Item From the Past: Holy Family Shrine, Gretna, Neb.

Sept 16, 2012

In September 2004, I was on I-80 between Lincoln, Nebraska, and Omaha. I saw a billboard that said that the Holy Family Shrine wasn't far away. It was true. Once you get to the shrine, you realize that it's on a hill with a clear view of the highway in the near distance. According to the billboard and other references, Holy Family Shrine is in Grenta, Nebraska, but in fact it isn't in any town.

It's a charming structure, apparently in the style of Fay Jones, though designed by Jim Dennell of BCDM Architects. It's celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, so without realizing it, I'd come across the shrine when it was still fairly new.

311 S. Wacker

The event I attended yesterday was at the Winter Garden, a six-story indoor space at 311 S. Wacker, one of Chicago’s taller skyscrapers. Seventh-tallest in the city, in fact, which I didn’t know till I looked it up. According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the killjoys who took the tallest-building title away from the Sears Tower once upon a time, 311 S. Wacker is the 74th tallest building in the world. I didn’t know that either, but why would I?

A little more on 311 S. Wacker: It’s a Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates design, about 1.4 million square feet in 65 floors. I remember it under construction in the late ’80s – it’s a very late ’80s building, if you asked me – but didn’t get to see it complete until later, since I was out of the country by the time it was finished in 1990.

It stands pretty close to the Sears Tower, across the street in fact, so 25-words-or-fewer architecture tour guides can point to the Sears Tower and say, “That’s the modern one.” And then to 311 S. Wacker: “That’s the postmodern one.”

So there I was in the 74th tallest building in the world, looking up at the ceiling of the Winter Garden. The floor is below ground level, but the glass ceiling is well above it. (See yesterday for a picture of the floor.)

I couldn’t say for sure, but I think those palms are embalmed. Not like people are, but like large plants can be for public spaces exactly like this.

The Woodstock Opera House

The Woodstock Opera House dates from 1889, when it was built as a multipurpose building: library, court, council room, fire department and second-floor auditorium for the city of Woodstock. The venue's web site says that Elgin-based architect Smith Hoag added "early American, Midwestern, Gothic and even Moorish elements. The interior is modeled after the showboats of the time, with dimensions and decorations that imitate many of those grand floating theaters."

The theater has hosted entertainment of various kinds since 1890, including an early '30s summer stock theater that included a very young Orson Welles. "In 1947 a group of citizens formed and supported the Woodstock Players," the web site continues. "For several years the Players provided acting experience for students graduating from the Goodman School. Now-famous personalities Paul Newman, Tom Bosley, Betsy Palmer, Geraldine Page, Shelley Berman and Lois Nettleton were among them."

I had to look up some of those actors, such as the late Lois Nettleton. (Who moved on to television, including appearances on Captain Video.) About a month ago, I noticed that Al Stewart would be back at the Woodstock Opera House again. Inconveniently timed, since I knew I'd be busy that week, but I decided to go. He's not getting any younger, and neither am I.

Item From the Past: Ishiyama-dera

November 30, 1991

"Warm and sunny day, flawless weather to visit the exquisite Ishiyama-dera. I went with Ed and Lynn, two former fellow teachers, and Americans as it happens, to the temple, which is in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture. It's near the shores of unscenic Lake Biwa, the sludgepot that provides greater Osaka with its drinking water.

'No, that's not the best way to begin to describe Ishiyama-dera, which is set in the forested hills not far from the lake. You forget about Biwa while visiting the fine old wooden structures, which manage to convey their great age through their smell, somehow, maybe redolent of centuries of incense. This time of year, the temple also has the aesthetic advantage of seasonal reds and yellow. It augments the aura of esoteric objects honoring esoteric gods on remote shores."

Not much of a description, but I can fortify it with more information. "Ishiyama Dera was established in 749 by a Kegon priest named Ryôben at the request of Emperor Shômu (701-756; reigned 724-749) to enshrine an image of Nyoirin Kannon," says the Yamasa Institute's Japan Travel Guide. "At the time, the Emperor was praying for the discovery of gold to assist in his undertaking of the construction of the great Buddha of Tôdai-ji Temple in Nara.

"The Hondo, or Main Hall, designated a National Treasure, was built upon a great megalith, which contributes to the temple’s fame as one of the eight scenic views of Ômi, the Autumn Moon from Ishiyama-dera. The Hondo was built architecturally in a veranda construction style called 'Butai Zukuri'. The Tahoto Pagoda (treasure tower) was built by Minamoto Yoritomo in 1194 in the Kamakura period, and is the oldest of its type in Japan.

