2008 Travel (a brief best of)

8/27/2008

This spring and summer, I got to travel a bit around the midwest to see some new and not-so-new designs.  Here's a brief list of my standouts.

 

The Lurie Garden in Chicago's Millennium Park graces the August cover of Landscape Architecture Magazine, because it won ASLA's general design award of excellence this year.  It's been written about widely, so it was with some hype-averse skepticism that I went to see it last May.  Yes, May.  Before the plants looked as good as they do in the oft-seen images. 

Though I am often disappointed with some national award winners (see One Wacker Plaza, also in Chicago), this one deserves it.  Even in the raw time of year, the bones are good and the plants still work.  There are enough early bloomers to carry it through to the heart of the season.  Kudos to Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (landscape architecture) and Piet Oudolf (planting design). 

 

Of course everyone agrees the Crown Fountain, with its spitting Chicagoans, is pretty cool.  But I just love the rustic wood benches along the sides.

 

I tend to feel Rem is a little sensationalist, so my hackles were again up as I walked through the IIT Student Center (officially the McCormick Tribune Campus Center).  It is odd, yes, but fitting its use.  And what guts to cram it underneath the El (though from the Seattle Library to the CCTV Tower, Rem is mostly about guts).

It's befittingly gritty for Chicago, and actually feels like a student center for students.  This is no ivory tower or hallowed hall.  This is a rec room, complete with garish colors, weird little seating nooks, and unfinished sheetrock.  I have to say: I totally wanted to just hang/chill/veg there for a few hours.

It is extra fun to take the train through the center.  Like an amusement park ride.  Check out a short video here.

 

I wrote about the Indianapolis Cultural Trail for Metropolis, so it's obvious I like it.  But that was the masterplan.  I hadn't seen any of the finished product, but this spring I rode it with the landscape architect (Kevin Osburn of Rundell Ernstberger) and one of the implementing foundation's staff.  It's so European -- but is stealing traffic lanes in the heartlandiest of heartland cities.  No where else is doing this kind of project at this scale.  Good for you, Midwest!

Oh, and the ride is very comfortable, and Indianapolitans were out in droves.

 

I'm working on a piece on the White River Promenade for Landscape Architecture Magazine.  It's having its 20th birthday, and has matured in spectacular fashion.  Designed by Angela Danadjieva (who was also the lead designer for Seattle's Freeway Park), this little corridor defies typical urban riverfront design.  It's narrow, secluded, offers only occasional views of the river, and is (because of all this) tremendously engaging. 

And simple: nothing but limestone blocks, an asphalt path, and native trees.  If you're scratching your head, trust me.  If you're ever in Indy, see it for yourself.

 

Canal Park in Indianapolis is one of the unsung masterworks of urban design.  It has been underappreciated even in Indy, but is a well-crafted and well-planned public amenity.  The general environment is pleasant, and there are unique details at every turn.  Here's one of my favorites: a wide pool flanked by fountains, classic but elegant.

Visiting Jensen in Chicago

8/16/2008

I recently had an article published in Landscape Architecture Magazine about Jens Jensen.  Here's a little sidebar to that piece (read the whole thing here), that is very much in the spirit of the Treeline Travelogue.  If you're in Chi-town and in need of a little inspiration from a master, check out these sites:

Garfield Park Conservatory. 

Just a short El ride from the Loop (take the green line to the Conservatory stop), the conservatory is a stunning example of Jensen’s plantsmanship and stonework – even though the plants are not native. 

The Fern Room, in particular, sets the tone for every other conservatory.  It is easy to forget you are inside, and Jensen’s mastery of sight lines is evident.

Mahoney Farm.  On the south edge of ultra-rich northern suburb Kenilworth, this small nature preserve has a collection of council rings arranged around a pair of woodland meadows. 

Sheridan Road cuts the lakeside site in half, and the inland half is definitely the better of the two.  The site shows how Jensen used specimen plants as view termini and how he crafted outdoor rooms with nothing but trees and shrubs of various heights and shapes.

Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool. 

Though not a Jensen work – it was designed by his protégé, the pool’s namesake – this landscape in Lincoln Park just northeast of the zoo is a superbly restored (by Wolff Landscape Architects) example of a prairie style water feature. 

Humboldt Park Prairie River.  To see an example of what Chicago Park District historian and Jensen expert Julia Bachrach describes as “a solution that addresses both Jensen and new uses,” head to this west-side park and stroll the restored watercourse. 

Prairie rivers appear in several of Jensen’s designs, but this one had been altered from his original design to include large open pools for swimming.  It has now been been re-done in the prairie-style spirit with ecologically appropriate plantings and hydrology by Elmhurst-based Conservation Design Forum. The river generally follows its original course and the swimming holes are off to the side behind a sculpted berm.

 

Council Rings

4/30/2008

Because I am writing an article on Jens Jensen, I have been visiting a lot of council rings.  Jensen was a landscape architect that practiced in the midwest throughout the first half of the last century.  He is known as the originator of the "prairie school" of landscape architecture, and the best-known purveyor of the style.   His portfolio includes several of Chicago's major parks, as well as private estates in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. 

