The Babuk Report

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Manitobans and Modernists from both parts of the Twentieth Century

The University of Manitoba Faculty of Architecture has held an annual Chicago Field Trip for a very long time. I’ve heard first hand accounts of the field trips that occurred during the 1940’s; I gather that they’ve been going on prior to that. For the past couple years, I’ve been honoured to have made presentations to the group visiting Chicago.

The University of Manitoba (not my alma mater) is located in Winnipeg. Burton Cummings of the Guess Who described Winnipeg as the perfect place for an aspiring musician of his time in which to grow up: local CBC radio broadcasts carried the latest from Britain, while Chicago radio stations enjoyed excellent reception across the endless plains. Local school and community programs provided excellent support for music and the arts; putting all of this together was the perfect foamation for a rock band in the mid sixties.

One of the other arts that Winnipeg has always supported has been architecture.

A prominent figure in the development of the Chicago School skyscraper format of the 1880’s was William LeBaron Jenney; his successor partner was William Bryce Mundie, an architect from Hamilton, Ontario who was very much supportive of the idea of mentoring young architects into the profession, just as he had been similarly mentored in Hamilton. A young architect who passed through the Jenney and Mundie practice was John Atchison, who kept in contact with Mundie throughout his career. Atchison established his practice in Winnipeg at the time of a great building boom; he had the only locally based architectural practice with the wherewithal to do skyscrapers. Winnipeg provided many a patron for Atchison’s work; the city’s Exchange District is brimming with it.

Lounge, Winnipeg International Airport. Green, Blankstein, Russell and Associates, Architects. 1964

Moving the clock ahead several decades, John A. Russell came to Winnipeg to head the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba, starting just after the Second World War. Himself a modernist proponent, he brought faculty educated at top European and American design schools who had worked in some of the most progressive practices; he imported a litany of “who’s who” in the architecture and design world as visiting lecturers; he encouraged his students to continue onto some of the top graduate schools in the world. Many of those students came back to Winnipeg. Coupled with a vigorous artistic community, Winnipeg became home to one of the most talked about architectural programs anywhere. The city reflected the train of thought going on at the University. A recent exhibit at the Winnipeg Art Gallery “Winnipeg Modern” shows it.

The “Winnipeg Modern” exhibit was ground breaking. Though it made news in Canada, it’s unfortunate that it didn’t get a lot of airplay elsewhere. However, another great Winnipeg topic for an architectural exhibit would be the skyscrapers of the early 20th century, and their contribution to Canadian architecture. Let’s have at it.

September 5, 2009
Other Coach Houses in Oak Park

1965 Chrysler Crown Imperial Convertible, obviously different than my Mini

Once, in a fit to buy an inexpensive though highly presentable company car for my practice, I came across a restored 1965 Chrysler Crown Imperial convertible. Trouble is, we live on that side of Oak Park where garages are accessible off of alleys; our alley surveys at sixteen feet (about 5.2) metres across. I thought that I’d wedge the thing in between neighbour’s fences. Something like that once happened to me on a trip into a McDonald’s near the New Jersey Turnpike, though that is quite a different story than what I’m presenting here. However, remember my previous posts about our cities being designed around the size of our automobiles – good example.

An alley in Oak Park

Otherwise, Oak Park has some very well kept alleys that could make great “mews” style lanes.

My previous post about Laneway Houses in Vancouver prompted a brisk walk to look at other coach houses in Oak Park. As mentioned, current Village policy has it that accessory spaces connected to garages are acceptable, water service to that accessory building is not. Further, anyone living in a building accessory to the main building on a parcel of land constitutes a second family on that parcel, or a “multi family” situation. Some very large parcels of land that historically were built with coach houses fronting onto the street have seen that land parcel subdivided over the years, so that the original coach house is officially a separate house on its own.

A recent, local newspaper story spoke of the first garage built in Oak Park. Only Oak Park would recognize such a thing, but it was built to house a fellow’s Locomobile Steamer in 1898. This was a very nouveau idea for a new fangled invention; larger houses on larger land parcels here in “distant” suburbs were more likely to have horse stables with haylofts.

Formerly stables, now a garage

There are a couple examples in Oak Park of former horse stables, with what would have been hay-lofts above. There’s undoubtedly some sort of Village ordinance in these modern times prohibiting people keeping horses on their property, though one may have as many three dogs. Fancy dog houses aside, former horse stables have either been demolished or converted into garages for cars.

