Now a word from the Christopher Hume of Chicago - Blair Kamin
ARCHITECTURE
Some Spire occupants may take dim view of 'total design'
By Blair Kamin
Chicago Tribune Architecture critic
September 30, 2007
Everybody knows the stories about Frank Lloyd Wright. His tall-backed dining chairs were both gorgeous to behold and supremely uncomfortable. Staying at a client's house, he would sneak down at night and rearrange the furniture to his liking. Occasionally, he designed dresses so the garments worn by the lady of the house wouldn't clash with his all-encompassing aesthetic.
Wright believed in the notion of "total design," an all-encompassing approach in which the architect fused everything from structure to doorknobs into a single, seamless whole. ...
In Wright's case, at least, it could be beautiful. And it could be tyrannical. And it could be both at the same time.
I found it hard not to think of "total design" last Wednesday when architect Santiago Calatrava unveiled his plans for the super-expensive apartments in the supertall Chicago Spire, which will, if completed, be the nation's tallest building and the world's tallest all-residential building.
Typically, architects design the shell of a residential tower and leave interiors to others. But here was Calatrava, showing off two full-scale apartment mock-ups that he had laid out ...
Was this deja vu all over again — a return to the good (and bad) old days of "total design"?
Yes and no.
The idea of 'home'
Calatrava is far too savvy to attempt to foist his tastes on potential buyers. Besides, as he seems to recognize, the world doesn't work that way anymore. It's too messy, too pluralistic for design dictators. He leaves a large margin for flexibility in furnishing these units, which might be as welcome to someone with a collection of Victorian furniture as to a collector of Rothkos and Lichtensteins.
But a hard look at that "signature" one-bedroom model leaves me to wonder if the skyscraper is going to be packed with narrow, pie-shaped condos that waste space and offer relatively meager views. The condos certainly won't come cheap. Prices in this building will start at $750,000 for some studios and head up to a staggering $40 million for a duplex penthouse.
The happy side of the story is that Calatrava realizes the Spire is not just a skyscraper, but a residential skyscraper, a place to live rather than a place to work.
...
I have a sharply different take about how the two units seen Wednesday meld form and function.
A thumbs up to the four-bedroom — it shows the concave contours of the tower's scalloped exterior won't eat up lots of usable floor space. The unit also reveals how Calatrava makes a virtue of the skyscraper's corkscrewing exterior members. He uses them to frame a parallelogram-shaped window that looks as if it came out of a yacht. The interplay of structure and void recalls the way the John Hancock Center's X-braces create odd, but beloved, window patterns in that building.
Quirkiness is better than uniformity.
Problematic layout
The one-bedroom "signature" unit, on the other hand, gave me pause, and not just because it's hard to believe that tower residents will want to shut themselves into its little glass cocoon — away from the lake and skyline views for which they spent so dearly.
...
We'll see how the flagging high end of the real estate market responds Jan. 14 when the Spire's sales center opens to the public. Surely the sales center will be a great draw for architects and design buffs who want to see a Calatrava-designed living space. But whether people actually will want to live there — and pay a premium for the privilege — remains to be seen.
The best in "total design" affords its users ample living spaces, not just furnishing flexibility.
(© 2007, Chicago Tribune)
