Posts Tagged ‘Classical Architecture’

See http://www.classicistchicago.org/events

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Free for ICA&CA members

3610 S. Morgan Street
Chicago, IL
phone: 773.847.6300

Decorators Supply has been creating ornamental plaster and composite products for architectural and furniture projects since 1883. The company manufactured much of the ornament on the buildings of Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition, and has continued to deliver the same quality and craftsmanship throughout the years to today. Their catalogues are a staple in many traditional and classical architects’ offices nationwide. The facility is a 20-minute walk from the Sox/35th Red Line stop, and parking is available in Decorators Supply’s lot or on the street. You will emerge covered in plaster dust, so please dress accordingly!

Event is sponsored in conjunction with the Historic Resources Committee of AIA Chicago. Advance registration is required. This event is FREE to ICA&CA members: just enter “30060161” in the AIA Member number box when registering.

Status Update No. 4 – Inaugural Event of The Chicago-Midwest Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America

The newly-formed Chicago-Midwest Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America held its coming out party to a capacity audience in the Preston Bradley Hall of the Chicago Cultural Center on April 20, 2009. The venue for the event, beneath the recently restored Louis Comfort Tiffany dome in one of Chicago’s finest neoclassical spaces, was selected to highlight the new organization’s mission as an advocate of classical architecture and the allied arts.

The featured speaker for the evening was Vangelis Mazidzoglou, owner of Venus Marble Corporation, during which he discussed his company’s work as marble supplier and fabricator for the restoration of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Other speakers included architects Chris Derrick and Gary Ainge, Ambassador Anastassios Petrovas Consul General of Greece and Notre Dame professor of architecture Michael Lykoudis.

Earlier in the day, the new Chapter held its first Board of Directors meeting and elected the following officers: Christopher Derrick – President; Gary Ainge – Co-Vice President; Danny Gonzales – Co-Vice President; and, Elizabeth McNicholas – Secretary/Treasurer. Board member Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. was also appointed General Counsel for the chapter.

The new chapter is busy forming committees and planning future events and, as reported in a recent posting of Law/Ark, the Chicago-Midwest Chapter of the ICA & CA will take full advantage of existing and emerging social networking media to meet its mission and create networking opportunities among its members, including incorporating blogging and discussion threads on its website. It has also just created a dedicated group on “LinkedIn,”and while The Chicago-Midwest Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America is a membership-based organization open to anyone, non-members may join its LinkedIn group and learn more about the organization as it evolves.

© Copyright Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq.

Status Update No. 3 – Formation of The Chicago-Midwest Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America

On April 3, 2009, Articles of Incorporation for “The Chicago-Midwest Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America” were filed with the Secretary of State of Illinois and the newest chapter of the New York-based Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America became an Illinois not-for-profit corporation.

The five initial Board of Directors are: architect Christopher E. Derrick, architect Gary M. Ainge, Danny Gonzales, architect Elizabeth A. McNicholas and architect/attorney Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. The new chapter’s first meeting of its Board of Directors will be held on April 20, 2009.

Also on April 20, 2009, the organization will hold its inaugural event at the Chicago Cultural Center in Preston Bradley Hall, location of the recently restored Louis Comfort Tiffany dome (as previously discussed in a January 22, 2009 posting of Law/Ark). In addition to introducing the organization and its Chicago/Midwest mission, the event will feature a one-hour presentation by Vangelis Mazidzoglou, owner of Venus Marble Corporation, during which he will discuss his recent work on the restoration of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. The event will be free, catered and as of the date of this posting, seats are still available, though limited.

The newest ICA & CA chapter will launch a number of innovative initiatives in 2009 to encourage the appreciation of classical architecture and its allied arts, which will be announced in subsequent postings of Law/Ark. It will also take full advantage of existing and emerging social networking media to meet its mission and create networking opportunities among its members, including incorporating blogging and discussion threads on its website. It has also just created a dedicated group on “LinkedIn,”and while The Chicago-Midwest Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America is a membership-based organization open to anyone, non-members may join its LinkedIn group and learn more about the organization.

For further information about The Chicago-Midwest Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America and/or reservations for its April 20, 2009 inaugural event, interested parties may contact Christopher E. Derrick at info@derrickarchitecture.com.

© Copyright Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq.

Status Update No. 2 – The new Chicago Chapter of the ICA & CA.

As announced in a January 18, 2009 Law/Ark posting, the new Chicago Chapter of the New York-based Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America is being formed. A kick-off date for the new chapter has now been tentatively set for late April 2009. Currently, the new chapter’s formation documents are being finalized and four of the five initial Board of Directors have been selected.

As the Chicago representative of the ICA & CA, the new chapter will uphold the parent organization’s mission statement as described in its website, but will do so through the appreciation of Chicago’s and the Midwest’s fine examples of neoclassical architecture and the allied arts. It is anticipated that the geographic boundaries of the new chapter’s advocacy and outreach initiatives will include not only Chicago and Illinois, but several Midwestern states as well.

