I enjoyed reading John McCarron’s column on Millennium Park, “Upstaging the stage, Once again Chicago goes out of town for `good taste’ ” (Commentary, Nov. 8 ). His thoughts brought into focus a complaint about Chicago’s new “look,” mainly at night. He is correct. Louis Sullivan recognized that anyone could come up with a high-flying, eye-grabbing design. Letting “form follow function” denies even a genius of instant acclaim, but when done well, the work will eventually get the attention that it deserves.
Three examples of shortsightedness and going for the quick thrill are:
– The “white castle” building immediately south of the Sears Tower. Any building that has to burn that many watts to get attention is never going to be embraced in Chicago.
– The Interstate Highway 94-Madison Avenue bridge’s blue lights.
– The Museum of Science and Industry’s year-round white Christmas lights.
(The last two are especially offensive because at any given time, many of the individual bulbs are burned out.)
These things make me think that we are going the way of Dallas, which, the last time I was there, had neon “halos” on many of its taller buildings and laser light connecting the skyline. We really don’t need to kill ourselves trying to be impressive; we just need to let our famed architecture speak for itself.