"Inside the Hondo is the Room of Genji, where Shikibu Murasaki created the plot of the Genji Monogatari or the The Tale of Genji, a famous court story of the Heian period and believed by many to be the world's first novel. Murasaki is said to have begun writing The Tale of Genji, at Ishiyama on the night of the full moon in August 1004. The temple is mentioned in the Ukifune chapter of the story. A life-size figure of the author at work is displayed in this room."

I remember seeing the Lady Murasaki mannequin, looking pale and mannequin-like. Years ago I read the first few chapters of The Tale of Genji, a Charles E. Tuttle Co. publication (Tuttle Publishing these days) of a translation by British orientialist Arthur David Waley. My copy, a two-volume paperback boxed set, resides in one of the bookshelves near the desk, quietly reminding my that I'll never get around to reading everything I'd like to.

Item From the Past: The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

Near constant wind today, but not the blustery, cold blow you usually get in November. It was an unusual day, more springlike than anything else. But it's a trick. Winter is bearing down on us.

Oddly enough, I have a soft spot for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in the Shinjuku district of that city. During my very first walkabout in Japan in March 1990, I rested for a few minutes in a small green spot -- and there aren't that many of those in Tokyo -- not far from structure, which is about 800 feet high. It's an impressive skyscraper, designed by Kenzo Tange, and for a number of years the tallest building in the country.

At that moment the building wasn't finished. The skin was on, but there was still a lot of construction noise coming from the interior. In November 1993, when Yuriko and I visited Tokyo for a long weekend, we looked at the building from the same vantage. This time, I had a camera.

If the observation deck had been open then -- and I don't think it was at the time -- we would have certainly gone up for a look. These days not only is it open, it's free. Can't say that about to many things in Tokyo.

Item From the Past: St. John the Divine Detail

On November 5, 2000, I did a walkabout in Manhattan, including a visit to the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine and some other points of interest. The cathedral is a magnificent house of worship, well worth the effort to get there from more commonly trod parts of Manhattan. (The cathedral also inspires crackpots. One web site I saw warns the world that "the cathedral tricks unsuspecting church goers into its occult house of worship," run by the masons. Ah, those masons.)

The three-ton bronze doors of the cathedral, which are works by Henry Wilson, and the Rose Window above the door, are justly famous. My photography of those famed features didn't turn out so well. But I did like this shot of some of the stonework around the doors, scanned in black and white. An assortment of saints, I assume.

If I've read my sources correctly, the work only dates from the 1990s, when British stonemasons came over to train Americans in the art for the purpose of continuing work on this famously unfinished cathedral. (Masonry being a lost art in the United States. Unless the masons secretly control everything.)

Chinatown Details

It's been a while since we visited Chicago's Chinatown. Lately we've had an urge for the kind of dim sum that Chinatown provides, but rain and other things delayed our visit for a few weeks. Sunday was clear and not very cold, so we drove to Oak Park, stashed the car in a conveniently free parking garage (free Sundays only) and rode the El to Chinatown -- Green Line to Roosevelt, transfer to Red Line for Chinatown.

On the sidewalk near the corner of Archer Ave. and Cermak Road, which is near the edge of Chinatown, Ann spotted a face on the sidewalk and pointed it out to me. Maybe the work of a guerrilla graphic designer. Not a Toynbee Tile, but it'll do.

We ate at Phoenix on Archer Ave., which serves up pretty good dim sum, though mysteriously at first the dim sum wagon ladies only would offer us "chicken feet with homemade sauce" and other items we didn't want. Actually, I would have gone for the chicken feet, but no one else wanted any. Eventually we obtained shrimp rolls, barbecue port turnovers, noh mai gai (sticky rice in lotus leaves), ha gao (shrimp dumpling), chui chow dumpling, pan fried vegetable & meat bun, mango pudding and sesame balls.

Then we wandered around the neighborhood. Mostly I was interested in talking pictures of details. Such as a dragon lamp.

And wall details on Wentworth Ave.

I noticed a lot more RPC flags hanging from buildings in Chinatown than even a few years ago, for whatever it's worth. But I also noticed that there will be a parade in Chinatown this Saturday to celebrate the 100th anniversary of overthrow of the Qing Dynasty -- Double 10 Day (even though Saturday is the 8th) -- which I understand is celebrated in Taiwan rather than the mainland.

The Nichols Bridgeway

Heavy rains through most of the morning, which might be fitting for Towel Day. Today is also the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's famed call to send a man to the Moon by 1970. An audio of the speech is here, one that's is longer than the usual sound bite. Interestingly, the president asked for money not just for going to the Moon, but two other space ventures as well: a nuclear-power rocket called Rover, ultimately shelved in the early '70s, and weather satellites, which have proven themselves tremendously useful over the last five decades.

Seems like a lot of special things happened 50 years ago. Clearly, 1961 was quite a year.

