Friday, July 24, 2009

MY KIND OF TOWN

I journeyed to the Pitchfork festival in Chicago this weekend. I was very excited because I had never been to the windy city, and as a student of design, an urban studies hobbyist, and an architecture history enthusiast, I was psyched. We didn't have a ton of time, but we made the most of it (I dragged my man all over town: up the Sears Tower, to Millennium Park and the new addition to the Art Institute, along the lakefront, etc.). We saw a great exhibit at the MOCA, had some good food, and saw the sights. The festival was good fun too... and of course, we made a pilgrimage to the de facto seat of global power.

Mies van der Rohe is very big in Chi-town. It's an architectural high modernist mecca.
One thing I found interesting was, despite the metropolitan aura of the city, with its great collection of 19th and 20th century architectural masterpieces, fantastic museums, and strong history of urban planning... Chicago is still, underneath, a very gritty, very American town. Here, just below Renzo Piano's glorious new addition to the Museum of the Art Institute, run the freight tracks.

On the other hand, Chicago is perhaps the greenest large city in America. All new construction over a certain size must incorporate green roof as part of an effort to control runoff and urban heat island effect.

We went to the newest attraction at the Sears Tower, which is totally unnatural and terrifying and awesome. Read more here if you like.

Oz/ power nexus of the universe

1 comment:

  1. amazing! you have to be a good blogger to make me wish I was in Chicago on a gray day! xxx

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