The Babuk Report

Category: Architecture

  • Canadian Architects of the Chicago School 1880 – 1935

    A striking feature of Chicago that amazes visitors and newcomers alike is the ability of taxi-cab drivers to identify city landmarks by their architect.  The Thompson Center? – why that’s Helmut Jahn.  The Loop Post Office? – it’s Mies van der Rohe.  The Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park – Frank Gehry!

    The part of the story that few seem able to recount is how many of the architects cited are Canadian.  Frank Gehry – from time to time claiming to be Torontonian or from someplace thereabouts – is one example.  But dig a bit deeper into Chicago’s heritage…

    While everyone can recite the name of at least one Frank Lloyd Wright building, few realize that the River Forest Tennis Club in River Forest was originally built as a carbon copy of the “Frank Lloyd Wright Pavilion” in Banff National Park.  The Tennis Club was moved and altered in 1910, but many basic parts of the existing building are just as they were built in Banff.  Why Banff, you ask?  In his travels to Japan, a favourite steamship of Wright’s was the Canadian Pacific “Empress of Asia”, which left from the Granville Street Terminal in Vancouver.  In those day, Canadian Pacific sold “through tickets” that accommodated passengers in their ocean liners, trains and hotels in trips around the world.  One of the easiest ways to get from Chicago to Tokyo was to take the Canadian Pacific Railway train through Moose Jaw, spend a couple days at the Banff Springs hotel, and in just a couple steps from your train stop in Vancouver, catch your steamer from the same building.  One of Wright’s protégés – Francis C. Sullivan of Ottawa – introduced him to many contacts within the Canadian Department of Public Works, including the Banff National Park Warden and Superintendant.

    Likewise, many marvel at historic buildings in the Chicago Park District or along the Chicago River, or delight in presentations at the Graham Foundation.  When he was sixteen, Hugh Garden was one of three sons of a Toronto family that immigrated to Chicago. For a time, Garden worked in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park studio before partnering up with other architects to establish a prolific Chicago practice.  As Designer in Charge, he was responsible for projects like the Madelener House and the hotel addition to the former Chicago Athletic Association.  His client relationship with the Chicago Park District produced memorable works such as the Garfield Park Refectory and the Columbus Park lanterns; his last major project was the former Marshall Fields Warehouse complex along the North Branch of the Chicago River.

    And meanwhile, several buildings in Chicago – the clubhouse of the Union League Club of Chicago being a good example – are credited to William LeBaron Jenney, despite the building having been built in 1925 and Jenney having died in 1907.  William LeBaron Jenney was a Chicago Architect who invented the steel cage skyscraper frame, for which Chicago became known world-over as the birthplace of the skyscraper. Few recognize that Jenney mentored and appointed a successor Architect to assume his practice – a Hamilton, Ontario native named William Bryce Mundie. A quiet and unassuming fellow, Mundie was never-the-less a professional and social pillar of Chicago. Upon his hiring in 1884, Mundie was given the assignment of being the Project Architect of the Home Life Insurance Building, a landmark building recognized as the world’s first skyscraper. Mundie became a partner in what became Jenney and Mundie Architects in 1891. Louis Sullivan credited Mundie as being the inventor of the “Skyscraper Setback Style” in a treatise describing the Manhattan Building.  Instrumental in the adoption of building code and professional regulation standards, he was appointed Supervising Architect to the Chicago Board of Education in 1898. Here, his personal mission being to bring school construction to high standards of safety, in the aftermath of the Iroquois Theater fire tragedy.  A Board Member of the Canadian Club of Chicago and of the Illinois Saint Andrew Society, he was also the First Vice President of the American Institute of Architects. He donated his services – twice – to build and rebuild the Scottish Home in North Riverside. And, of course, he was a Member of the Union League Club of Chicago, and Architect of its present clubhouse.

    So, we all know the architectural landmarks of Chicago, but do you know of the Canadian landmarks here?

     

  • Darrel Babuk presented with Visit Oak Park Award

    At the Annual Meeting of Visit Oak Park (formerly known as the Oak Park Area Visitor and Convention Bureau), Darrel Babuk was presented with the “New Member of the Year Award”, in recognition of the Babuk Presentations, Inc.  initiative.

    Though Darrel Babuk is a practicing architect – having completed various project and program management projects for clients such as the Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago Public Schools, and West Suburban Hospital –he has always been doing public speaking engagements and other presentations.