After Robert's graduation from the School of the Art Institute last Saturday, we figured the thing to do was go to the Art Institute and look around. Even better, his status as a newly minted alumnus provided all of us with free passes, except for Lilly and Ann, who still don't need to pay to get in.

From the Great Lawn of the Pritzker Pavilion, one way to reach the Art Institute is via the steel Nichols Bridgeway, which begins at ground level, slopes up over Monroe St., and connects to the third floor of museum's Modern Wing, where there's a restaurant. You have to go down again to reach the collection of modern art in the Modern Wing.

Though the bridge has been open for about two years now, this was my first crossing. This is what it looks like from the ground.

And this is from roughly the mid-point of the bridge, looking back at the Pritzker Pavilion, with its distinctive Frank Gehry curlicues. It's a wide structure, the better (I guess) to make pedestrians more comfortable with the three-story rise.

Renzo Piano, architect of the Modern Wing, designed the bridge too. Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamen wrote: "Piano's bridge is a straight shot, consisting of curving steel sections that are welded together to resemble the hull of a racing yacht -- or, as wags would have it, the world's longest gutter. Sealing the nautical metaphor, Piano, who like many architects is an avid sailor, gave the bridge delicate, prow-shaped ends... from above Monroe, you can gaze out at the blue waters of Lake Michigan or through the skyscraper canyons of the Loop. At the end, you survey the sunken commuter railroad tracks that bisect the Art Institute. They are a vertiginous 50 feet below."

I also want to mention the bridge's engineers. Architects often enough get a mention, but not so much engineers. For this work, two firms won an award of merit for the work in 2009 from the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois: Ove Arup and Partners Ltd., who did the bridge superstructure, and Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, who did the substructure.

The Basilica of St. Josaphat

Here's a headline I saw over the weekend: "Chicago's Gas Prices Highest in Country." Hell's bells. "The U.S. average for a gallon of regular now stands at $3.88, but in Chicago, it'll cost you an average of $4.27," reports NBC Chicago. I assume the story means in the city itself, since out here in the suburbs it's about a dime less than that.

Just north of the Illinois-Wisconsin line at the junction of I-94 and Wisconsin 50, which sports a large knot of retail properties, gas could be had for $3.99.9/gallon last Friday. Four dollars, in other words. I know this because I bought some on our way to Milwaukee to take advantage of the last gasp of the frequent-flyer award my family's round-trip across the Pacific earned nearly two years ago. No charge to stay in the room, but some expense to get there.

Good Friday was cold and drizzly. We knew that ahead of time, so planned to spend most of our time indoors, including one place whose exterior has intrigued me for years, the Basilica of St. Josaphat. Every time I drive into Milwaukee on I-94, I see its dome from the highway, since it's pretty hard to miss, but I'd never taken a close look at it. Get off the highway, make your way into the heart of south-side Milwaukee, park on a nearby side street, and the dome is even harder to miss.

The structure is more than 100 years old, built for a massive Polish congregation and modeled after St. Peter's. "Father Wilhelm Grutza hired a German-born architect named Erhard Brielmaier to design what is, in essence, a smaller version of St. Peter's." says the Visitor Guide and Tour we picked up at the church. "The church has the same cross-shaped floor plan and same huge central dome that distinguish St. Peter's." Brielmaier and his family were the go-to architects if you wanted a Catholic church built in the Midwest in the late 19th- and early-20th century, it seems. One source credits them with designing over 800 churches.

St. Josaphat's is as resplendent as you'd expect, with large stained-glass windows, paintings, bronze bas-reliefs, gold leaf, a marble pulpit and a marble altar, some onyx columns, and a lot of activity up inside the dome -- various orders of angels, plus prophets, apostles and doctors of the Church. There's an inscription in Polish around the base of the dome: 1 Kings 9:3, according to the guide ("I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.")

Even better, there's a backstory to all that splendor. H. Russell Zimmermann, writing in Milwaukee Magazine, tells it: "Upon learning of the impending demolition of the Chicago Post Office and Customs House, [Grutza] negotiated a deal to buy materials. For $20,000 he got 200,000 tons, including stone, doors, hardware, railings and light fixtures. It took 500 railroad cars to ship... Brielmaier created a masterpiece, but close inspection will reveal a few reminders. Some ornamental brass hardware bears the U.S. Treasury seal, and carved capitals atop the portico’s columns contain American Eagles... Today, with its newly cleaned exterior, St. Josaphat’s looks better than it ever has."

So Brielmaier practiced green building, at least in re-using building materials, before that was even a glimmer of a concept. I didn't have the leisure to look around for those Treasury seals, which I didn't learn about till later anyway, because the Stations of the Cross was in progress when we arrived. We stayed for the end of that, and then looked around a bit afterward. I also missed the painting "Miracle at the Vistula," which depicts the defeat of the Bolsheviks by the Poles in August 1920. Not something you're likely to see in many churches.

