Chicago architecture in 2020: In a year like no other, anxiety soared about the future of downtown Chicago, but so did new skyscrapers
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Ten days after the Great Chicago Fire destroyed 18,000 buildings and left about 90,000 people homeless, architect John M. Van Osdel set up shop in the Nixon Block, a downtown building that had escaped relatively unscathed. He started drawing plans for new buildings — a sign of hope, although a cynic might interpret it as craven opportunism.
However one views it, Van Osdel’s move — detailed in the illuminating new book “Chicago’s Great Fire” by Northwestern University’s Carl Smith — resonates today as the COVID-19 pandemic presents the latest test of Chicago’s resilience. Now, as nearly 150 years before, the city has responded by doing what it has always done — pushing forward.
Even as the pandemic has emptied everything from sidewalks to office cubicles, building has gone on here, putting money into construction workers’ pockets, culminating a years-long building boom and reminding us that downtown has a future, even if we don’t know precisely what that future will be.
In recent months, downtown has welcomed two buildings notable for their superlatives. The first, the 816-foot Bank of America Tower at 110 N. Wacker Drive by Goettsch Partners, is the tallest office building here since 1990. The second, the 1191-foot St. Regis Chicago (formerly Vista Tower), a hotel-condominium high-rise at 363 E. Wacker by Studio Gang, is the city’s third tallest building and the world’s tallest building designed by a woman.
Whatever one thinks of these buildings — I am more a fan of the latter than the former — it is undeniable that they add sorely needed dollars to the tax base and serve as articles of faith, much like Van Osdel’s improvised drafting room. Adding to that optimism, construction began this year on the Salesforce Tower at Wolf Point, an office skyscraper that will be taller than the Bank of America Tower when it’s completed in 2023.
Yet for all that such projects offered reassuring signs of normalcy, the reality was very different.
With companies telling their employees to work from home, the number of commuters pouring into downtown train stations shrank by roughly 90%. Tourism and hotel occupancy took a hit. Apartment occupancy levels dropped to their lowest level in 18 years. Navy Pier opened, then closed. Shops on North Michigan Avenue boarded themselves up in response to social unrest.
If it wasn’t quite the worst of times, it was certainly pretty awful, so much so that doomsayers questioned the ongoing viability of downtowns. Yet cities have faced great challenges before and rebounded, so there is every reason to think they will again, despite the challenges posed by online shopping and the pandemic-inspired move to online work meetings.
People miss the water-cooler talk, even if they don’t miss their commutes. Working from home saves time, but it can’t match the excitement of seeing a play or Millennium Park in the presence of others. That’s the point of cities — to convene people, whether it’s for culture or commerce. Such gatherings will happen again once promising vaccines are widely distributed.
In the meantime, a whole lot of improvising is going on, some of it innovative enough to merit a lasting presence once the pandemic ends.
The city’s transportation department closed some roads to high-speed vehicle traffic, creating “shared streets” where pedestrians, cyclists and joggers had the same right to the road as cars and SUVs. The Chicago Architecture Center dispensed with indoor tours for Open House Chicago and moved to outdoor and online tours instead. The Chicago Architecture Biennial announced that it would go on, as scheduled, in 2021, but with a new outdoor and online format and events spread throughout the year.
Yet with COVID-19 cases spiking in Chicago and Illinois, a return to normalcy remains months away. And even when downtown office buildings start filling up, many office workers may switch to a hybrid routine in which they split their time between a cubicle and home. Still, like architect John Van Osdel nearly 150 years ago, downtown’s boosters remain undeterred.
“Every major city in America is struggling with the very same issues,” Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, whose ward encompasses much of downtown, said at a September groundbreaking for a hotel and residential tower “I just have faith that we’re a more resilient city because we’re economically diverse. ... That doesn’t go away, pandemic or not.”
Blair Kamin is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @BlairKamin
———
©2020 the Chicago Tribune
Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
