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| The Miami Herald headquarters, Miami of 1963 (Wikipedia Photo) |
A few days back the online Architectural
Record contained a piece by Miami
Herald writer Andres Viglucci which detailed the 6-4 vote by Miami’s
historic preservation board to consider the Miami Herald’s 50-year-old
bay-front headquarters for historic designation. This sets the stage, according to Mr.
Viglucci, for a pitched battle, not all that different from the current battle
in Chicago over the fate of Prentice Hospital.
In the case of the old Miami Herald building a Malaysian casino
outfit, Gerling, bought the building last year for $236 million and would like
to develop the 10-acre site as a resort complex.
The article described the design of the newspaper’s headquarters
as “twentieth century tropical-modern architecture,” which is a label that you
don’t see kicked around too much.
So I was curious to see what the building looked like. I wasn’t familiar with the structure, and I
searched for a passable picture of it even before I finished the article.
As soon as I found the photo, I had a sense that I had travelled
a long distance and discovered an old friend.
In fact, I thought, “They can call this a twentieth-century tropical
modern building or anything else if they want to, but whatever they call it, it’s a Chicago building.”
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| The Sun Times headquarters of 1958 (Google Images) |
Then I went back and finished Viglucci’s article, in which four
paragraphs from the end the writer paraphrased the sentiments of a member of
the Miami historic preservation board, David Freedman, “’It’s not a MiMo work
of art,’ he [Freedman] said, “dismissing
the Herald building as a ‘duplication’ of the old Chicago Sun Times building done by the same architect, Sigurd
Naess, though in a markedly different, stripped-down architectural approach
known as the International style.”
The Sigurd Naess to whom Mr. Freedman refers was the planning
expert who along with Charles F. Murphy and Alfred Shaw, were locked out of the
offices of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White the day after Ernest Graham died
in November of 1936. The three men,
Shaw, Naess and Murhpy, went on to form their own firm.
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| Naess & Murphy's Prudential Building in Chicago - 1955 (JWB, 2008) |
Mr. Shaw left that firm in 1947, and Naess and Murphy soldiered
on, designing the very first tall buildings in Chicago in nearly a quarter of a
century, including the Prudential Building of 1955. Sigurd Naess, who had come to the United
States from Norway at the age of 17, retired from the Naess-Murphy partnership
in 1958 at which point Charles Murphy scooped up some of the finest young
architects that the Illinois Institute of Technology was turning out.
So I’m guessing that Mr. Freedman didn’t exactly have his facts
right and simply went for the first name of the firm when he made his
remarks. The planning for the Chicago
Sun Times building, which began in the mid-1950’s, may have involved Sigurd
Naess in the early stages, but the Miami Herald headquarters, finished in 1963,
certainly did not involve Naess.
In 1967 Helmut Jahn joined Murphy’s firm, and by 1973 was
Director of Planning and Design. Mr.
Jahn took control from the aging Murphy in 1981, and the firm was renamed
Murphy/Jahn, the name it carries today.
Charles Murphy, who, with no architectural experience to speak of, started his career as Earnest Graham’s executive assistant, died in 1985.
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| Trump Tower, SOM - 2009 (JWB, 2012) |
But all of that is water under the Chicago bridges. It was old C. F. Murphy’s firm that came up
with the plans for the Miami Herald
building, completed in 1963 and for the Chicago
Sun Times building, completed five years earlier, as well.
At least they are talking about a stay of execution for the
building in Miami. The Sun Times
building has been gone for eight years now, demolished to make room for the
second tallest building in Chicago, Trump Tower.
Interestingly, it was today, October 26, back in 1958 that the
old Sun Times building opened for
business.
Mr. Jahn will retain the title of Chief Executive Officer at the firm. Mr. Gonzalez-Pudlio, the new president joined the firm in 1999 after completing his master's degree at the Harvard Design School. According to Crain's Chicago Business Mr. Jahn, in a press release said of Mr. Gonzalez-Pulido, "His original design approach, first-hand experience with the physical construction of buildings, and his collaborative style of mentoring young architects, will be represented in how we push the limits in future work."
So it's quite a trek . . . from Miami to Chicago. And in Chicago from old Daniel Burnham, to Earnest Graham, to Shaw, Naess and Murphy, to Naess and Murphy, to C. F. Murphy, to Murphy/Jahn to, finally, simply Jahn. Six generations descended directly from Daniel Burnham . . . seven generations that produced some of the greatest architecture in the city, perhaps the world.
Mr. Jahn will retain the title of Chief Executive Officer at the firm. Mr. Gonzalez-Pudlio, the new president joined the firm in 1999 after completing his master's degree at the Harvard Design School. According to Crain's Chicago Business Mr. Jahn, in a press release said of Mr. Gonzalez-Pulido, "His original design approach, first-hand experience with the physical construction of buildings, and his collaborative style of mentoring young architects, will be represented in how we push the limits in future work."
So it's quite a trek . . . from Miami to Chicago. And in Chicago from old Daniel Burnham, to Earnest Graham, to Shaw, Naess and Murphy, to Naess and Murphy, to C. F. Murphy, to Murphy/Jahn to, finally, simply Jahn. Six generations descended directly from Daniel Burnham . . . seven generations that produced some of the greatest architecture in the city, perhaps the world.
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