An elaborate coach house, now a single family residence

There are several examples of large houses with separate “motor garage” coach houses that have access from a street. Many of these land parcels have been subdivided, so that the former coach house is a residence unto its own.

There are new garages being built in with accessory space. One client approached me about building a large garage in his backyard, an upstairs space to accommodate his 10,000 volume library collection. While it didn’t require water service, putting that much weight above a long span structure doesn’t come inexpensively. The project never got off the ground.

August 31, 2009
Barn Doors, Department Stores, Kiddie Monorails and Urban Transit Systems

Louden Monorail, 10th Floor, Meier and Frank Department Store, Portland, Oregon

Some time ago, I was at a friend’s office and noticed a photograph on his desk. It almost seemed like something ‘photoshopped’ – it showed a bright, shiny metal tube with children, buzzing overtop the sales aisles of a department store. It was real – the photo was an image of the late 1940’s of the kiddie monorail installation at the Sears & Roebuck store located in the former Second Lieter Building at the corner of State and Congress in Chicago.

Second Lieter Building, Chicago. Jenney and Mundie, Architects

Sears moved out of this building years ago. Trying to keep a building this size full of the sorts of merchandise sold by Sears at that time was an awful lot of inventory. There’s only so many Craftsman Tool products one can sell – to a market that’s a bunch of office workers, no less. When I first landed in Chicago, there was an occasion when I was walking south from the Loop to retrieve my parked car when suddenly Congress closed up with security vehicles and there came the Clinton’s Presidential motorcade, Hillary Clinton on the side of the car facing the old Sears store which made me wonder how many times she – in her Chicago youth – passed that corner before, not realizing that she would ever pass by again waving to crowds as the First Lady. Moreover, the old Sears Store – the Second Lieter Building – was a watershed commission for the architectural firm of Jenney and Mundie. It was a mammoth skyscraper cage building capable of accommodating many different uses; it came with a beautiful pattern of window openings. Chicago is a city where, in the Loop, the ground floors of buildings always have corridors going in and out; the buildings are a permeable extension of the streets. The former Second Lieter Building – or former Sears Store – or whatever one called it was a handy short cut for me on days of inclement weather. I never imagined it to have something like this kiddie monorail suspended overhead.

Louden Monorail, Basement, Herpolsheimers Department Store, Grand Rapids, Michigan

The Louden Machinery Company of Fairfield, Iowa was a late 19th century leader in the invention and manufacture of farm equipment. A hay bale stacking machine was one of the company’s first patents; one can still find plan books that describe standard “Louden” barn configurations. One of their inventions was for a sliding barn door assembly. Looking at this particular invention in abstract terms: it allowed a heavy object to be suspended off of rollers that glided on a rail… use a bit of imagination, a couple machinery parts and something capable of accommodating people and voila! – one has a type of overhead monorail system that can convey passengers.

Louden Monorail, Kresge Department Store, Newark, New Jersey

After the Second World War, the Louden Company put all of these together and started manufacturing a child sized “kiddie monorail” that was snapped up by large, urban department stores to be a prominent feature in their toy department. Kind of like a toy train one could ride. Apparently, there were more than two dozen kiddie monorails installed. Asides from installation at Sears in Chicago, I know of others at the Kresge store in Newark, NJ; at Wanamakers in Philadelphia, PA; Herpolsheimers in Grand Rapids, Michigan; at the Midtown Plaza in Rochester, NY; and at the Meier and Frank Store in Portland, Oregon; this latter example being the last installation to operate. They must have been absolutely thrilling!

It reminds me of the Alweg Company building the Monorail for the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle. Operated for a profit, sold at minimal cost to the City after the Fair, it presented a concept of moving people around at a minimal cost. Why can’t we do this nowadays?

August 28, 2009
The Vancouver “Laneway” House

Within the last year, the City of Vancouver (British Columbia) recently amended the City’s zoning ordinance to permit coach, or “laneway” houses to be built along back alleys (rear lanes) in certain areas. In a nutshell; in specific single family zoned areas, on lots 33’ (about 10.8 metres) or wider that have a back alley or corner frontages, in the rear of the lot; with specific distance separation, lot size and on site parking requirements. The lot where the laneway house is to be built cannot be strata-titled.