Images of the basilica's interior are here. St. Josaphat, incidentally, was
this fellow ("Finally on 12 November, 1623, an axe-stroke and a bullet brought Josaphat his martyr's crown."). I'd never heard of him before, but apparently there's a church dedicated to him in Chicago as well.

Trump Chicago

I'm glad I went downtown today instead of last Tuesday, during a period of deep cold, or the Tuesday before last, when the Blizzard of '11 was preparing to slap metro Chicago around. It wasn't exactly warm today, but not so cold that I couldn't walk without much discomfort from Union Station to the Trump International Hotel & Tower to attend an event there. I hadn't been inside the property since it was so new that the hotel was getting ready for its soft opening and the top of the tower wasn't yet completed -- about three years ago.

Trump Chicago still looks like this from the street. I considered taking some pictures inside, but I didn't really have time for it. Besides, the meeting space and corridors I saw, while poshly elegant in precisely the way you'd expect -- except maybe the deco touches in the lamps -- didn't offer up the kinds of things I like to take pictures of. Such as anything under the category of Odd Hotels at Hotel Chatter.

I will say this about the place: Every hotel employee I encountered, maybe a half dozen or so, was extremely solicitous, even if it was just in the tone of voice as they greeted me. That can't be an accident. It has to be Trump Organization training, which must put an emphasis on paying attention to anyone and everyone who comes through the door. You can't tell just by dress any more who has the big bucks, and of course Trump wants its guests to part with some of those bucks in return for the experience of the property.

I noticed for the first time a large steel plaque on N. Wabash Ave., fixed like a sign in the sidewalk near the entrance of the hotel. It said: "Trump International Hotel & Tower • Recognized by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat as the • TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD WITH AN ALL-CONCRETE STRUCTURE • Second Tallest Building in North America • Sixth Tallest Building in the World... 21 October 2009."

There's the Trump braggadocio the world knows and doesn't love. I was glad to see it.

Marina City at 50

Name that building.

This is a pedestrian's view of part of Marina City -- one of the two corncob-like residential towers of that pioneering mixed-use development -- in downtown Chicago, on November 22, 2010. The date is noteworthy because it was the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking for the complex, which also includes a hotel (originally an office building); an entertainment venue (these days a House of Blues); some restaurants (such as Bin 36, where I had one of my few three-martini lunches, except it was wine); a marina on the Chicago River (I have nothing parenthetical to add); and a bowling alley (I played there on February 2, 1987).

I remember that date so exactly because that happened to be the first day I worked for a certain downtown Chicago publisher, and by coincidence, the rest of the staff was going bowling there that evening. It was a fairly ordinary bowling alley in those days, but judging by the entrance now, it looks like frou-frou bowling.

I went to Marina City for a press conference on the 22nd, held by the Portland Cement Association in honor of the 50th anniversary. The PCA is fond of the property, and for good reason. It shows that concrete construction doesn't have to look like a communist-era bus station in Vladivostok. More about Marina City here.

Chapel of the Resurrection, Valparaiso University

On Sunday, we visited Valparaiso and Munster, which didn't involve logistically difficult, or even impossible, transits between metro Chicago, Chile and Germany in a single day. Those are also towns in Indiana. Even better for our purpose, they're towns in northwestern Indiana -- so close they're part of the Chicago CMSA, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Valparaiso is in Porter County, Ind., while Munster is in Lake County, Ind.

Which isn't too say that these places seem close, because driving through gooey traffic on forever under-construction highways is usually necessary to get to that end of the metro area, opposite from ours. Sunday meant that traffic was fairly light, however, and so it took us about an hour and a half to arrive at the Chapel of the Resurrection of Valparaiso University.

That's only the chancel; the rest of the chapel, which is a lot of building, trails off to the left in my pic. This blog has a lot better, and a lot more, images of this handsome modernist chapel, inside and outside.

Ann was especially taken with the place, exploring it at some length, and insisting that I take her picture in front of the chancel's stained glass. It was hard to go wrong with a setup like that.

"The chapel was dedicated in 1959, three years after groundbreaking ceremonies..." says the university's web site. "Architects for the building were Charles Stade and Associates of Park Ridge, Ill., although other designers were involved in special elements such as the stained glass windows and the baptistery.

"Inspiration for the design of the building was provided in part by the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem... The chancel of the Chapel of the Resurrection is 98 feet high and is circular in shape with a roof shaped like a nine-point star. The nave is 58 feet high and 193 feet long. There is seating for more than 2,000 people, although capacity varies depending upon the configuration of the movable pews."

