In my mind there is one building in Chicago, more than any
other, that combines the primal energy of the city’s smoky, brawny past and the
pinky-up hankering to rise out of the swamp as a world-class cultural
player. It was finished in 1965
and combined the collective talents of three great architectural
firms in the city. Of course, it
is the Richard J. Daley Center and it sits on one of three great public plazas
running between Dearborn and Clark from Jackson on the south to Randolph on the
north, all three finished in the ten years between 1965 and 1974.
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| The Richard J. Daley Center (JWB, 2011) |
Built of Cor-Ten steel, originally designed for use in
railway hopper cars, and sitting atop massive 87-foot bays on its north and
south sides, in 1965 the Civic Center proclaimed Chicago’s position in the very
forefront of modern architecture.
The addition, in 1967, of a monolithic sculpture, donated by Pablo
Picasso, also made a statement.
Although plenty controversial at the time, the Picasso shouted, “Wese in
da windy city has got us some class.”
The whole shebang, the building, the statue and the great
public mall was a message that underscored the old words of first ward alderman
Hinky-Dink Kenna who once said, “Chicago ain’t no sissy city.”
In was a union in which the great firms of C. F. Murphy,
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and Loebl, Schlossman and Bennett contributed a
total of 150 personnel to an independent entity titled the Chicago Civic Center
Architects, operating out of Holabird and Roche’s Monroe Building at 104 South
Michigan Avenue.
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| Jacques Calman Brownson |
Jacques Brownson of C. F. Murphy was, for all intents and
purposes, the head of the project.
(Much of the information in this blog comes from Mr. Brownson’s oral
history at the Burnham Ryerson Library.)
C. F. Murphy was in charge of the structural planning, along with the
building’s electrical systems.
Skidmore oversaw the planning of the heating, ventilating and air
conditioning systems while Loebl, Schlossman and Bennett contributed personnel
to help with the design of the building.
The arrangement was, to say the least, unusual and at the beginning of
the process, unwieldy.
Things began to move along more quickly once it was decided
that there would be one building on the plaza that would contain somewhere
around 150 courtrooms, along with the Board of Health, and, because of a fairly
tight budget, no parking on the site.
Mr. Brownson observed, “I would walk over there early in the morning,
late at night, all the time. I
kept going there. I said, ‘. . .
If it’s a courts building, it has to have a forecourt. It has to be full of sunlight.’ Because
Chicago is dark and cloudy and gloomy and dismal enough, you know. I said, ‘It has to have sunlight in
it.’”
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| Henrici's, the oldest restaurant in Chicago until 1962 |
The problem was that the original plan called for using just
half the lot, preserving the older buildings that fronted Randolph Street, among
them the much-loved Henrici’s, the oldest restaurant in town, established in
1868 and standing on Randolph since 1893.
With only half a lot the building would have to be erected without a
plaza.
As Mr. Brownson tells the story, the team assembled a slide
show to accompany their presentation of the model of the building to the Public
Building Commission. The last
slide was a photograph of an old man and woman sitting within the crescent of
columns in the palazzo of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome with the sun shining on
them. Mayor Daley exclaimed,
“That’s what we want! That’s what
we want!”
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| Picasso Meets Daley (JWB, 2008) |
The serious business of designing the structure was far more
complex, and much of the reason for that was the variety of purposes that space
inside the structure had to serve.
Jury courtrooms had to provide space for a jury room and jury
seating. Conference rooms for
lawyers were required. Courtrooms
that would hear larger cases needed more space with higher ceilings. In the beginning, no matter what the
plan was, the architects always ended up with a supporting column coming down
through the middle of the space they were trying to create.
That’s where the idea for the massive bays that still make the Daley Center, as it is known today, an engineering marvel. More to come in the next few days on the building the Boss built . . .
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