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| Cor-Ten steel and the Daley Center (JWB, 2008) |
Once the pouring of
the caissons began on Chicago’s new Civic Center, there was no turning
back. Already thousands of hours
of work and hundreds of pages of drawings had gone into the planning of the
impressive building with the 87-foot bays.
Jacques Brownson
was adamant about the fact that the exterior of the building would reflect the
power in its design. “. . . I
wanted it to be a steel building.
I didn’t want it covered with marble. I wanted to have a structure,” he said in a later interview.
He got his
wish. The decision was made to use
Cor-Ten steel in the fabrication of the exterior elements of the building. The United States Steel product had
originally been developed for the bottoms of railroad hopper cars. In addition to its resistance to the
elements, it was a much stronger material than the steel of the that time. New tools were required to fabricate it
because of the additional force needed to shape and work it.
One of the first
uses of Cor-Ten in a commercial structure was in the John Deere Building in
Moline, Illinois where Eero Saarinen, Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo chose
Cor-Ten to clad the building in accordance with company president William
Hewitt’s insistence that the headquarters should avoid the latest trend of
glass boxes and instead be more down-to-earth and rugged. The Deere headquarters opened just a
year before the Civic Center was completed, clearly indicating how quickly the
Chicago building was planned and constructed.
The representative
of United States Steel (the only other bidder on the project was Bethlehem
Steel) was Mack Corner who submitted a bid for $13,1313,313.
“I can’t
understand,” said Brownson. “I
understand the thirteen million, but then you go into three hundred thirteen
thousand, three hundred thirteen dollars.”
Corner replied,
“Yes, I like threes. I feel very
comfortable with threes in the bid.”
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| The Richard J. Daley Center's massive cruciform columns (JWB, 2008) |
So everything is
cool, and Mr. Brownson jets down to the University of Florida where the windows
proposed for the building were to be tested. He’s sitting at Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami when the waiter
says, “Did you hear about the big accident up in Chicago that just happened
this afternoon. A building that is
under construction fell down.”
There was only one building in Chicago that was under construction.
The fourth and
fifth floors of the Civic Center had collapsed.
The investigation that followed the accident revealed that faulty welding was at the heart of the disaster. Welders were paid by the amount of weld they laid down, and someone on the night shift had cheated a little, laying little pieces of welding rod in the joints and welding over the top of them. On the outside the joint looked great, but good looks were not going to work in a building as massive as the new Civic Center. United States Steel changed their procedures, and the work went on.
These days with all
of the green roofs and L.E.E.D. certifications, one might think that this
hulking steel tower might seem hopelessly obsolete. But what we now call the Daley Center was and still is
remarkably sensitive to the environment. The windows in the building are of
dark tinted glass, which serves two purposes. There is the obvious effect on energy use. But the windows also darken the
hallways, making it easier to see what is going on in the courtrooms without
opening doors and disturbing the proceedings.
All of the
materials are native to the area.
Solid oak for all the doors.
White oak for the benches and woodwork. All the carpeting is natural wool. The granite is from Minnesota. The arms of the jurors’ chairs are upholstered, so that
nervous jurors, scratching away at the furniture, won’t do a whole lot of
damage.
Then there is that great plaza, Chicago’s agora. And on the east side the three flagpoles just north of the eternal flame, poles 116 feet tall, composed of three pieces of continuously welded three-inch steel plate, fabricated by the American Bridge Company, the only company that felt that it could undertake the assignment.
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| American Bridge Company's flag poles and the Picasso (JWB, 2008) |
And just to the
west of those massive flagpoles is the element that makes the plaza, the
Picasso statue. (Jacques Brownson
would disagree with the notion that the statue makes the plaza. If it had been left to him, the plaza
would have been open public space with the statue on the west side of the
building.)
How the statue, a
gift from the world’s foremost artist, came to Chicago makes for an interesting
story, a tale that William Hartmann tells in his oral interview with Betty
Blum.
All three firms
working on the Daley Center project agreed that Pablo Picasso was their
man. When they checked with the
mayor, according to Hartmann, Daley said, “Well, if he’s the best in the world,
go ahead and try it . . . I trust you.”
At the Art
Institute Hartmann found Allan McNab, an Englishman, and McNab knew Robert
Penrose, who had written a biography of Picasso in England. Penrose agreed to contact the great
artist, suggesting that Hartmann do the same. Penrose encouraged Hartmann to suggest that sometime soon he
would be n the south of France and would like to drop in and discuss the
project with Picasso.
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| Pablo Picasso's gift to Chicago (JWB, 2008) |
“Penrose said that
is the way to do it,” Hartmann said.
“You don’t make an appointment with Picasso. You don’t make an appointment at all . . . you telephone and
say you happen to be nearby, and he’ll say come up today or come up tomorrow,
and beyond that you can’t get an appointment.”
As the Civic Center
was being built, William Hartmann, Norm Schlossman, and Charles Murphy arrived
at Picasso’s villa at Mougins.
Hartmann had come prepared, loaded with “a lot of materials, including a
small model and lots of photographs.