I'm always glad to see an example of a modernist structure, and there are some, built with some regard historical context and the people who will be using it. Almost everything about the Chapel of the Resurrection says "Eisenhower era" and yet the design idiom is fully that of a Western church. It's vaulting and full of natural light, and neither lavishly ornate nor austere. The architect made it all work.

There's all kinds of interesting detail around the building. Including the cornerstone -- or rather, the temporal cornerstone, Jesus being the "chief cornerstone."

Not only do you read the year of dedication anno Domini, you're provided the Reformation Year too. Valparaiso U. is a Lutheran school, after all.

Chronos, Lord of the Hotel Wetland

I've written before about the still fairly new Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center, and can report that its oddball meeting-room names are still in place -- the Perfection Parlor and the Perfection Boardroom, as well as the Nirvana Threshold -- since I visited the place again today for an event. Which was held in the prosaic Schaumburg East, unfortunately. I could have used a morning on the threshold of nirvana.

Time was short, but I did manage to take pictures of one of the two major outdoor sculptures on site that I could see, the stainless steel "Chronos," by John C. Portman Jr., the Atlanta architect who also designed the hotel. Installed about three years ago, the sculpture sits in one of the artificial wetlands that are mandatory for large developments in our time (well, the mid-2000s; development has mostly stopped in our time).

According to the nearby sign, "the sculpture's cyclical fretwork... also hints toward technology and the internal workings of a clock." Maybe. I'm reminded more of a pocket-watch hitting the ground hard and exploding into pieces.

It's a sizable hotel and the sculpture is a fair-sized chunk of steel, but they clearly represent one of the smaller commissions for Portman, who's known for designing big things, including the first atrium hotel (Hyatt Regency Atlanta, 1967) and a lot else besides, for better or worse.

Item From the Past: Diamond in the Sky

It was a cool day in late June [1988]. There were no clouds or haze in the air and a smooth little wind was coming off Lake Michigan. A perfect day for climbing around the outside of a glass skyscraper about 40 floors above Michigan Avenue.

I haven’t taken up scaling the outsides of tall buildings for sport. But recently I did find myself atop the Associates Center [now the Smurfit-Stone Building, 150 N. Michigan Ave.], climbing around its glassy, diamond-shaped roof.

It started as a publicity gimmick for the building. The building’s management sent out an invitation to print journalists, TV crews and other ne’er-do-wells to the top of the building for lunch and a look at the “light changing process.”

That is, we were invited to see replacement of some of the white light bulbs on the roof with red and blue ones. The bulbs line the diamond shape of the roof, adding a glowing rhombus to the luminous texture of Chicago’s nighttime skyline. Red, white and blue are for the Fourth of July; at Christmas, the lights are green and red; and for Valentine’s, just red.

This is no small job. There are 252 bulbs up there, laid out over a surface of an eighth of a square mile, which just happens to be sloping at a 51-degree angle.

To reach the roof, you ride the freight elevator. At the 42nd floor, a staircase leads up to a space located under the top of the diamond-shaped glass roof. The place is a forest of pipes and machines with a floor covered by a layer of small rocks, bathed in sunlight from above. This is one of the mechanical hubs, maybe even the heart, of the building’s HVAC system.

So far, nothing too extraordinary, except maybe for the exquisite spider webs spanning a few long-undisturbed nooks among the machinery (it’s remarkable where living creatures can live). Anyway, from there a short climb up a metal ladder led to a small door that opened onto the roof.

Sound dangerous? From the ground, the roof of the Associates Center looks like a smooth, steep plane. It is, and of that were all, you’d tumble to earth like a pill bug rolling off a leaf.

But the roof also sports outdoor stairs running the length of it diamond-shaped rim, parallel to the rows of light bulbs. The stairs are recessed several feet so that it would take a good jump to get out onto the glass slope of the roof, if that were your intention. Here are also handrails that you (that is, I) grip tightly at first.

Once on the stairs, you first notice the building itself, angling down and down and down, and the other way, arching up into the sky. Then the view begins to sink in.

You’re looking southeast across the entire sweep of Grant Park, Chicago Harbor and the line of the lake curling south into Indiana. On a clear day, and this was a very clear day, you can see smokestacks in Michigan.

But it’s more than a nice vista. You get that at the Sears Tower or John Hancock, but there you’re behind glass. Here the vista is raw, unpackaged and not sold at $3.50 a pop.

I talked to the chief engineer of the building, who is in charge of the great light bulb switch. In the summer, he says, it isn’t too tough to change the bulbs. In takes him and an assistant a day. In winter, however, it’s a different story.

Then icy winds and nasty cold make the job miserable. Ice on the stairs makes it treacherous too – the engineer and his assistant sometimes use ropes to stabilize themselves, as if they were mountain climbing.