Despite its Chicago/Midwest focus, the new Chicago ICA & CA chapter will not advocate a position regarding any long standing Chicago/New York sports feuds, address questions of which city has better pizza (New York) or hot dogs (Chicago), nor will it apologize for trouncing New York in the competition to host the greatest of all neoclassical trade shows – the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

More updates will follow in Law/Ark, but interested parties can now join the ICA & CA through its parent organization’s website and specify Chicago as their local chapter. They may also contact Christopher Derrick at chris.derrick@classicistchicago.org for further information.

© Copyright Gary L. Cole 2009

Two of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s finest Chicago works have recently been restored to their original splendor – one in its original setting, the other half a country away following a century-long trek that ended in the subtropics of central Florida.

When the Chicago Public Library (now the Chicago Cultural Center) was completed in 1897, Tiffany’s 38-foot glass dome, comprised of approximately 30,000 separate pieces of art glass set in 243 separate panels adorning an iron frame, formed a spectacular focal point to the city’s new, richly detailed neoclassical library. The receiving vaults supporting the dome were covered in marble and mosaics, also by Tiffany. It remained unaltered until the 1930s when the original protective translucent glass covering Tiffany’s dome was replaced with a concrete and copper dome which obscured all natural light essential to the dome’s original visual effect. And so it remained for nearly 70 years.

At Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, among the many art glass treasures exhibited at the Tiffany & Co. pavilion, located within the Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building, was a neo-Byzantine chapel. The chapel was composed of marble steps and platforms leading to an alter set within sixteen columns which supported four receding concentric arches focused around a glass mosaic reredo panel of two facing peacocks, symbolizing eternity. The steps, altar, columns and arches were richly detailed with multi-colored glass mosaics and Christian iconography. A separate room to the right of the altar contained a baptismal font composed of a massive mosaic and lead-camed glass covered sphere, which sat on eight short columns. Richly complex leaded glass windows displaying biblical scenes and narratives surrounded the chapel and a 1,000 pound iron and glass electrolier cross hung above the heads of viewers. Stories emerged that visitors were so transfixed by the chapel’s ecclesiastical effect that they removed their hats in respect. In 2008, I acquired an original 18-page letter written by a woman who attended the Columbian Exposition in October 1893, and who reported the following about the Tiffany Chapel:

“Tiffany’s exhibit was fine. One of his exhibits was a chapel with full size altar in it, illustrating their interior decorations, and it was perfectly beautiful. The stained glass windows were representations of scenes in the Bible and were lovely.”

But just as time and circumstance had been unkind to Tiffany’s Dome, it would be even more so to his chapel. After the Columbian Exposition closed in 1893, and for the next nearly seventy years, the chapel repeatedly escaped near destruction. It was first purchased by a wealthy patron, Mrs. Celia Whipple Wallace, and donated to the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City, where it was installed in the church’s basement crypt, awaiting final above-ground installation upon completion of the church. But the chapel was ill suited for the low-ceilinged crypt and it suffered from neglect and poor maintenance. By 1916, Mrs. Wallace had died and the church’s new architect, working in the Gothic Revival style, made it clear that the neo-Byzantine Tiffany Chapel would never emerge from the crypt. Tiffany had the undamaged remains of the chapel removed from the church at his own expense and installed in an outbuilding at Laurelton Hall, the 84-room mansion he built in 1905 at his 600-acre Long Island waterfront estate. Tiffany died in 1933 and left Laurelton Hall and the chapel to the Tiffany Foundation. In 1949, the Tiffany Foundation began auctioning off parts of the estate and the chapel, eventually selling Laurelton Hall for $10,000. The estate was mostly unused and reportedly served as a storage facility for refrigerators until in 1957, when it was largely destroyed by fire – though the chapel was relatively undamaged. And there it sat, exposed to vandals and the elements – waiting.

Always visible to the public, Tiffany’s dome began its journey back to the artist’s original vision in December 2007, when the Chicago Cultural Center began its restoration. The art glass panels were removed by a glass restorer and each panel was taken apart, cleaned and repaired with new leading. Decorative polycarbonate panels replaced the original art glass panels during the restoration. In January 2008, the 1930s concrete and copper dome which had blocked natural light for most of the previous century was finally removed and was replaced with a multi-layered protective glass above the iron frame of the art glass’s dome. In April 2008, Preston Bradley Hall – the location of Tiffany’s dome within the Chicago Cultural Center – was closed for the restoration of the dome’s iron frame, which was covered with aluminum leaf and coated with an amber-tinted glaze to resemble gold leaf. In June 2008, the restored art glass panels were reinstalled in the restored iron frame. The room opened on July 1, 2008, and the Tiffany Dome was presented to the public in its naturally lit condition for the first time in nearly seventy years.