    It may have started with his presentation to the Royal Institute of British Architects in London that described architectural internship and formal education in the United States, which Darrel was invited to present as part of his tenure as National Vice President of the American Institute of Architecture Students.  The concept of Babuk Presentations took off when Darrel was tapped by the City of Chicago Mayor’s Office of Special Events for a series of presentations about Chicago’s architecture and railroad history for the Great Chicago Places and Spaces festival series.  His address to the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s national convention last year was but one of several out-of-town presentations where he has promoted Oak Park; on the flip side, he is constantly delivering customized presentations about Chicago and Oak Park to organized groups visiting from out-of-town and abroad.  

    He has always been organizing events – like “Canadian Architecture in Chicago Week”, or the “Scottish Motor Club and British Car Show” at the Illinois Saint Andrew Society Highland Games, or even the “Oak Park Architecture Photo Party” for the North Avenue Business Association. 

    Putting all of this together created Babuk Presentations, Inc, a hobby turned into a business that promotes Oak Park. 

    In connecting even more of the dots, Babuk Presentations, Inc. provides cross-border US / Canada goods and services trade consulting to clients in the Architecture / Engineering and Construction sectors.  

    It’s all great fun to do, and fun to be doing it in Oak Park.

  • It’s a New Year – 2011!

    As I keep reminding people, any good Canadian Prairie Kid can tell you that there’s a good three or four days left to celebrate Christmas…

    In exchanging Seasons Greetings with my colleagues, the universal response has been something to the effect that “2011 will definitely be better than 2010 because it couldn’t get much worse”.  There are all sorts of dark clouds out there, especially here in the States: an unresolved residential mortgage crisis, a glut of building space in virtually every market sector, perceived tight credit markets…. The list goes on.

    Yet, many that I speak to mention that the private sector – in corporations – are sitting on $1.5trillion in cash reserves that sometime soon, under corporate law, they will need to spend.  The three areas the private sector could put these funds towards would be employee bonuses, dividends for shareholders, or capital improvements.  While any of these options will have positive economic ramifications, the latter option – capital improvements – speaks to using money to better one’s ability to compete in the marketplace.

    While it was posted some time ago, I still stand by one of my first posts to The Babuk Report “The Rise and Fall of the McMansion and Other Midwestern Housing Trends”, with a couple updates.  As predicted, the era of the mega house has come to an end.  Even the practice of building more and more on the outer limits of existing urbanized development seems precariously endangered – virtually every US city is surrounded by miles of partially developed land packed full with empty building sites and partially completed houses, usually sited along streets finished with pavement and sewer systems.  It all came true.  Here’s what’s next:

    While we may have a glut of existing building stock, we are a growing population that will need to be accommodated with building space.

    Of the existing space that’s out there, some will simply become obsolete, having lived well beyond its serviceable lifespan.  Without a strong historical or emotional reason to preserve it, this type of building space will be demolished and either replaced with new, or the site vacated.  Entire sections of Detroit are seeing this – it made more sense to abandon entire sections of Detroit: relocate what few residents were left, abandon streets and municipal services, focus on areas with sustainable populations and return the rest of the city to agriculture.

    The same may happen to buildings that lack the “location, location, location” mantra of the real estate industry, or are of a highly specific configuration that won’t lend itself to different uses – like trying to stuff a large public space into something with a small structural grid and low ceilings. This too may be replaced.

    Of other building space that’s left in good shape, we’ll see more of it being renovated and updated, perhaps even being put to adaptive reuse.  The proposed Children’s Museum at Millennium Park in Chicago is a highly creative adaptive reuse of what would otherwise have been an abandoned parking garage.

    Moreover, this development – more appropriately “re-development” will occur in areas that are already part of an established built up area.  As predicted, the areas inside cities closest to convenient public transit are more desirable than others, as the Chicago Tribune reported in an article describing suburban Palatine and it’s Metra Commuter Rail station.

    As for financing – there’s money out there to be lent. It’s just that everyone is too squeamish to step up to the plate.

    All said, here’s the opportunity: existing buildings and building sites well located inside existing desirable communities, close to transportation.  One might even start considering the sort of municipal debt and local tax burden, that can be discussed in a future post.   Start looking, and remember that there’s still a few days left to celebrate Christmas.

  • An Expanding Role for Babuk Presentations

    The relationship enjoyed by Canada and the United States is a model to be envied around the world.  While the cross border relationship thrives in many ways, the intertwined nature of both countries’ economies is fascinating:  not only are both countries each others’ largest trading partner, but the value of exports from one virtually equals the value of imports from the other.

