Hyde Park Blvd

Profile of Frank Gehry in New York Magazine offers a gloss on the nature of ’starchitecture,’ the roster of stillborn projects Gehry has designed for NYC, and the challenge of being Frank Gehry, age 80, in an era when developers are bankrupt (monetarily and creatively):

“You’re buying into the fairy tale,” he protests. “Bilbao opened in 1997. It was only ten years later that I was asked to do another museum. A lot of other people got work because of Bilbao.” The “Bilbao effect” refers to the power of a flamboyant new cultural building to invigorate the local economy. But the phrase could also describe his paradoxical challenge: How do you satisfy clients who come for similar explosions of innovation? How does Frank Gehry compete with “Frank Gehry”?

Model of the never-built East River Guggenheim

For the harscrabble son of immigrants, there are never any easy answers.  A good read, indeed.

Thanks to reader ASR fpr the recommendation.

Keck Gottschalk Keck Apartment Building (photo courtesy of forgottenchicago.com)

Scandalous when it was built, the Keck-Gottschalk-Keck apartment building (so-named because original residents of the three-flat included architect brothers Keck and a university professor) sits in almost total obscurity on University between 55th and 56th.  In 1937 the idea of a modernist structure (especially one that had parking on the ground floor) was controversial.  Less noticed, but of greater interest and lasting value were experiments with passive solar design (including mechanically-controlled exterior blinds) and radiant-heated concrete floors.

The Kecks are better known for their suburban designs and their role in the New Bauhaus.   Last years, a visiting group of Spanish architects helped me to appreciate the Kecks’ (greater) international renown and this structure’s position among the Pantheon of early Modernist structures.  And how the Kecks are largely lost in a neighborhood where FLWright, George Maher and Van Doren Shaw are common currency.

Laird Bell Quadrangle (photo via A Chicago Sojourn)

Fortunately, Eero Saarinen’s goofy master plan for the University of Chicago was roundly ignored.  Equally fortunately, his design for the law school and library were built (and recently renovated) on the South Midway.  Saarinen artfully blended campus Gothic and modernism, something that wasn’t supposed to be part of the manifest (as neighboring South Midway structures by Mies and Edward Durrell Stone attest).

Library interior (photo via A Chicago Sojourn)

More great photos of the Quadrangle and an interesting analysis on Chicago Sojourn, a site worth more than one visit

Takasugi-an treehouse built by architect Terunobu Fujimori in Chino City, Japan. The name translates as ‘tea house that’s too high.’ Via Gizmodo.

Taipei Performing Arts Center by NL Architects

Via Frango.

Holabird & Root’s Gage Buildings on Michigan Avenue

With the advent/success of Chicago’s The Gage an Irish Pub situated in a handsome building originally built for the milliner Gage Brothers, the insights of Denver columnist Jason Sheehan, in the form of eight steps to creating a great Irish bar, are informative and entertaining.

Step five, for example:

The name. Personally, I like Chang O’Leary’s, but there are two ways to go here: the Apostrophe or the Ampersand. With the Apostrophe method, you just take your already Irish name (see step one) and make it possessive. My bar? It would be called Sheehan’s. Simple. The Ampersand method is only a little more complicated: You take any two things and stick an ampersand between them. The Hawk & Dove works fine. The Fox & Hound. The Pig & Whistle. Anything more witty or clever than this, and you’re running the risk of becoming twee; you might as well hang lace curtains from the windows and start serving tea.

Fjällhus, a cabin by Stockholm’s PS Arkitektur

Nice cabin design. Thanks to MoCo Loco for surfacing it.