The Tiffany Chapel was to take a more precarious road to restoration. In 1957, one of Tiffany’s daughters contacted Winter Park, Florida philanthropists Jeannette and Hugh McKean about purchasing one of the windows at Laurelton Hall. Hugh McKean had been a student of Tiffany’s at Laurelton Hall in 1930, and in 1955 Jeannette McKean had produced a retrospective of Tiffany’s work at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park (named after her grandfather). Visiting the ruins of Laurelton Hall, the McKeans decided to purchase the chapel and arranged to have it crated and moved to Winter Park (the McKeans also purchased Laurelton Hall’s four-columned Eastern-influenced loggia and in 1978 donated it to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it can be viewed today). But despite their careful instructions to the carrier, much of the chapel was merely tossed into the back of a truck for the long journey to Florida, damaging some of the elements. The McKeans then spent several decades acquiring portions of the chapel that had been previously auctioned off by the Tiffany Foundation, which, along with the pieces of the chapel, were stored in wooden crates in the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum, awaiting restoration. Jeannette McKean died in 1989 and Hugh McKean died in 1995. In 1996, the museum began planning an expansion to house the Tiffany Chapel. Over a two-year period the chapel was restored by a team of art glass conservation experts and in 1999 the restored Tiffany Chapel, including the wood entrance door from its Laurelton Hall installation, was opened to the public at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum – 106 years after its first public appearance at the Columbian Exposition.

The Chicago Cultural Center, despite its prominent location at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street, has always seemed to me to be one of Chicago’s most underrated neoclassical public buildings. It was the location for several key scenes in Brian De Palma’s 1987 “The Untouchables,” including the scene where Kevin Costner’s Eliot Ness tosses gangster Frank Nitti from the roof of the building. The unrestored Tiffany Dome can also be seen in the background of several of the movie’s interior shots. But besides the Tiffany Dome, the building’s fine handling of interior and exterior Greek and Romanesque elements, the marble Grand Staircase, bronze entry doors, Vermont green marble detailing, coffered ceilings and Tiffany wall mosaics, put it in a class with neoclassical buildings anywhere – including two 19th century Chicago contemporaries, the Art Institute and the Museum of Science and Industry (formerly the Columbian Exposition’s Palace of Fine Arts). And with the restoration of the Tiffany Dome, the City of Chicago has recognized the Chicago Cultural Center as one of Chicago’s many public architectural treasures. Chicago visitors, looking for a break from the frenetic Millennium Park, can step across Michigan Avenue for docent-led or self-guided tours of the calmly elegant Chicago Cultural Center and view the restored Tiffany Dome.

But for those with warmer climates in mind, I recently had the chance to visit the Tiffany Chapel in its restored setting at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum. The restored chapel sits serenely in its own wing lit from above by the enormous restored electrolier and surrounded by its original baptismal font and art glass windows in a setting that may indeed approximate Tiffany’s original intent at the Columbian Exposition. The museum also houses many other Tiffany products, leaded glass windows and other artifacts from Laurelton Hall that were rescued by the McKeans. For enthusiasts of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s work, it’s well worth the pilgrimage to Winter Park – itself an interesting alternative to Orlando’s well-known theme parks and a nice place to escape Chicago’s lake effect snow and the land of the wind chill factor.

© Copyright Gary L. Cole 2009

Photo of Chicago Cultural Center Tiffany Dome by BWChicago

Status Update: The New Chicago Chapter of the ICA & CA.

The New York-based Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America (ICA & CA) is forming a new Chicago chapter – scheduled to roll out in the Spring of 2009. From the ICA & CA’s website:

“The Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America, founded as two separate nonprofit organizations in 1991 and 1968, respectively, merged in 2002 as a national nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the classical tradition in architecture, urbanism and their allied arts. It does so though education, publication, and advocacy. Today there are thirteen regional and local Institute chapters together extending this unique public service: Charleston, Charlotte, Chicago, Florida, Philadelphia, Mid-Atlantic, New England, Northern California, Southern California, Southeast, Tennessee, and Texas

The organization is a valued educational resource for students of art, planning, and architecture, design professionals, and the general public assisted today by these growing network of regional and local chapters. The ICA&CA offers a wide array of programs: a Master of Science degree with concentration in classical design with Georgia Tech; continuing education classes; travel programs; lectures; salons; and conferences. It publishes an academic journal called The Classicist as well as the acclaimed book series called the “Classical America Series in Art and Architecture”. The Grand Central Academy of Art flourishes as the Institute’s division of fine arts pedagogy and now offers a summer session called The Hudson River Landscape Painting Fellowships. The Institute also acts as a curriculum partner with accredited schools such as the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech. Partnerships with non-architect home builders via the American Institute of Building Design as well as Habitat for Humanity International bring the traditional design skills sustained and disseminated by the Institute to bear in diverse communities across America. A blog further offers a voice for advocacy and communication.”

More details will follow in Law/Ark but anyone can now join the ICA & CA through the organization’s website above and specify Chicago as their local chapter.

© Copyright Gary L. Cole 2009