    The premier of Saskatchewan once made a presentation in Chicago about hot dogs with mustard and Chicago Cubs baseball at Wrigley Field. The United States exports baseball as a national past time and cultural phenomenon, Canada exports virtually every bit of mustard consumed in the States that supports baseball. It’s that entwined.  In another presentation I recall, the Canadian Minister of Industry once recounted travelling with the materials of an automotive part – from the extraction of raw materials to the completion and installation of the manufactured part.  He crossed the border between Detroit and Windsor seven times.

    Naturally, I go back and forth quite a bit between the two countries, and I’ve made extensive presentations on both sides of the border.  For some time, through an outgrowth of public presentations, I’ve helped companies understand the markets on the other side of the border.  It just never occurred to me to formalize that as part of Babuk Presentations, Inc.

    Until now.

    Linking international connections with professional, architectural knowledge to the cross border import / export Architectural / Engineering and Construction communities of Canada and the USA.

    That’s us.  It’s just a natural extension of what’s been happening all along.

  • It’s been a while, folks….

    …and a whirlwind of activities it has been.  Just to name a few of the distractions that came over me:

    Leading a program for the National Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians that was held in Chicago.

    Delivering a presentation of “Canadian Architects of the Chicago School 1884 – 1935” to the National Festival of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and delivering abbreviated versions of this presentation to the Racquet Club of Chicago, and to the Cliff Dwellers Club.

    Being a Docent for the Pleasant Home Foundation’s annual “Pleasant Homes of Oak Park” fundraiser.

    At the request and sponsorship of Visit Oak Park, planning a program describing the art and architecture of Oak Park’s churches to be given during the Oak Park Arts Council’s “ArtRageous! Oak Park” Festival, to which the kind folks at Porter Airlines generously donated a pair of roundtrip airline tickets as a silent auction item.

    All of the speaking engagements have lead to some fascinating research, like finding meeting minutes of the River Forest Tennis Club first approving the membership applications of Mr.  & Mrs. Frank Lloyd Wright in 1907, only to be succeeded by Board Meeting minutes in 1912 or so, rescinding the memberships of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney, for reason of “Philandering”.

    There’s been lots of travel, including some time on the west coast (prairie kids always want to wind up on the coast).

    And a trip to speak in Saskatoon (it’s a city in Saskatchewan), where I found that not only was the person in line behind me at the airport the Senior Advisor to the Premier of Saskatchewan going away on a quick vacation of sorts, but that the incoming flight was grounded due to a bird strike and ensuing engine flame out.

    But that if that wasn’t enough for careening into famous political figures, I bumped into Paul Martin (former Prime Minister of Canada) at the Island Airport in Toronto – he actually took a seat next to me in the Departures Lounge.

    And many volunteer activities:

    Volunteering to give impromptu Canadian geography presentations during the Tall Ships Festival.

    Chairing the British Car Show at the Illinois Saint Andrew Society Highland Games.  I had planned to enter the Caber Toss event and even contacted the Heavy Athletic Chair to enquire; I just didn’t get around to attending the training sessions held in a far western suburb of Chicago. 

    Assisting various community groups organize various car shows or British, Italian and German themes, complete with entertainment by the Thistle and Heather Highland Dancers, and various bagpipers.

    Oak Park Architecture Photo Party, which even extended into the Galewood neighbourhood of Chicago, an area rich with mid-century modern architecture.

    And I’ve started to develop manuscripts for books, including “Canadian Architects of the Chicago School 1884 – 1935”, “First Railroads, Then Skyscrapers”; and the one closest to publication “Art Deco Oak Park”, for which there is a hard bound draft copy lurking about.

    Whew!!  Perhaps I ought to simply get back to writing The Babuk Report…

  • The North Avenue Architecture Photo Party

    North Avenue, the border between the north side of Oak Park and the Galewood neighborhood of Chicago, is relatively newer than many surrounding neighborhoods. While the buildings along North Avenue post date Frank Lloyd Wright, he golfed here with friends and clients. Many used the area as a place to get away and hide from the City.  It was one of the first automobile oriented commercial strips in the Chicago area. A favorite location for drive-in restaurants, the road west of Oak Park and Galewood – known as State Route 64 – was a renowned teen hangout for street races. 

