Saturday, March 19, 2011

Photo of the Week: Spring Reflections


JWB, 2010
Now that we’ve got that first 70-degree day out of the way, and all the cars have been towed off the snowbound Lake Shore Drive (There ain’t no road just like it anywhere I’ve found), it’s time to begin the uplifting business of appreciating what a beautiful city Chicago is.
On a sunny day you can do that in far more places than you can in most cities.  Parks abound, and green space is never far away . . . even if there is only a little patch of it.  A city needs that, especially a big, brawling hog butcher to the world of a city.
Nowhere is the city more beautiful in the summer than along the river. And strolling the River Walk on a bright spring morning, you’re reminded of e. e. cummings words:
i thank You God for most this amazing
day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

Mr. Trump’s tower is two-years-old now, and we’re accustomed to seeing its reflective surface.  But it’s like anything else; sometimes we become too familiar with something or someone and we don’t notice it, we don’t love it, as we did when everything was new.

But Adrian Smith’s design for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill rates a serious look, especially on a sunny day.  Here the reflective glass surface mirrors the great buildings across the river – Mather Tower, Hotel 71, 360 North Michigan, Prudential II, and the Aon Building.

THIS is what a great city looks like at the end of a long winter.

1 comment:

Jill said...

Outstanding pictures of the reflection in Trump Tower! What a great city!