Photographs of Chicagoans and photographs of Chicago and historical
photographs, a whole collection of things to stimulate and things to show the
importance of the site, of course, and what surrounds it and what it meant to
the city.” Included in the package
was a picture of Ernest Hemingway, a close friend of Picasso’s. the man whom
Picasso had taught everything he knew about bullfighting.
Picasso was offered
no guarantees that his work would be accepted although he a common arrangement
whereby the artist would be paid to undertake a preliminary study of the
project. Picasso was noncommittal,
saying, “I’m not going to agree to that now but I’ll think about it.”
Months went by with
no word from Picasso. Hartmann
continued to make trips to Picasso, bringing artifacts with him each trip,
hoping the inspiration might spark the master’s temperament . . . a baseball
cap, a message from the mayor, at one point even a Sioux Indian war bonnet.
Then the word
came. Picasso had something to
show. A delegation was quickly put
together, and the visit was arranged.
The whole delegation arrived in southern France, “full of glorious
expectations.”
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| (JWB, 2008) |
A call was made to
confirm the visit. Picasso wasn’t
there. His personal assistant
suggested calling the following day.
The next day . . . Picasso still gone. The next day?
Not there. It went on for a
week.
“He knew we were
coming. We met other people who
had come to see him, too, during that period, and they were all bewildered. So, one by one, people began to
disappear, leaving just Penrose and me.”
Finally, Hartmann,
who frankly admitted his reluctance to be the sole judge of Picasso’s work, got
in touch with the artist while checking his bags at the Nice
airport for his return to Chicago. “Oh how are you,” Picasso
said. “Where have you been? Come up immediately.”
So, finally
Hartmann was able to make a proposal about the sculpture. Again, he offered to pay Picasso for
the studies necessary to complete the proposal. Picasso’s answer was, “You know, I may not produce anything.
I may produce something that you don’t like . . . It wouldn’t be good for me to
have you turn down something, and it wouldn’t be good for you to turn down
something that I’ve done. So, it’s
best we keep this low-key all the way through, keep it calm and relatively
confidential.”
Back and forth
between Chicago and Mougins Hartmann went, each time carrying new sources of
possible inspiration. It became
evident that Picasso was enchanted with the project. “It’s curious,” he said. “Marseilles wants me to do a civic sculpture and that’s a
gangster city and Chicago wants me to do a civic sculpture and it’s a gangster
city. Isn’t it strange?”
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| (JWB, 2008) |
Finally, there it
was – a 42-inch maquette that is still on display at the Art Institute. Hartmann returned to Chicago with it
immediately.
A gallery was
secured in the Art Institute, lighting was arranged, and the members of the Building
Commission was ushered in to view the maquette that awaited their
approval. The last one in was
Mayor Daley, who had said something early in the process about his hopes for a
piece that spoke of blind justice and the wings of an eagle.
According to
Hartmann, the Mayor’s reaction was, “Hmm, I like it.” The members of the Building Commission followed his lead.
It became clear
that the sculpture should be of steel, the same steel as the new Civic
Center. U. S. Steel came up with a
bid of around $300,000.
“Well, it would be
much better if the taxpayers didn’t have to pay for this, if it was supported
somehow by the public,” Mayor Daley opined.
In one single
meeting representatives of the Deering Foundation, the Woods Charitable Fund
and the Field Foundation pledged one hundred grand apiece to get the gigantic
sculpture built.
One glitch, though,
Picasso still had not named his price for the great work. Hartmann took a check for $100,000 with
him and headed for France. After
preliminaries where Hartmann showed the working drawings, outlining how
Picasso’s original dimensions would be changed in the finished work, the talk
came around to money.
The great man was
given the check as Hartmann began the negotiations. “We couldn’t begin to pay
you for what this work represents and all this but everybody is so appreciative
and loves it so much, and I have this check which is a token form the people of
Chicago and I hope you’ll accept it.” Hartmann said as he handed Picasso the
check.
Picasso took it,
examined it, and then passed it back to his wife, with a one-word response,
“No.”
Hartmann’s
reaction? “I fell through the
floor . . . Here I’m going to get a bill for a million dollars or God knows
what, right?”
“No,” Picasso
repeated and then paused. “I want this to be my gift to you and the people of
Chicago.” And he passed the check
back to Hartmann.
Chicago greeted its
new sculpture with proper deference.
The city had refused to close the streets around the Civic Center for
the dedication ceremony, festivities that featured Gwendolyn Brooks and the
Chicago Symphony. But the streets
closed anyway, as people crowded into them to be a part of the dedication.
There were
detractors, of course. Alderman
John Hoellen said, “if It’s an animal it belongs in the zoo, if it’s art it
belongs in the art museum, but get it out of our parade ground!”
But, of course, the
great work has stood the test of time.
Think of Chicago and it will be one of a half-dozen images that
personify the city. It couldn’t be
in a better place, in front of one of the most remarkable works of architecture
in the city, with one blind eye and the wings of an eagle rising monumentally
above the gangster city.
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