Even on a warm day, I was unnerved at the thought of trudging around on a tilted ice sheet 40 stories up. The Associates Center roof is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to work there.

Inverness Village Hall

North of I-90 in the northwest Chicago suburbs, the all-too-busy four-lane Roselle Road, which is a north-south route, narrows to two lanes through the affluent community known as Inverness. Mid-morning earlier this week the sky was clear, the temps warm, and the trees and bushes and flowers along this narrow version of Roselle Road beamed full spring green. Spring is here.

And since Inverness is a low-density community, traffic was light. I buzzed along, catching the air from a half-opened window. Roselle Road ends, or at least has its northern terminus, at a street called Baldwin Road, which almost immediate connects with the Northwest Highway. That large thoroughfare does go northwest, but isn't a highway in the limited-access sense. Even better, it's actually US 14, the old Black and Yellow Trail. If I had time that I don't happen to have right now, I could head northwest on Northwest Highway and keep following the US highway signs until I reached Yellowstone National Park.

Right at the junction of Roselle and Baldwin, but hidden from view by tall trees from the traffic on the Northwest Highway, is the Inverness Village Hall. I'd never been all the way north on Roselle, so I'd never seen it, but there it was, with its four faux castle towers, surrounding a building with an insanely steep roof. Or maybe they're supposed to be silos; I didn't see any loopholes in the structure for defending the village hall.

As usual, Roadside America is on the job, and claims that the building used to have something to do with storing Al Capone's hooch, but I haven't independently confirmed that. As busy as he was, I doubt that Capone had time to be associated with all the structures in or near Chicago later claiming to be his. Besides, if you were storing illegal liquor, wouldn't you want to put it in a nondescript warehouse somewhere? Maybe I'll call the village and ask sometime. They probably love questions about Capone.

Fortaleza Hall

I bought two packs of marshmallow peeps yesterday, one yellow, one pink; three trays were in each pack, at a post-Easter half price (49¢ per tray). By the end of the day today, no peep had survived. They were as completely vanquished as the Spartans at Thermopylae.

Fortaleza Hall, completed last year on the headquarters campus of SC Johnson in Racine, Wisconsin, has been open to the public for only about six weeks now. That alone made it unusual for me. I'm almost never ahead of the curve when it comes to visiting interesting buildings, or anywhere else, come to think of it. No matter. Most of time, I'd rather see things marked by time and chance.

SC Johnson noted in a January press release that "the 60,000-square-foot facility, which broke ground in September 2007, has two distinct sections: Fortaleza Hall, which provides historical context for the company and the advances that continue to take place through displays and memorabilia, the Frank Lloyd Wright Library and the Legacy Gallery; and a second part, The Commons, which offers employee services like dining, a company store, bank and fitness center in a comfortable environment."

The company's a bit touchy about just anyone taking pictures of the structure, so I had to stand right at an open gate, just a few feet from the entrance to the Golden Rondelle, to take my shot. Not the best vantage, and probably not the best time of day for a photo either. At night, light from inside must radiate through the 85 ultra-clear, inch-thick, curving glass panels that ring the main part of the hall to create a haunting glow and clearly show the airplane hanging from the ceiling inside.

Back in 1935, Herbert F. Johnson Jr., grandson of the founder and head of the company at the time, outfitted a twin-engine Sikorsky S-38 amphibious aircraft and hop-skipped a 15,500-mile round-trip course from Racine to Fortaleza, Brazil, stopping in a good many North American, Caribbean and South American places en route.

"The purpose of this trip was to discover new stands of carnauba palms and whether existing growths could sustain the demand for raw material for Johnson Wax," notes the web site of the Southeastern Wisconsin Aviation Museum. "The model S-38 aircraft was remarkable in its day, flying a number of history-making flights in the 1920s and early 1930s. One of which was Lindberg's 1929 inaugural airmail flight for Pan American Airways from Miami to the Panama Canal. Of the original 100 Sikorsky S-38 planes built, none still exist."

Meaning that the airplane hanging from the ceiling of Fortaleza Hall like the Spirit of St. Louis at the Smithsonian isn't the one H.F. Johnson flew to Brazil. He later sold that plane, and through some mishap it ended up in the ocean off New Guinea, only to be discovered in 2006.

Instead, the plane that hangs over everything in the hall is a replica built in the 1990s by Owatonna, Minn.-based Born Again Restorations. To the casual observer, looking up several floors from the gleaming white floor and bright clear walls of Fortaleza Hall, it looks like Born Again did a swell job. A functional job, too, since H.F. Johnson's son Sam Johnson (d. 2004), who succeeded his father as boss wax man, had it built for more than just hanging in a building. He and his sons flew the thing to Fortaleza in 1998 in a re-creation of the original carnauba-seeking expedition.

