South Garden, Art Institute of Chicago

In addition to the striking modern architecture of Mies and company, Chicago boasts some amazing modern landscape architecture, including this stunning garden by noted landscape modernist Dan Kiley. I visited on a quiet morning after a rain, and mostly had the place to myself. The place is mostly green, and under an overcast sky seemed even more so. A few of Kiley's design moves here that make the space so striking:

--the low, intertwining canopy of Hawthorn trees creates an intimate low "ceiling"

--the architecture of the Hawthorn branches (and thorns!) is strong and dramatic

--the palette is very limited-- green plants (no colorful flowers), gray granite pavers, with brown gravel adding some warmth. The only tree types are hawthorns and locusts. Lush green vines add texture to the tree trunks and walls.

-- the scale of the spaces is generous: the width of the pathways, paved edges, and planted edges makes them more elegant

--the edges of the space are broad and make this a place apart from the street




edge with the street, with wide planter of locusts

Hummingbird sighting #2!

I had some friends over for brunch today, and while we were all in the kitchen and I was looking out the window to the garden, the hummingbird returned! We all got to see it as it carefully sipped from each tubular bee balm flower. Wow! We agreed that it seemed more like an insect than a bird, with its tiny, curving green body.

Illinois Institute of Technology

On Monday I took a tour of the IIT campus, led by an architecture student. The campus is remarkable for its modern and contemporary architecture. Architect Mies Van Der Rohe fled Nazi Germany in 1937 and became the dean and master planner at IIT in 1938. In all, he designed 19 buildings for the campus; the most renowned is Crown Hall, a very elegant modern building-- the proportions, structural system and material palette make it a striking space. Crown Hall is the studio space for architecture students, and there are no permanent walls inside-- only movable dividers and lockers. The student leading my tour said that is was an excellent workspace because of the natural light and good acoustics. One of Mies' principles that is visible at Crown Hall is the legibility of the structure-- you can understand from looking at the building how it is constructed, and their are no decorative or non-functional elements (like brick facades are today). In this case, the building is actually "hanging" from the large metal members you see extending over the roof-- really a modern structural innovation at the time.

In recent decades IIT has updated its architectural legacy with competitions that drew some of the most innovative contemporary designers. The challenge was to make use of pieces of land adjacent to the noisy El line. Rem Koolhaas' design for the Campus Center is really amazing-- it is a bold, playful design that also seems highly functional (from what I could tell). He wrapped the El track in a huge concrete and metal tube to dampen the noise, and shaped the Student Center underneath it, following existing lines of movement on campus. The best word to describe this space is "dynamic," both inside and out:





Another interesting recent addition to the campus is a dorm by Helmut Jahn. Each room looks over a courtyard with birch trees, and the roof has a spectacular view of the downtown skyline (and "the Tube").

bees, ferns

I accompanied Fereshteh to her volunteer beekeeping session at Garfield Park in the western part of Chicago. The area around the park is pretty desolate, by contrast, the interior of the conservatory is lush and active. We spent about two and a half hours observing the bees and activity in several hives. I learned a lot from watching the volunteers-- how to spot the honey and the larvae, how to look for eggs (still couldn't see them!), how to pacify the bees (with smoke, but they seemed pretty focused on their tasks already), how to spot full pollen sacs on the bees' legs. Apparently there is an upswing in interest in beekeeping due to concern over Colony Collapse Disorder, so the volunteers had to write essays and make it through a wait-list before beginning their work.

Here I am in the Fern Room; along with the rest of the Conservatory it was designed by landscape architect Jens Jensen and built in 1907-1908. Jensen had immigrated from Denmark and began work in Chicago as a gardener, eventually becoming superintendent of the West Parks; as a designer he is renowned for his invocations of the regional prairie. The Fern Room was his vision of a pre-ice ago "Chicago," with stacked stone representing cliffs, ancient plant species, and watercourses recalling rivers.




The Fern Room was absolutely beautiful. Liverworts blanketed the rocks and diverse textures of green, lush ferns rose above them.

a walk through the Fern Room


Fereshteh and I liked this cactus that reminded us of Cousin It

wow!

So tonight I was eating dinner in the back yard, seated next to my pots of bee balm and echinacea. Suddenly I heard a buzz nearby, that seemed too loud to be a bee. Looking up from my plate I found myself face-to-face with a hummingbird! For an instant I was afraid and didn't know what to do, I paused in mid-chew-- and then he was gone. I hope he comes back to the flowers when I am away.

Chicago: starting at the center

On my first full day in Chicago, Taylor and I attended a tour of Millennium Park that was part of a weekend of tours of the city's designed landscapes organized by the Cultural Landscape Foundation. The Millennium Park tour was led by Ed Uhlir who directed the entire design of the park-- an amazing opportunity to hear his unique perspective on what has become an incredibly vibrant public space for Chicago. It was pretty much a private tour-- there were only four of us-- so Mr. Uhlir drove us around on a golf cart! The park is comprised of several areas designed by different landscape architects (Gustafson Guthrie Nichol), architects (Frank Gehry), and artists (Anish Kapoor and Jaume Plensa), each of which is highly successful in shaping a striking and active public space. We heard about how some elements of the original designs caused problems that Mr. Uhlir has had to fix, like the gravel sloped walkways in the Lurie Garden from which the gravel slid off; he replaced these with a paving made of recycled counter-tops.




The Crown Fountain




Cloud Gate


I noticed how many people were experiencing these spaces through photography and video-recording. Perhaps this is partly due to the high volume of tourists this time of year, but I think it also speaks to the way people experience public space today. The Crown Fountain, with it's gigantic digital faces of Chicagoans that intermittently spew water and shallow central pool, and Cloud Gate, with its shiny surface that reflects the city and visitors, both create a kind of stage in the city. These are places where city dwellers can see themselves and see each other, and watch a public spectacle that stars themselves. While sitting on the edge of Crown Fountain, we saw a skimboarder take a daring pass through the pool, be reprimanded by a security official, and then try to get the crowd behind him as he defied the rules and went for a second pass. We also saw a wedding party (having their photos taken, of course); the bride then waded in and encountered a little boy who had been shuffling through the fountain for awhile already. They approached each other tentatively as the crowd watched, just for a moment, before the boy shuffled off in his own direction again.

bee balm opening

I love to watch buds open-- it is a mystery that unfolds before your eyes. These little buds were closed tight for awhile, and I wasn't sure if they would produce leaves or flowers. Then they began to swell and open in the past week. It is especially beautiful here that the sepals become a dark red and complement the flower color.

happy, handsome dog

I live with a handsome, sweet dog named Maddie. Although I am allergic to dogs, I cannot resist being Maddie's friend. She is such an elegant creature, and has the softest ears. When we open the back door to let her out, she bounds into the yard and does this carefree wiggle on her back.

lettuce harvest

Only a few of the "wild lettuce mix" seeds I planted germinated, and they grew only to a small size. The mix is quite lovely, though, with varying shades and speckled leaves.

... 99, 100, 101!

It has been extremely hot the past few days. While the forecast called for highs in the mid-90s, at the nursery our thermometers have read up to 101. AND, it is humid. We all feel a bit loopy. My main goal is just to make it through the day. Each evening this week has brought a special reprieve: ice cream time!

One of my co-workers has a joke for me that he repeats usually every day. He says, "Sonia, is it 4:30 yet? Maybe I wish!" He usually asks around 10am (and, he works each day until 6pm) so it always makes me laugh. These days, though, I truly wish 4:30 would arrive as soon as possible!