Laneway Houses, image courtesy of Lanefab Development Company, Vancouver, BC www.lanefab.com

At least of couple different design / build companies have emerged catering specifically to this market. The “laneway housing” concept is an easy way to increase density in a neighbourhood without altering its visual character. It can bring a human presence to an area previously a “no-man’s land” and create safety within a neighbourhood. Laneway housing can increase add to the local tax base while providing a method of providing affordable housing, and more than likely catering to a different age and social group than currently resides in a community – an important feature allowing people to “age in place”.

An entire lane developed with "laneway houses", image courtesy of Lanefab Development Corporation, Vancouver, BC www.lanefab.com

It also supports my notion that our housing stock has come to be much too large, and that an easy to bring about sustainability in design is to simply build on a smaller scale.

As with other tiny house concepts, laneway housing may appear to have a higher construction cost per square foot than a conventional house. A unit-cost-per-square foot includes not just the foundation, floor and roof, but also walls and all systems contained inside those walls. A building with smaller rooms will contain more walls per square foot, so that makes sense. In order to conserve space, many features that would otherwise be store bought furniture are built-in. Frank Lloyd Wright used built-in features generously in his Usonian House concept – even the catalog bought “Sears House” of the US Midwest used built in features to increase living space. Paying for these features as part of a base building or as furniture from a store, well… It’ll all get paid for somehow.

Other municipalities in the Vancouver area are considering zoning amendments allowing laneway housing. Most municipalities in the Chicago area – including the City of Chicago itself – disallow new habitable “coach house” construction. Oh, how I wish that could change…

August 27, 2009
The Running of the Lions in Chicago

Ernest Hemmingway came from Oak Park; he wrote about the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.

I’m wondering about the running of the lions in Chicago….

Here, we have the Lion of the Art Institute of Chicago, guarding the main entrance on Michigan Avenue, Facing Adams Street…

And here, we have a lion crafted by Albert Speh named “David”, guarding the front door of a bungalow house in Oak Park…

August 25, 2009
… and even more “almost Frank” kind of houses

The Flori Blondeel Houses in Oak Park

As follow up to a previous post about William Street in River Forest, the street with an entire block of houses that might – or might not – be designed by Frank Lloyd Wright; the three Flori Blondeel Houses in Oak Park look very Frank Lloyd Wright – especially in the way they relate to each other – but aren’t. They were designed by another architect who worked under FLW for a time in the Oak Park studio, John van Bergen.

Van Bergen was a prolific designer of prairie school houses, in neighbourhoods all across Chicagoland, including Oak Park.

The Blondeel houses are all virtually the same, the middle house being built without the same front “sunroom” of the other two, to give an overall spatial focus.

Recent Garage and Coach House for one of the Flori Blondeel Houses

As witness to how easy it is to still generate prairie school massing and detailing, that same middle house recently sprouted a large addition in back – difficult to photograph from the street, but sporting many of the same stucco and wood trim details found in the original house. One fault that only a purist would find with the new addition is that it is much larger than any small prairie school house, and takes up much more of the lot. This house also has a well detailed coach-house in back (again, remember my previous posts about coach houses), though the double garage door and wooden fence are dead giveaways as to its real age.

Emma Martin Coach House, by Frank Lloyd Wright

My favourite prairie school coach house? It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Emma Martin, adjacent to the Peter Fricke House facing Iowa Street in Oak Park. Emma Martin acquired the main house – also designed by FLW – and proceeded to commission FLW to design several additions, including the garage and coach house, and a pavilion. The garage and coach house is visually connected to the main house by a garden wall, the coach house comfortably resting atop to complete the visual composition.

FLW’s Coach House on the Continental Divide

I always muse that the Fricke / Martin house – at least according to signs posted throughout Oak Park – sits atop the “Great Continental Divide” – on the middle of the prairie! It looks nothing like the Kicking Horse Pass (Canadian Rockies) or the Rogers Pass (Selkirk Range) that I can recall.

August 24, 2009
Another British Car Question

During a recent Scottish Motor Club event, a visitor asked the question “what cars are there are still British made and British owned?”

