"Why Design Matters"

"Why design matters"

As a docent for the Chicago Architecture Center I've participated in the development or redevelopment of a variety of walking tours that the CAC offers the public and I've led many many tours.

The opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent the policies or practices of any organization or the point of view of any other person. This should in no way be considered a statement of the Chicago Architecture Center. I can not and do not speak for the Chicago Architecture Center, it's docents, or any of the sites of which it offers tours. I only describe what my beliefs are, how I understand the sites the CAC offers tours of, my experiences as a CAC docent, and my understanding of the history, the policies, and the practices of the CAC and its tours.

The CAC can be considered the world's leader in developing and delivering tours, particularly architectural tours. It has developed over 100 different tour routes though the Chicago area and over the past decades has led more individual tours than anyone else. Not all of its tours are perfect by any means but the CAC is the world's best at developing and leading tours even if there is room for improvement. 

A key part of any of CAC's tours is the tour's objective: what the tour-taker is supposed to learn or see or at least think about as a result of taking the tour. This goes well beyond seeing some pretty buildings and enjoying some significant Chicago sites. CAC tours have more profound goals. Tour takers should get something out of the tour; maybe even learn something. (A decade or so ago a journalist -- I don't remember who; Lee Bey maybe -- described CAC tours as "slightly wonky".) 

When it was founded as The Chicago School of Architecture Foundation fifty years ago, it was simpler to think about what the objective of a tour should be. Back then, many old Chicago architectural masterpieces were threatened with demolition and people needed to learn why those buildings should be preserved. (One of the first buildings that the Foundation "saved" was Glessner House. For several decades CAC owned Glessner House and was housed there.)

Back then, many architectural historians believed in something called The Chicago School of Architecture, a specific set of architects which emerged well after the 1871 fire and developed a distinctive type of architecture. In many ways this architecture was supposed to presage many mid-20th century developments in architecture. So buildings by those architects and in that style and of that era ought should be preserved and appreciated rather than torn down and forgotten.

The then Chicago School of Architecture Foundation was part of this preservation movement. The objective of its tours was to get tour takers to understand why those buildings were worth preserving. 

Then, in the early twenty-first century, two things occured:

First: Preservation "won" -- not preservationists per se, but some old buildings gained limited landmark legal protection, and historic preservation became a standard part of real estate planning and development. 

Second: Most architectural historians have abandoned the notion of a special Chicago School of Architecture with its own values and style. Certainly there were architects in Chicago back then and the did design buildings with distinctive features; but they also designed buildings without those features and we can look at a non-representative sample. Architects then as now shared ideas were shared among so it is impossible to attribute a set of technical innovations to a select group of designers. Now maybe some still write of a Chicago School but now they only denote any architect working in any style in or around Chicago before, say, World War 1.

So the CAC no longer needs to advocate for historic preservation (since that's now legally required and commonly considered), and it doesn't need to exalt any "Chicago School of Architecture" anymore (because its existence was only a myth). CAC needed a new objective. Because its old objective had ended, many CAC docents instead emphasized historical or cultural aspects. The tour objectives became (sometime explicitly) to explain the history and culture of Chicago, even if those topics properly belong to other institutions.

Were the CAC the Chicago chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians or a branch of the Chicago History Museum that would be fine. But it isn't. The Chicago Architecture Center should give tours focussing on architecture, in my opinion. Indeed, the CAC has a mission statement (I rather like it). It is

The Chicago Architecture Center inspires people to discover why design matters.

Accordingly, any tour developed by the CAC should have as its goal, objective, purpose, or mission something to do with why the design of the site, style or neighborhood examined by the tour an exploration of why design matters for that site, style or neighborhood.

Understanding why design matters presupposes some issues: what IS the design of this site, style or neighborhood, and HOW that design has worked and works.

"Design" might include style. What are the key features of the style? How is that style related to styles preceding or following it? Does the style/design reflect political, social, or economic pressures? What were historical receptions and what are contemporary perceptions of that style?

But design can include much more than style. Indeed, design ought to extend well beyond interior design, graphic design, or product design to nearly any conscious consideration of arrangement. Sewer systems, computer data bases, and sports team league seasons are all designed and their design matters. So much more than style.

Location, for example: why was this built here? How do the parts relate to the whole? How did this site influence nearby sites? Design can include the material used. Or the Vitruvian Triad: "firmness, commodity and delight;" One can ask how does design interact with structural issues or with how the site is used. 

Perhaps it would be useful to put these abstract ideas into a concrete example.

Consider the complex of buildings in Chicago known as Symphony Center, which comprises Orchestra Hall on Michigan Avenue, administrative offices housed in the former Chapin-Gore building on Adams Street and support structures built behind and between Orchestra Hall and the Chapin-Gore building during the renovations of the mid-1990s.

The style of Orchestra Hall's exterior is neo-Georgian, with the dark pink brick laid in Dutch bond, single double-hung windows, strict symmetry and other Georgian or Adamesque details. The Neo-Georgian style is fairly rare in Chicago and the Midwest but at the end of the 19th century it was used for speaks of luxurious domesticity. The architects were designing a "home" for the Orchestra.

Orchestra Hall's interior style is similarly neoGeorgian with ornamentation, light fixtures, and decor in the Georgian manner. An unmissable feature of the performance space is that large glass disk suspended over the performance area: this allows musicians on stage to hear each other better and can be lowered for smaller "chamber" groups or raised for electrically amplified pop, jazz or world musicians. This reflecting disk was added during some renovations from the mid-1990s intended to address the acoustics of the hall. (The Chicago Symphony Orchestra does NOT use electronic amplification.) While the performance hall was reconfigured in the 1990s, it retains its original neoGeorgian Style. (Journalists covering the opening of Orchestra Hall in 1904 said it was in the style of Louis XV, but of course Louis XV ruled France at the same time as Kings George I, II and III ruled England.)

On the second floor there is a very fancy space called Buntrock Hall which is decorated with mirrors. The opulent style here matches the neoGeorgian style of the exterior.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was the first professional Orchestra to own its own performance space. So the CSO Association manages and sponsors multiple concert series not just those of the Symphony. So the Association needs administrative space and for that it has taken over the Chapin-Gore building. 

The performance space was substantially upgraded in a renovation of the mid-'90s, part of which moved much of the noisy heating, cooling and ventilation systems out of Orchestra Hall and into a building behind (east) of the performance space.

This is how a tour of Symphony Center in Chicago's loop could address purely architectural topics. All of these points address how design works and why it matters. (I think it's also clear that all of these points could be grouped under the Vitruvian triad of firmness, commodity, delight.) 

Certainly there are many other things that could be said about Orchestra Hall, including some tales of substantial human interest. For example: At its grand opening the building wasn't quite finished so the winter wind blew through the unsealed windows. That program was conducted by the founding music director Theodore Thomas. A few days after that concert Thomas died, probably from the flu which may have been aggravated by the drafts at that concert. Also, there's a Frank Lloyd Wright connection. And a tale of Louis Sullivan, acoustics, and dynamite. Fascinating stories, but none that explains why designs matter. So arguably such stories don't belong in a CAC tour.

I can see how many of CAC's tours can be altered emphasize why design matters. I am less clear, however, that all of CAC's current tours can be so modified. It seems harsh to suggest that those tours be dropped but I really can't imagine otherwise. It's also possible that not all of CAC's prospective customers want tours with a focus on why design matters. Again it seems harsh to suggest that since those prospective customers aren't interested in what the CAC has to offer that those customers be abandoned, but again I really can't imagine otherwise. An old business saw is "The essence of positioning is sacrifice."