    Architecturally, the area is rich in 1920’s storefronts with highly decorative terra cotta cladding and details. Later buildings were exuberantly mid-century modern. 

    Experience the world renowned architecture of our town, which is just a scant eight miles / twelve kilometres from another equally world renowned and architecturally significant place, the Chicago Loop.  

    And besides –North Avenue has lots of great restaurants, stores and cultural attractions to discover and enjoy once you’ve completed the North Avenue Architecture Photo Party.

    Instructions:

    By walking along public sidewalks and right-of-ways contained along North Avenue between Austin and Harlem Avenues, and for an area one block north and south along Harlem Avenue; locate these architectural features and details, noting their location. 

    Oak Park is a living museum containing many private homes that just happen to be world renowned masterpieces.  No private residences are featured in the North Avenue Architecture Photo Party.   However, please respect the homeowner’s privacy and remain on the public sidewalks for the hunt.

    Here’s a sampling of the program:

    The Jetsons’ probably get their teeth fixed here.
    Terra Cotta TV
    A monumental building

    An additional feature of the scavenger hunt is the North Avenue Historical Photo Party.  This may be the most enigmatic image of them all:

    North Pole Drive In, River Forest, Illinois

    While historians agree that this was the North Pole Drive In, located in River Forest, Illinois.  It’s also agreed that its architect was Bertrand Goldberg.  No consensus exists on where this was located.  However, I have my theories….

     The entire program is on display in the lobbies of these banks on North Avenue, who have supported the North Avenue Architecture Photo Party:

    ABC Bank, North Avenue, Chicago

    Charter One Bank, North Avenue, Chicago

    Midwest Bank, North Avenue, Elmwood Park

    US Bank, North Avenue, Oak Park

    June 2010 North Avenue Architecture Photo Party is a production of:

    North Avenue Business Association

    Oak Park Architectural League

    This edition has been made possible by:

    Visit Oak Park

    Oak Park River Forest Historical Foundation

    www.3planets.com / www.shopoakpark.com

    Heitzman Architects

    Babuk Presentations, Inc / www.TourAboutChicago.com

    Keep following this event anywhere in the world at www.OakParkArchitectureParty.com

  • Lessons Learned From Both of the Post-war Development Periods

    The changing economy and its effects on the retail streetscape may be best studied in the pre-war and post-war streetscape: pre and post First World War. This particular timeframe holds fascination as it depicts a landscape before and after the automobile’s influence. Oak Park offers another excellent set of examples: it has both types of development at hand.

    Since the 1860’s, downtown Oak Park has been built up next to a commuter train station, and a rapid transit station in time. The largest source of traffic for these train stations was commuter traffic to and from Chicago. Storefronts were built up along adjacent streets. Though this area was never planned, it grew naturally, with many improvements over the years. The commuter train and rapid transit stations are still there, they generate a sizeable amount of foot traffic. While this neighbourhood has some storefront vacancies, it is a sought after location in Oak Park, perhaps one of the most economically vibrant in town. Odd, because this society has become so much more reliant on personal transportation – the automobile – since the initial development. This infrastructure and its layout still seem to work. Granted, there is an ongoing issue about car parking in this area, the sentiment being that more parking garages should be built to provide more accessibility for shoppers; in reality, the parking garages in existence draw on a substantial trade of commuters who park their vehicles to walk to the train stations.

    As an aside, a very large parking garage might hold as many as 1000 cars, whereas a fully loaded commuter or rapid transit train may hold as many as 1000 people. While parking may be an attraction for commuters, it’s effect is limited. Most transit riders still seem to find other ways to get to the train.

    While Oak Park grew naturally around its train stations in that era prior to mass ownership of automobiles, the town was bordered by country roads.

    Using the First World War as a marker, a pivotal point in time because automobiles were becoming more widespread. The original Garden City concept of orderly development around train stations forming towns, and towns separated by open space was becoming passé ; all of the bits of the open space between established towns were now accessible point-to-point by automobile and seemed to be idyllic places to live. These areas were settled as ‘sprawl’. Our urban design patterns were still based on walkable towns, so these new areas settled by “automobile development” were awkward in their layout.

    Areas of Oak Park like North Avenue were developed in this fashion in the 1920‘s. Small storefronts with large signs were built “cheek by jowl” along a busy highway, originally intended to move traffic from one town to another without stopping in between. Automobile parking happened on either side of this broad right-of-way. Additional parking was provided along the back of the storefronts, allowing customers to enter from either a front or back door. This led to confusion and an informality, as the ‘back doors’ alongside convenient parking also doubled as the service entrance. Architect and Urban Planner Victor Gruen, in his book “The Heart of Cities” chronicled this type of development.