Two staircases on opposite sides of the round hall lead from ground level down to a circular expanse of floor directly below the airplane. Carved on the wall next to one staircase are quotes by H.F. Johnson. On the wall next to the other staircase are quotes by Sam Johnson. I don't remember any of the quotes now, but they made me wonder whether I've ever said anything worthy of being carved in stone, literally that is. "Statistics don't apply to individuals"? "Foolish willows don't grow into wise old oaks"? "Every man loves the smell of his own farts"? Maybe not, if those are the best I can do (and that last one is supposedly an Icelandic proverb). Mainly, though, I'm not qualified because I wasn't born into a family of consumer-product industrialists who have the scratch to hire Lord Norman Foster to build something.

The floor of the hall was as amazing as the quote-stairs were silly. The floor features a polyconic projection, mosaic map of the Americas created by one John Yarema of Troy, Mich., nine-time recipient of the National Wood Flooring Association Floor of the Year Award, according to his web site. He ought to get another floor award just for this map, which is made of 19,200 pieces of three-inch by three-inch blocks of wood. Not just any wood, but four different types -- black walnut, American cherry, maple and hornbeam -- to give the map four different colors. Why four colors? To make it a topographical map. The route that the Johnsons flew in 1935 and 1998 is marked in brass, with each stop along the way named. The map alone was worth driving to Wisconsin to see.

In a room next to the floor map were exhibits about the Johnsons and their company. Interesting enough, but I kept wandering back to look at the map until it was time to go upstairs again to see the Frank Lloyd Wright Library, as well as something else amazing in its own right: a vertical garden (mur vegetal) by Frenchman Patrick Blanc, reportedly only one of four such installations in the United States. It's a 49-foot by 18-foot wall of plants featuring 79 species, or about 2,500 total plants. Without the use of soil.

How does M. Blanc do that? The Wall Street Journal wrote about the concept in 2005: "He applies a sheet of PVC to a metal frame and staples a synthetic felt onto the PVC... Seeds, cuttings and full-grown plants -- about 20 per square meter -- are put in pockets cut into the felt, where their roots will take hold and feed from the water and fertilizer absorbed by the felt. Blanc chooses plants for their ability to live together..."

So there are new things under the sun. Or in this case, under sunlight through enormous glass walls.

Item From the Past: Indiana '02

I've written about our visit to south-central Indiana in late March 2002 before, and I try not to repeat myself. (See March 24 and April 2, 2003.) But I didn't publish images in those days.

Such as an exterior view of the Ameritech/SBC switching station at Seventh and Franklin in Columbus, Indiana.

This is a better picture. The Columbus C&V Bureau notes: "Paul Kennon of Caudill, Rowlett, Scott designed this building in 1978. It is encased with a skin of reflective glass. The result mirrors activities of the surrounding neighborhood. Giant yellow, orange, red and blue 'organ pipes' on the west side are both functional and decorative."

After visiting Columbus, we went on to Nashville, Indiana, which has a history as an artists' town. To repeat myself from April 3, 2003: "There was one shop in Nashville that we liked more than the others, just a bit off of the main street, and we bought an inexpensive watercolor there. It illustrated the town of Story, Indiana, some miles south of Nashville.

"The man behind the counter, burly, tattooed, graying and about 50, told me that Story was worth seeing, very rustic, and that the drive there was hilly, not very Midwestern at all. Then he said, 'Thanks for buying my painting. I did that one.' And indeed, his mugshot and a short bio were pasted on the back."

I would mention his name now, but when I removed the watercolor to scan the other day, the information was missing, and I can't quite read the signature. This is the watercolor:

Views From the Hubble Telescope

Late January is just the right time to buy a new calendar, I figure. The discount is steep but you still have a little more than eleven months' usage of the thing. I had that in mind on Saturday before noon when I found myself at a calendar kiosk at the Woodfield Mall.

I needed a calendar for my little office at home. Each calendar at the kiosk was $4, which is a next-stop-landfill price. The one I finally bought has a MSRP of $13.99/Can$16.99/£9.99, including VAT for that last one. Seems like the Canadians are getting the short end of that stick; I did a quick conversion at the useful XE.com and the loonie is stronger than that ($13.99 = Can$14.80).

Lots of calendars were on the racks, but few showed much imagination. The usual suspects include dogs, cats, lighthouses, sports stars, young women in small swimsuits, celebrities du jour, classic cars, and so on. Tucked away toward the bottom of one rack was "Space: Views from the Hubble Telescope," published by Pomegranate Communications of Petaluma, Calif., and Scientific American. That looked promising.

