The Chicago School, a “Language” as an Expression of Desire
At the turn of the 20th century, an architectural style referred to as The Chicago School made its appearance. It was a style among the first, if not the first, to promote new applicable technologies of steel-frame construction in commercially orientated buildings. Developing an aesthetic that is “consumable” in a different scale until today. Thus, a new epoch began that combined the end of the westward territorial expansion with an imperialist thrust overseas. The development of great steel and transportation companies gave rise to projects of unprecedented scale.[i] This movement then was not only for Chicago, but the States in general the pivot point for the frame construction in the process of acquiring a significance which was less recognized.[ii] It was an expression of a technological sublime linked to the New World’s economic power.[iii]
For a majority of people however, Chicago was not the monumental yet ephemeral city its creators imagined, “but the ‘’black city’’ that had arisen since the great fire of 1871.”[iv] According to Salivan, in Chicago, the tall office building would seem to have arisen spontaneously, in response to favoring physical conditions, and the economic pressure as then sanctified, combined with the daring of promoters.[v] Bourget, a year after the fair, described this structures as “simple power of necessity is to a certain degree a principle of beauty; and these structures so plainly manifest this necessity that you feel a strange emotion in contemplating them. It is the first draught of a new sort of art – an art of democracy made by the mases and for the masses.”[vi]
As a result, then, we can accurately perceive Chicago as “the center of a vast contiguous territory.”[vii] For me however, the underline cause for the Chicago movement was nor the pressure of land values nor the steadily rose ground values. It was the passion to sell as an impelling force in American life.[viii] It was about people’s obsession, Salivan’s included, to project the land-marking use of their buildings and the embedded, or rather not, qualities of architecture that they incorporated into their design. Prioritizing things like simplicity and height as a manifestation of their curriculum. According to Salivan, “it must be tall, every inch of it tall. The force and the power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line.”[ix]
Foucault, a French philosopher of the 20th century focused a lot in subjects like space and social control. In a variety of his texts, he highlights the symbolic notion of space and the reserve of actions a space could hold. Analyzing and contextualizing Foucault’s notion about space and freedom upon The Chicago Movement, the city of Chicago during that era can indeed be seen as such a place. A place of “otherness” whose existence sets up unsettling juxtapositions of incommensurate “objects” that challenge the way we think, especially the way our thinking is ordered.[x] In this point, many can argue that during his career, Foucault was always interested in the traditional “victims of history”, the” liminal” as Turner names them and thus the Chicago Movement will not be contextualized in a neutral way. However, he avoids doing that. He actually shows that within them there is a mirror image of society.[xi]
By following Foucault’s notion then, The Chicago Movement could and should be seen as a heterogeneous juncture that mixed up opposite qualities and ideals in complex ways. It is useful as a “modeling” of something that is both critical and utopian for the time: a place that is different or pleasurable for some, as well as representing a communal ideal, or an ideal desire I might add.[xii] Therefore, it acted as an obligatory point of passage constituted through different ordering practices that made visible, if only for a short time, conditions of difference that opened up a new perspective on the old order and all its faults.[xiii] Hence, we can assume that Chicago during this era, entered a wright of passage phase. It had not yet got its new identity but it had lost its old one.[xiv]
We cannot escape modes of ordering through the representations we draw and the practices that we engage in.[xv] The city of Chicago during the movement is like a drawing compass. One leg of the compass is static, a reminder of what Chicago used to be, meanwhile, the other leg draws a wide circle, constantly moving, trying to breach that gap[xvi]. Enabling Foucault’s heterotopia to come into existence in full extend, as the city is defined by an element of deviation. Chicago did seem to experience a prevision of two of the major themes of twentieth century architecture – the frame structure and the composition of intersecting planes.[xvii] However, it failed to acknowledge the underline desires of its inhabitants by “selling” a vision without action for some, or an action without vision for others. Raising for some while simultaneously answering for others the question of why prominent architects of the era like Frank Lloyd Wright rejected the “Chicago Frame”?
[i] FA, p.55
[ii] Colin Rowe, “The Chicago Frame” (1956), from The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa (MIT, 1976), p.90
[iii] FA, p.55
[iv] FA, p.56
[v] Louis Sullivan, “Retrospect,” from Autobiography of an Idea (1924; Dover, 1956), p.314
[vi] FA, p.55
[vii] Louis Sullivan, “Retrospect,” from Autobiography of an Idea (1924; Dover, 1956), p.305
[viii] Louis Sullivan, “Retrospect,” from Autobiography of an Idea (1924; Dover, 1956), p.312
[ix] FA, p.57
[x] Foucault, M. The order of Things, London: Tavistock, 1989
[xi] Stallybrass, P. and White, A. Ô The Politics and Poetics of TransgressionÕ, London: Methuen, 1986, p.18
[xii] Lefebvre, H. Ô The Urban RevolutionÕ, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003, p.125
[xiii] Foucault, M. Ô The Order of ThingsÕ, London: Tavistock, 1970
[xiv] Ali, M. ÔBrick LaneÕ, London: Black Swan, 2003
[xv] Law, J. Ô Organizing ModernityÕ, Oxford: Blackwell, 1994, p.71
[xvi] Elif Shafak. (2010). The Politic of Fiction. [Online Video]. 19 July. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq7QPnqLoUk. [Accessed: 09 December 2013]
[xvii] Colin Rowe, “The Chicago Frame” (1956), from The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa (MIT, 1976), p.92