By Joe Frey

How is success weighed? In some respects, it is, like ethics, subject to situational relativism; an endeavor deemed successful in one context may be viewed less favorably in another. But some accomplishments are beyond the reproach of subjective judgment, achieving success as definitive as a platonic ideal, as axiomatic as arithmetic. Aesthetics seem to be especially subject to this disquieting paradox, and an interesting object lesson of it now stands in plain view just east of North Michigan Avenue.

By Joe Frey

Long before ground had even been broken for Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago, I — in a rare moment of unbridled civic boosterism — predicted that Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect Adrian Smith would “pull off the architectural equivalent of hitting .400” with his design for the building.

By Joe Frey

Just as the Baby Boomers of the 1960s counter-culture were fated to become senior citizens, modernism - a movement once equally earnest in its quest - was similarly not fated to be, in the words of Bob Dylan, “forever young.”

By Joe Frey

It’s perfectly ironic and poetically Warholian that the building which today houses one of the oldest urban arts communities in the country was originally constructed as a factory. (Also ironic, at least as it pertains to the preservation of significant Chicago architecture, is the building’s motto, painted inside its entrances: “All passes—art alone endures.” Pity the poor contractor who gets to knock down those walls.)

By Joe Frey

Stealing a dubious scene from the American Film Institute’s screenplay - one that should have been left on the cutting room floor - the American Institute of Architects (AIA) released on February 7 (as part of its sesquicentennial) a list of the 150 buildings that comprise “America’s favorite architecture.”

By Joe Frey

Michigan Avenue’s stuck-in-time streetwall will soon have a window to the present.

By Joe Frey

The Auditorium Building was proposed by Ferdinand Peck to provide a permanent home for the opera and symphony in Chicago at a time when the city was still considered a cow-town by the Eastern establishment. To dissuade them of this idea, the city's movers and shakers — Peck among them — wanted the best theater in the country. And in the Auditorium Building, that's pretty much what Chicago got. The building also put both the city, and the building’s architects, on the cultural map.

By Joe Frey

Though separated by about a hundred years, the Rookery is just like 190 South LaSalle, right across the street. Both are speculative office buildings and the quality of design and materials exist for two reasons: to attract and retain high-end tenants. But unlike many buildings of the same era, the Rookery, built between 1885 and 1888, is still a sought-after address. A big reason why is John Wellborn Root and Daniel Burnham’s design.

By Joe Frey

Looking at them at once, it may be hard to believe that the Monadnock Building and the Rookery were both designed by the same firm, Burnham & Root, with construction of the former starting in 1891, just a year after completion of the latter.