    In Oak Park, North Avenue has more vacancies than anywhere else in tow, and has become a favourite location for tattoo parlours and palm readers. The Village is probably coveting the property and sales tax revenue generated by marginal uses like these, and that this tax income is more difficult to come by in this economy.

    Jumping ahead many years, it was the era after the Second World War that developed an urban model that located a building in the middle of a vast parking lot, the precursor of big box retailers and shopping malls. And oddly, this type of retailer isn’t doing that well either these days.

    What goes around comes around.

  • Canadians in the Chicago School 1884 – 1935 Presentation

    The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada holds a national convention every year, entitled the “Festival of Architecture”.  This year, the Festival is being held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and its theme will be “Sounds Like Architecture”.

    Proudly, I will be delivering a talk “Canadians of the Chicago School 1884 – 1935” at this year’s Festival, on June 26.  This topic talks of the contributions made directly by Canadians to the development of the 1880’s Chicago skyscraper format, and the contributions those Canadians brought back to create a “Canadian” skyscraper.

    This is a presentation delivered previously to the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and to visiting student and faculty groups from various Canadian and European universities.  I’m constantly drawing on research from many sources in preparation for this preparation.

  • So, what was that you wanted to know?

    The last month or so has seen a flurry of behind the scenes activity at the Babuk Report.  All for the good.  It’s all about Learn About Chicago a venture described elsewhere in this blog.

    Learn About Chicago is an initiative that is an extension of the sort of architectural awareness and organization that I’ve done in past.  It is a division of Babuk Presentations, Inc.

    The major focus of Learn About Chicago targets university students who want to spend an extended period studying Chicago’s architecture. It may be a studio class led a professor from a visiting institution, or it may be a program of presentations and interactive learning experiences that I assemble.  I work with the visiting groups to tailor make a Chicago experience that they will take with them, to further their studies at their home collegiate institution.  Learn About Chicago can work with many other groups wanting a series of presentations – presentations delivered by myself or others – bundled together into a program that describes Chicago.

    Tour About Chicago is another division of Babuk Presentations Inc.  Tour About Chicago focuses on delivering articulate and informative presentations about Chicago’s architectural and railroad history.  I weave Chicago’s historical sites into captivating and fascinating story lines.  Tour About Chicago is much like what I’ve been doing all along.  Many of the Tour About Chicago presentations – especially those that describe Oak Park and the near western suburbs of Chicago will be marketed through Visit Oak Park.

    Tour About Chicago specializes in the little known parts of Chicago.  Quirky history.

    Babuk Presentations, Inc. is a new direction within my architectural practice.  It specializes in all types of presentations; graphic design, public speaking and the like.

    Watch for a revamped web presence soon.

  • Mechanized Bridges in Portland

    The American Institute of Steel Construction published a story I wrote for their monthly newsletter’s ” Bridge of  the Month” feature.  The story follows:

    Waddell & Harrington, Consulting Engineers of Kansas City, built many of their patented bridges at many locations throughout the U.S. One example is the Hawthorne Bridge in Portland, OR, spanning the Willamette River. This bridge is configured as several individual spans that connect to the vertical lift span. This bridge truss however, is configured as a “four sheave” design with its counterweights concealed within the vertical, tower trusses. The lift span is 250 feet long, and can raise 110 feet for a total clearance of 160 feet above the river. Cables carry two 424-ton counterweights that are adjusted for tension with turnbuckles. The lift span is operated by two 125 hp motors.

    The Hawthorne Bridge has been described as the oldest extant example of this type of a four sheave vertical lift bridge in the U.S.

    Credit:

    Darrel G. Babuk, AIA, MRAIC is an architectural historian who specializes in presentations of early industrial age structures.  His presentation topics may be seen at www.learnaboutchicago.com.

    Image 1: Photo from Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey or Historic American Engineering Record, Reproduction Number HAER ORE, 26-PORT, 10-8.

    Image 2: Photo from Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey or Historic American Engineering Record, Reproduction Number HAER ORE, 26-PORT, 10-23.

    As a sidenote, Waddell and Harrington designed and built several “Center Lift Span” bridges in the Chicago area, including the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway, Calumet River Bridge,  (1912 – 1913) and the Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge at 18th and Stewart Street (1910).