2003 Lotus Elise

We rattled off all sorts of British companies and marques with disappoint results. MG isn’t. Jaguar and Rover are both owned by the Indian company, TATA. For the moment, Vauxhall is owned by General Motors, but part of the German company Opel, which is being courted by both Canadian and Russian concerns. MINI is part of BMW. Aston Martin is Ford, but like Vauxhall, that will probably change. It was all quite confusing, but made for a good conversation.

The Ageless Bristol Blenheim

The only two British made automobiles by British owned companies we could muster are both fairly exotic.

Lotus – a company with race car heritage producing small, lightweight, fiberglass body speedsters with powerful engines that send one making an impression on their seatbacks whenever the accelerator is depressed, and;

Bristol – a company that produced legendary fighter planes during the Second World War that retooled to produce motorcars that are luxurious, powerful and thrilling, all at once.

The Lotus marque – though produced in limited numbers – is sold through a worldwide dealer network, while the Bristol is sold directly by the manufacturer, their only “showroom” of sorts is a storefront in London. There is far more demand for Bristol cars than are cars manufactured; test drives are out of the question.

August 23, 2009
A curious street in River Forest

While some like to think that history has uncovered everything that it will, some still keep finding secrets to be told.

Are they, or aren’t they…?

The houses of the 700 block of William Street in River Forest seem different from their large, revivalist neighbours. The two dozen or so small, simple houses are… Prairie School. But “Frankly” Prairie?

It’s a mystery. Many neighbours are claiming that their houses are long lost designs of Frank Lloyd Wright.

… only Frank Lloyd Wright knows for sure.

The houses were built just prior to 1910. It was a ‘colourful’ time in FLW’s personal life and career; some major commissions were going through his Oak Park studio. Purportedly, he was spending time away; he spent time at the Banff Springs Hotel prior to his commission for the Banff Pavilion in association with Francis C. Sullivan. Something doesn’t seem to suggest that he would want to do two dozen simple houses – anonymously – when others were beating down the door for his services.

Apparently, the FLW Foundation Archives carry no record of these houses.

First Congregational Church of Austin, William B. Drummond, Architect, 1908

The FLW Studio spawned many students – virtually every architect, designer and craftsman in Oak Park at the time claimed to have worked for him. William Drummond, Dwight Perkins and Walter Burley Griffin are well known architects who come to mind who worked under FLW in the Oak Park studio; EE Roberts and John Van Bergen may not be as well known architects, but were every bit as talented.

My thought – they were done by students of Frank Lloyd Wright. The “Prairie School” – a phrase later coined by University of Toronto historian H. Allen Brooks – by 1910 had become excessively formal and rigid and, well…anticipatable. It’s the bane of any contemporary Oak Park architect trying to do any sort of work in this town. It’s so easy to recreate. Since the River Forest houses are smaller, it may be an indication of a high style finding its way into more and more popular markets.

So there ya go.

August 21, 2009
Saturday, in the Park…

Years ago, the Chicago-born rock group “Chicago” had a sit single “Saturday, in the Park”. It described what was seemingly an idyllic weekend day in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. These kinds of days happen all the time in Chicago, witness this last weekend.

Cloud Gate, otherwise known as ‘The Bean”

Friends from Toronto called the night before. They had just flown in and hoped to meet up. Their plan was to take a leisurely morning stroll around Graceland Cemetery, completely unknowing about the Chicago Cubs baseball game next door at Wrigley Field, or even the Air and Water Show. I warned them, and they though that this was unusual. We agreed to touch base later in the day.

The Illinois Saint Andrew Society had their wrap up meeting of the Highland Games Committee, over breakfast. From my vantage point as Chairman of the British Car Show, we talked a lot about the weather, the flooded fields, and the success of the show despite nature’s wrath.

The Province of Nova Scotia invited me to attend their private reception at Irish Fest in Milwaukee. The Nova Scotians are awfully nice folks, even for a prairie kid like me. Though I really like Nova Scotia, I must admit that I’ve never been there. My parents were great fans of the CBC television show, “Don Messer’s Jubilee”, broadcast from Halifax, perhaps that counts. I hope that they’ll invite me back for their reception at Celtic Fest in Chicago.

More than a million people descended on the lakefront for the Air & Water Show. I kept thinking back to our visitors from Toronto, who were taking the same el line that those million people would be taking to the show, as well as all the crowds partaking the Cubs game; again, on the same el line. Game Day at Wrigley is kind of like a giant street party. Apparently, there’s a baseball game that happens during the party, the throngs are simply out having a good time.