 

Jensen designed council rings for many of his landscapes.  He saw them as an expression of democracy, as well as touchstones (pardon the pun) of the prairie aesthetic.  Here are a few examples of council rings by (and inspired by) Jensen.

 

This one is at the respectfully named Jens Jensen Park in Highland Park, Illinois. 

This small triangle of open space is located near where Jensen had his private office.  An etched stone at the site says the park was renovated in 2007 by landscape architects Amy and Nick Patera.  Judging by the large number of etched stones, there was also (literal) buy-in by plenty of community members.  I like how the circle is interrupted by the tree, and the varied face of the wall is quite interesting.

 

At Techny Prairie Park in Northbrook, a portion of an interpretive trail discusses Jensen's career in the area.  The park's landscape architect, Hitchcock Design Group, included this council ring, with a fire circle in the middle.

Jensen mixed up what he populated his circles with.  Some have fire pits, some stone hearths, some nothing at all.  This project is pretty new.  Some age might soften it a bit.

 

Kenilworth's Mahoney Farm Bird Sanctuary, occupying a few acres on the Lake Michigan shore a few towns north of Chicago, has a large collection of council rings.

The whole site is on the National Register of Historic Places, and these rings are quintessentially Jensen: nestled in the woods, thin-lift outcropping limestone, and well-planned views.

(save the condo project in the background).  The several rings at Mahoney are about 20 feet across. 

 

Jensen's only council ring within Chicago is at Columbus Park, on the city's far west side.  It is about 40 feet across.

It was restored in 2003 by Wolff Landscape Architecture.  When they got a hold of it, the stone columns were mostly toppled, and the seats were half-buried, cracked, and scattered about.  Image courtesy Wolff Landscape Architecture.

This is an excellent example of a different type of ring, with piers instead of a continuous wall.  It makes for a different look, but is less structurally sound.  Wolff re-engineered the council ring by putting steel brackets below the stone seats to bear the weight.

It's pretty inconspicuous.  What makes this sing, though (as with most of Jensen's stone work, according to several landscape architects and a historian I have met with), is the stone itself.  That narrow, weathered face limestone is tough to find, so restoration with original stone makes a big difference. 

 

The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool, designed in the 1930s by its namesake landscape architect, is considered by some to be the best surviving example of a prairie style landscape.  It is surviving because of an extensive restoration executed in the early 2000s by the Chicago Park District, Lincoln Park Conservancy, and Wolff Landscape Architecture (then Wolff Clements & Associates). 

This ring is located atop a hill overlooking the pool and its two wood pavilions.  It has a very formal (by prairie style standards) walkway leading to it, and the walls have some of the thinnest lifts of stone I've seen, and also the most "jagged."

Though this ring occupies a commanding position, it is still intimate, nestled into a small grove of trees.  This is key to prairie style design: seclusion simultaneous with well-calculated vantage points.  Picture a little woodlot at the edge of an open grassland and you'll see what these landscape architects were going for.

 

For the next month or so, I'll be looking at some of these and other "nouveau-Jensen" projects, considering the man's pertinence to designers today.  My best guess will appear this summer/fall in Landscape Architecture Magazine.  Stay tuned....

 

The Farnsworth House

4/28/2008

Humble Plano, Illinois, a small farmtown about 2 hours southwest of downtown Chicago, is, unexpectedly, home to one of the defining works of architecture in the United States.  The Farnsworth House, Mies van der Rohe's glass box on stilts, was an early attempt at applying the International School to residential architecture.  It inspired Philip Johnson's somewhat even more famous Glass House in New Canaan Connecticut (even though it was completed later). 

 

I visited Farnsworth last Sunday.  Spring was just poking its green fingers through the soil and the Fox River was full.  The floodplain in which the house sits was still raw from winter, seemingly fresh-mown.  Clutches of Virginia bluebells and early meadow rue colored the earth.  The house itself was hard-edged in contrast, and startlingly bright amidst the patterned grey tree trunks. 

I always thought the International Style was about being apart form the landscape, about creating an unornamented space that could, theoretically, be plunked anywhere.  I now have a new perspective.

 

When Mies began work on the house in the late 1940s, Dr. Edith Farnsworth had already purchased the Fox River Valley acreage, which included both upland and lowland areas.  Mies chose the floodplain.  Our tour guide (who, lucky for us, happened to be the site director) said she believed Mies picked that location so that he could make a house that could only be built in the floodplain.  The critical proof of that (and evidence, to me, of the skill of the designer) is how the house floats.

Yes, it's on stilts, but that's not why it seems to float.  The entire structure is designed so that there is no place within the house that you can see those support posts touch the ground.  The stairs that ascend to the lower terrace and the posts that support that terrace are likewise invisible. 

How?  An extremely simple detail: The posts end below the level of the terrace, and are out of the signt line of the home's windows. 

