman for the Public Building Commission, the state-chartered agency that is the Daley Center’s landlord. Daley is chairman of the commission.
The plaza’s gray granite surface has been damaged by heavy vehicular traffic associated with public events, including tanks and fire trucks. Many cracked granite blocks have been patched with concrete. Work is scheduled to begin in early 1995, the commission spokeswoman said, and would take 10 months to complete.
When talk of a redesign surfaced late last year, several prominent Chicago architects expressed concern that Daley, a tree lover, would “shrub up” the plaza with bushes and greenery that would be at odds with the hard-edged geometry of the 29-year-old public square.
Perhaps to allay their worries, Decker pointed out that his firm has met with the Daley Center’s chief architect, Jacques Brownson, now of Denver, and would show his completed plan to Brownson. “I think we owe him that,” Decker said.
Decker said several steps are under consideration for the redesign: additional plantings for the plaza’s western side, where there are now two trees; granite benches that would allow people to face each other as they sit instead of sitting like birds on a wire; and raising the plaza’s now-sunken fountain to the granite surface, improving access for people with disabilities and increasing the amount of usable space when the fountain is turned off.
Benches would be located in and around the plaza’s southwest corner, Decker said, adding that his firm had rejected the cliched idea of tables, chairs and umbrellas. In keeping with the plaza’s modernist aesthetic, the benches would not have backs or arms, but would be similar to the benches at the nearby Chicago Federal Center plaza. And, Decker said, the benches would be movable-but heavy enough so they could be moved only by work crews.
– Moshe Safdie of Boston, who first achieved public notoriety with the experimental Habitat housing development at Expo ’67 in Montreal, has bested a field of top architects vying to design a new science center and children’s museum in Wichita, Kan.
Safdie, whose recent commissions include the National Gallery of Canada, was one of six finalists for the $45 million project. The others were Norman Foster of London; Frank Gehry of Los Angeles; Hugh Hardy and James Polshek, both of New York City; and Christian de Portzamparc of Paris, winner of this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Safdie is expected to prepare a preliminary design for the center in six to nine months. Groundbreaking is scheduled for 1996, with the opening set for 1998.
– Chicago architect George Schipporeit, who co-designed the suavely curving Lake Point Tower west of Navy Pier, has been named interim dean of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He replaces Chicago architect Jack Hartray, who became interim dean after the resignation of Gene Summers.
The move leaves both of Chicago’s big architecture schools without permanent leadership. Recently, the University of Illinois at Chicago announced that Chicago architect Kenneth Schoeder had been named director of its architecture school for two years while it continues its search for a permanent director.
Schipporeit, who will be interim dean for one year, studied at IIT from 1955 to 1957 under the chairmanship of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He has been an associate professor at the College of Architecture since 1980 and was dean of the college from 1983 to 1989. His Lake Point Tower, designed with Chicago architect John Heinrich, has won national honors from the American Institute of Architects.
An IIT spokeswoman said that three candidates, all deans at other design schools, are under consideration for the permanent dean’s post, which is expected to be filled by next fall.
– Are there alternatives to suburban sprawl and the problems that inevitably accompany it-traffic jams, air pollution and the destruction of prime farmland?
That question gets a hearing Saturday at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake, which is sponsoring a seminar along with the McHenry County Defenders, an environmental group, and Architects, Designers and Planners for Social Responsibility.
The fee for the seminar, which runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., is $12 and includes lunch. Call 815-455-8588.