So promising that I now have it on my wall. The photos are as picturesque as you'd expect, clear and colorful shots of impossibly distant places with hybrid poetic-catalog names: Spiral Galaxy M71, Giant Nebula NGC 3603, Galaxy Cluster Abell S0740, just to name three illustrations .

Even better, there's more than the run-of-the-mill text on the calendar itself. U.S., U.K. and Canadian holidays are all represented, as well as the phases of the moon and the solstices and equinoxes, but so are birthdays and death anniversaries of an assortment of astronauts, astronomers, cosmologists and others.

The anniversary of certain launches toward space or encounters with other worlds are noted too -- and not just the ones you might think. Robert Goddard's first liquid-fueled rocket launch on April 16, 1926 rates a mention; so does Valentina Tereshkova's ride into space on June 16, 1963; and so does the French launch of its first satellite on November 26, 1963, the A-1 Astérix. And what was the next French launch? The Obelix?

The 20th anniversary of the launching of the Hubble telescope is duly noted on April 24. That also happens to be the day in 1970 that China -- Red China in those days -- launched its first satellite, Dongfanghong I, which transmitted the song of that name -- "The East is Red," to give its English title. Those were the days. Nowadays Chinese satellites probably transmit newer songs, such as "The East Has a Trade Surplus."

Adrian Smith's Burj

I have a professional interest in the Burj Khalifa (Burj Dubai), so I've been reading a fair amount about it recently. Some of what I've seen is unimaginative What It Means commentary, as when the term hubris appears from the critic's tool chest, or comparisons are made to the Tower of Babel. Note, however, that instead of confounding mankind and his lofty ambitions with a diversity of tongues, this time around the Lord caused a real estate collapse. Not very Old Testament, if you asked me.

I haven't seen nearly as much written about what it's like to stand there and look up at the building, or go inside, now that it's open, or what kind of view is to be had from the top. It has to be impressive in person. Really tall things usually are. I doubt that I will ever make it to Dubai, but if I were in the neighborhood, I'd certainly want to take a long look at the thing, and not just because of the height.

"...it would be condescending to dispute that the tower is an impressive, supremely elegant edifice, or that it is nothing less than graceful compared with the plain cuboids from the age of functionalism or the gaudy, modern towers in places like Kuala Lumpur and Taipei," notes Business Week.

"According to the tower's US architect, Adrian Smith, the floor plan, a central core surrounded by three lobes, is patterned on the blossom structure of the Hymenocallis flower, a shape that simultaneously creates more visible surface area and reduces the wind pressure acting on buildings this tall," the magazine continues. "As it tapers upward, one of the three lobes is shifted slightly backward about every eight floors, an effect that is reminiscent of an Islamic spiral minaret and provides the tower with 26 terraces."

Adrian Smith (a Chicago architect, not just an American one) came to participate in a roundtable discussion my former magazine hosted in early 2002, so I've met the man. One of the points he made during that event was his dissatisfaction with the timidity of developers in the United States. At that juncture, even Donald Trump had scaled back his plans for his Chicago project, which Smith also designed.

Trump Chicago (formally, Trump International Hotel & Tower) has since been completed. I walked by the finished tower a few times during 2009, and even took a picture of it in September, which is to the left.

Not the world's tallest, or even Chicago's tallest, but it's a fine piece of work nevertheless. And like the Burj Khalifa, it will probably outlast me, you, Adrian Smith, Trump, the Emir of Dubai and various overintellectualizing critics of really tall buildings.

Old St. Patrick's, Chicago

Cool today after yesterday's rains, but last Friday just before noon it was very warm, as it has been all month. I found myself on Des Plaines Street, on the near West Side, an easy walk west from Union Station. I had a lunch to go to, but I also had the advantage of a few spare minutes.

So I visited Old St. Patrick's Church. It's been a few years since I've been able to admire its interesting Celtic Revival interior, especially the stained glass, so I ducked inside and for a few minutes was the only one there. The church dates from the 1850s, survived the Fire somehow, and was redecorated in this unusual style in the 1910s.

"Inspired by the Celtic art exhibit at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 and the Book of Kells in Ireland, Thomas A. O’Shaughnessy designed, constructed, and personally installed the 15 beautiful stained-glass windows of Old St. Patrick’s between 1912 and 1922," says the church's web site. "The 12 side windows were inspired by the Celtic designs of Ireland's Book of Kells. The final triptych windows, done in an art nouveau style and installed in the eastern facade of the church, are the 'Faith, Hope & Charity' windows, also known as the Terrence MacSwiney Memorial Triptych."

The lighting inside was no good for photography, but I did stand across the street and capture another unusual feature of this church, the towers, in a slightly crooked image. One is supposed to represent the western church, the other the eastern church. The "western" tower is actually to the south of the "eastern" tower, geographically speaking, but never mind. They make an interesting pair.