We don’t often find ourselves agreeing with Chicago Magazine, but we have to second most of the choices in its current feature, “10 Modern Masterpieces,” profiling the city’s best new buidlings.
The residential standout on the list (not counting State Street Village) is Contemporaine, 516 N Wells St (above left), designed by Ralph Johnson, of Perkins & Will, for developer CMK Companies. The condo building, as much a piece of sculpture as a place to live, might be the best-designed multi-unit residential project of its size in the last decade in Chicago (sorry, I know that’s a mouthful, but we have to be a little circumspect with such superlatives, even online).
Another building that local pros thought should have been included, according to the arcticle, is yet another Johnson project, Skybridge, 1 N Halsted St (above right). Again, we’re inclined to agree.
Which should stoke local condo buyers’ interest in the newly announced 46-story tower CMK Companies is collaborating with Johnson to create at 235 W Van Buren St (inset above). In renderings, the way that Johnson handles the cap on this new project – as well as the base – resonates with his Skybridge design. The funky balconies seem like the continuation of an idea begun at Contemporaine, which also was developed by CMK Companies. The massing echoes of both projects, though the new development certainly has a look of its own.
What can buyers take from pace of sales at these earlier developments? It’s hard to say if the developers made much money on either project, but Contemporaine sold at a healthy clip. Skybridge, despite glowing reviews and the considerable fawning of architecture critics, suffered poor momentum. Last we checked, a handful of developer units remained for sale more than four years after they first were advertised.
Comparing the two cutting-edge projects, both with beautiful designs by Johnson, the importance of assessing the developer’s track record is obvious. You can start to do that for 235 Van Buren by checking out CMK’s portfolio of recent projects online, as well as the company’s current developments.
Masterpieces, one and all.
To goofball observers who are tempted to look at retro-junk like NY’s 15 CPW and call it real design, here is an object lesson in what makes Chicago the focal point of meaningful, quality design. Look – don’t talk, take it all in, take notes, allow yourselves to be re-educated, because the Gerber your mama has been spoon-feeding you all these years to develop your design sensibility was laced with highly concentrated bs.
A word about Skybridge’s sales struggle – it’s widely viewed that there was some serious miscalculation involved in the size and price of the units for the location at the time….
The Top 10 list is fine. #2 is awesome. Modern architecture is great if it uses quality material, and is not an excuse so that developers can incorporate cheap material to make a cheap product, which is exactly how the CMK stuff looks like (except for VUE20 at 1845 Michigan). Screaming that it is masterpieces and forward thinking such a crock…the stuff has been done before. It’s called King Drive, south of McCormick Place.
On Skybridge, a project that has struggled mightely in the market place; how did all of us architectural novices not see through all the miscalculations and dump our money there…darn?
Do tell what is happening at 1620/1640 S. Michigan, since you are the CMK cheerleader(or insider?)?
Jeff is 100% right.
“Modern architecture is great if it uses quality material, and is not an excuse so that developers can incorporate cheap material to make a cheap product, which is exactly how the CMK stuff looks like.”
Sam, you can fool most of the fools some of the time. The rest of us are on to you and your exposed spiral ductwork…. I aspire to wake every morning to smile upon my ductwork and celebrate the fact that my heating and air conditioning is in view 24/7.
Silly old me – I still think of residential buildings as places where people live rather than simply as public sculptures.
Great design doesn’t do much to overcome some of the truly awful and unworkable and wasteful floor plans in many of the newer buildings.
In the long run, the quality of the interior space will weigh more heavily on resale value than the quality of the exterior design.
Have you guys ever seen pictures of the Hunstanton School? You’d TOTALLY hate it!!!
Those Ralph Johnson buildings are quite nice, and from what I hear the floor plans are very well done. I haven’t stepped foot in any of them, however.
As far as modernism being an excuse to skimp on finsihes, we see plenty of that in Chicago regardless of style. Industrial loft conversions and red-brick/concrete block crap palaces are among the worst offenders, and they seem to be making a bigger impact than any modernist projects these days. The era of the four-plus-one is over, and they were never really that modernist in the first place.