My Windy Affection

I spent a couple of great days in Chicago last week attending a conference.  From my hotel room I could see the Chicago Tribune, The Wrigley Building, Marina City, the pathetic Trump monstrosity and the mossy green of the Chicago River, the splendid chaos of Michigan Avenue, ancient water towers on rooftops, magnificent fire escape sunset seductions, intelligent bums with first-rate yarns, the veritable heartbeat of the city, the past, the future.  On what is now the Tina Turner floor of the Hard Rock Hotel (in the old Carbide and Carbon Building), I quickly reacquainted myself with the love I once felt for Chicago.  I just feel at home there, you know?  There is such a strong sense of “place” there.  Everything about it has always just seemed right to me.  Cicero and Capone and Oak Park and Wright and Harry Carey and Navy Pier and Dick Butkus and Lakeshore Drive and Elliot Ness and the ‘L’ and Abbie Hoffman and The Chicago Seven and gas light mysterious wanderings around the Loop and the Miracle Mile and Sixty-Third and Wallace and Pruitt Igoe and The '68 Democratic National Convention and all the other things that I’ve forgotten.

On the cab ride in from Midway, I passed more buildings that I’ve forgotten the names of (drilled into me during Architectural History Class) than I’ve seen in the last (10) years.  For me and my personal architectural sensibilities, Chicago is quite literally ground zero, much more so than New York or Los Angeles.  It was Frank Lloyd Wright and Sullivan and Adler and Daniel Burnham and later Mies who taught me what architecture was, is, what it could / should be.  My style isn’t close to theirs but theirs is what I cut my teeth on and what I gravitated toward as a student.  What Burnham and Root and Olmstead not only conceived of but constructed on the shores of Lake Michigan in the early 1890’s is phenomenal.  The Columbian Exposition itself gave us the Ferris Wheel, the elevator, the first extensive use of electric light and countless other “modern wonders”.  Far more than any of that though, there is something about the spirit of Chicagoans that I find irresistible – embodied perhaps perfectly in the fortitude of long suffering Cubs fans, right?  The people seem to have always had a chip on their shoulder about not being as good as NYC and I love that – an irrepressible desire to not only just be good, but to be better than.  I find it infectious when I’m there.  I had other obligations this time in town, but I took full advantage of every opportunity to be on the street internalizing every beautiful thing and soaking up as much of the city character as I could in the moments that I did have.   

The upper floors of and in fact the entirety of the Carbide and Carbon Building are a beautifully gilded Art Deco masterpiece.  So pumped to be back in the Windy Wednesday night was I that I didn't even realize that this was the building my hotel was in.  I took an early morning stroll the following day and caught this glistening wonder proudly standing in eastern light.  Stunning.  At the end of the day, there was a big weird dinner with a terrible jazz band and poor lighting in an awkward room at an awards ceremony where I was honored to represent, along with a founding principal, the Fourth Best Firm to Work For in 2013.  To accept an architectural award of any sort in a Burnham designed building (even if it was his kid and not that Burnham) was not lost on me.  What a wonderful thing.  I celebrated (excessively).  I don't always recognize the gravity of my life but that night I did.  It felt good...to feel good.

As I started my career, Atlanta chose me more so than I chose it.  Don’t get me wrong, I love it here, but Chicago was my first love as far as cities and where I wished to ply my trade.  I tried unsuccessfully to get there after graduation but it wasn’t in the cards.  Honestly, at times especially early in my career, that fact made me feel like I wasn’t good enough as an architect.  That supposed rejection fueled me and fuels me still at some level to do and to be more, still trying to prove my worth.  I’ve put down roots here now or at least what I consider roots and my windy affection for Chicago is just another memory of what might have been.  As bad as it once stung, moving to Atlanta was exactly the right move.  I’m on a path that is exactly the right one for me and in spite of my predilection toward hyperbolic scenario I know I am where I should be.

I had an unexpected conversation with an ex last night that brought my feelings for Chicago into specific focus.  It’s not that I’m not a good enough architect to be a quote-unquote Chicago architect; it just wasn’t the right time when it was presented to me as an option.  Sometimes, when you miss your window it closes.  The window on both has been closed for a lot of time and the hell of it is that I know that’s the best possible conclusion, on both fronts.  But in much the same way as one might always care about someone who they were close to once, I will always have a certain affection for the wonder and possibility I still see Chicago to be.  In much the same way as the prior, part of me may always wonder what might have been.

Meantime I’m engrained in this city now.  This is my home and where I will most likely spend the rest of my life.  History books that no one reads are filled with names that no one remembers.  Cities are filled with buildings that no one looks up at designed by architects that no one knows.  As much as I like to talk about path and obligation and loyalty, I think it’s past time that I get busy making Atlanta aware of the fact that I'm here.  If I don’t insist that my name is included in the book, there’s no way that I will be.  I have an intense desire to leave my fingerprints.

There is no Chicago School now. There is no standard against which we as architects are measured – the world has become too big for that.  We are way past Architectural Record being the thing that matters at least on a local scale.  I wonder if we can get back to what we all started doing this for in the first place, what my early heroes strived for.  I can only assume that we all became architects so as to make the world a better place to live in.  If you didn’t, I question your motives.  (I question mine everyday so don’t take that the wrong way.)  If you’re not an architect, whatever you do should be in some way making this world a better place to live in.  That should be everybody’s goal, right?  If we don’t leave this world better off than when we found it, what is the point of being here at all?  Maybe that’s what my windy affection has taught me and what I was reminded of walking the streets of what I once perceived as the Promised Land last week. 

I left Chicago more centered than when I had arrived, my hope in tomorrow’s possibility rejuvenated.  If that’s all I get in return for my unrequited love of Chicago, so be it.  Hope is a perfect wonderful thing.