And the main living "box" is elevated just enough to make it impossible to see its own posts touch the ground.  This is an exercise in sight lines and geometry skillfully executed.  Though totally without ornament, the Farnsworth House is highly detailed.  Inches matter here, more so than immediately apparent.  The corners of the home and terrace, for instance, sport coped C-channels, so that they can appear perfectly smooth, without apparent joints.

By many accounts (even our tour guide's) Mies was a bit of a tyrant (she shared the story of Mies sitting on site, cigar and martini at the ready, watching workers parade slabs of travertine in front of him and passing judgement on their quality), but he was certainly meticulous -- and it shows in this house.

 

The building has a fascinating history (which you can read here), but, in a nutshell, Dr. Farnsworth sold it to Lord Palumbo (a collector of celebrity houses), who restored it twice -- in 1972 and again after a major flood in 1996.  It was bought in 2003 at auction by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Landmarks Illinois. 

 

According to the site director, they're still discovering and debating all the little things Mies did inside and outside the house.  Case in point: I happened to ask which way the river flowed, then commented that it was certainly important that the terrace is offset from the house in the downstream direction, as if it were flowing with the river.  That, apparently, hasn't been considered before.  Which proves a good design, like this one, will reveal itself gradually over time.

 

 

I'd consider the Farnsworth House an architectural history pilgrimage site, along with others like Fallingwater, the Glass House, and Columbus, Indiana.  They say it's great in any weather, any season.  All the pertinent info is available here (reservations are required).  If you're in Chicago, it is definitely worth the sidetrip. 

 

Key West

3/25/2008

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I took a little jaunt down to Key West.  We were desperate for some warmth.

 

The town itself is pleasantly surprising.  The old part is a tight urban village with lush streetscapes and architecture that is at once traditional and funky: 

The second image (a classic southern manse rendered in Pepto pink) is the excellent B&B where we stayed: the Google friendly Key West Bed and Breakfast.  It is typical of the housing down in the southernmost city in the continental US:  multi-level porches, wide roof overhangs, plenty of filligree, shutters, and a pastel-dominated color scheme.  There are plenty of these grande dames, but the tiny shotguns are just as cheery:

There are, of course, anomalies, like the Santa Maria Resort, a contemporary rendering of Miami Deco:

Very cool.  And a nice contrasting use of grey spiky foliage.

 

On the landscape front, most homes share a common design theme:  a picket-fenced or walled front yard which is totally consumed by a lush tropical garden (very little lawn here), an entry gate directly in line with the front door, often a little notch in the fence to accommodate a single parking space, and a porch well-populated with lounging furniture.  Here's an example:

Vegetation really dominates.  When walking the street, the houses are visible, but only through a scrim of palms, shrubs, contorted branches, and tall flower spikes.  Those entry gates, however, which lead straight to the front door, make these little estates seem more welcoming.  There are a few clever and startling details to be found:

 

Interestingly, Key West is not the westernmost Florida key.  There are more than 800 keys scattered in a southwesterly line from Florida, and leapfrogging them on uncountable bridges on US 1 is a big part of the fun of getting to the end of the road.  Key West is actually an anglicization of Cayo Hueso, Spanish for key of bones.  West of Key West, the Key West National Wildlife Refuge ecompasses more than 200,000 acres of water and small islands that stretch out to Dry Tortugas National Park.  We took a ride with Danger Charters (it's so much fun to prowl the docks saying "I'm looking for Danger") out to the refuge in a 2-masted sailboat that could navigate the small channels between the shallow shiting sands.  It is a bizarre feeling to be miles from land with your pilot concerned about running aground if she doesn't hit the channel right. 

 

The excursion included a kayak trip around and through some mangrove islands.  These could barely be called islands, but they look like islands on the horizon.  Red mangrove trees grow in sands covered by 6 to 24" of sea water.  They prop themselves up on stilt roots and form nearly monocultural colonies.  They look like forests perched on the water.  These odd islands have no actual land.  We kayaked through small tunnels in the trees:

Notice: no land.  Trees growing right up out of the water.  Weird....

 

But I guess that's Key West for you.  It is perhaps the unlikeliest place to be able to drive to, the whole city is about 5' above sea level, the cheek-by-jowl houses all have metal roofs to prevent catastrophic fires (as if the wood siding wouldn't ignite), the revelers on Duval Street are an unexpected mix of spring breakers and empty nesters (my wife's words), and everyone gathers every evening to applaud the sunset.  Weird... (but kind of nice).

 

PS: Key West (and the keys in general) is not known for its beaches, but the one at Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park (walking distance from Duval Street, the main drag) is very nice: white sand, trees for shade, and a beter-than-average snack bar.

 

Where to eat: El Meson de Pepe (Cuban food served outdoors near Mallory Square), Turtle Kraals (fresh straightforward seafood right on the historic dockside), Bo's Fish Wagon (literally a shack on the corner of William and Caroline, good for conch fritters, other fried seafoods, and fish sandwiches).