Heard back from my visitors, they chose to spend the afternoon inside conditioned air at the Art Institute of Chicago. Good choice. They acknowledged my advice about the crowds at Wrigley.

It was one of the few dry days we’ve had in a while, and despite everything going on during a typical weekend (wasn’t it Lollapalooza last weekend?) the mundane things never let up. Yard work and my tomato plants were finally showing signs of ripening.

Zaha Hadid designed Burnham Pavilion

We managed to meet up at the Burnham Pavilions at Millennium Park. Last time I was there was at the dedication reception, coincidentally held during the nasty storm that reeked havoc on the Highland Games. Although the pavilion designed by UN Studio of the Netherlands was complete, the Zaha Hadid pavilion was not. It was now, and the time to see these pavilions are at night.

Crown Fountain at Millenium Park

Reynar Banham once described a concept of “the architecture of energy” – not counting every last watt or joule of energy and finding ways to conserve, but rather defining architecture by energy. The Burnham Pavilions at night – even the rest of Millennium Park – are great examples. The Bean was shining profusely in the dull light. Both Burnham Pavilions were kaleidoscopic in nature. The Crown Fountain was alive with shadows of children playfully running through the water on a hot, muggy night.

The city between the earth and sky

I’m still taken by the UN Studio’s Burnham Pavilion. Despite being designed in Europe, it’s a very prairie display of the earth and the sky, and the city that grew in between.

August 17, 2009
A River Runs Through It, and the Malibu Supper Club

I used to fly out of Gallatin Field in Belgrade, Montana quite a bit as a student. During my terms of office with the American Institute of Architecture Students, Gallatin Field became a regular point of departure / point of entry for trips to the east coast and other points. My alma mater, Montana State University, is located in Bozeman, Montana, and Bozeman is located at the very end of a broad but contained plain, the Gallatin Valley. The Bridger Range is at Bozeman’s doorsteps, so the only location flat enough, and with enough flat land on either side to support aircraft approaches is a town several miles away – Belgrade.

Belgrade’s a small town, out of a Hollywood western movie. The Malibu Supper Club used to be there before they had a fire and it burned down. It had a wooden grain elevator that was a seed cleaning plant and a water tower. They had a ‘walk up’ style mexican restaurant that served food on plastic plates.

Gallatin Field was a small airport with tremendous airline connections, the only airport at the time in the Northwest Orient Airlines route system that didn’t have a control tower. One year, the MSU “Fighting Bobcats” football team made it to a national championship of some sort. The Bobcat Booster Association chartered a DC-10 to fly out of Gallatin Field: waiting until the wind was blowing in the right direction, it barely made it over the mountains. The terminal building at Gallatin was a comfortable place; it even had a wood burning fireplace. Peter Fonda – a local – used to have a morning routine of breakfast at the airport cafeteria where other locals would fly in to partake of the runway view over coffee and huevos rancheros with the Bridger Mountains in back. One night, a group of us came across Mr. Fonda in the airport lounge – the cocktail waitress told us that she was ecstatic having just served Jeff Bridges, and complimented this fellow (actually Peter Fonda) on his movies. Perhaps Gallatin Field was the perfect hangout for a Hollywood star wanting to remain anonymous, or at least mistaken for Jeff Bridges.

Then Hollywood moved to Bozeman, more so after the filming of “The River Runs Through It” by Robert Redford. Glenn Close’s sister bought the Leaf and Bean Coffee Shop on Main Street in Bozeman; they used to sell a Celestial Seasonings tea blend called “Evening in Missoula” that I never drank. Apparently, the airport terminal was expanded to have a third gate, I haven’t heard if the fireplace, or the cafeteria, or the lounge still exist; it finally has a control tower, however.

This morning’s edition of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle featured a slideshow presentation of Air Force One – on the tarmac at Gallatin Field! The television networks were abuzz with a Town Hall meeting held inside a hanger – a hanger probably meant for Piper Cubs, maybe the occasional Lear Jet, but not Air Force One.

It seemed like the end of the age of innocence. After this event, it’s quite doubtful that Peter Fonda – or anyone else from Hollywood living near the Gallatin Valley in Montana – could ever frequent the airport ever again and be mistaken for Jeff Bridges.

August 15, 2009