Now Visit Robie and Farnsworth Houses on the Same Tour!

New for 2012: GoFarnsworth! MiniVan Tours to the Farnsworth and Robie Houses. There's never been a weekly tour like this one.

First, we take you to Frank Lloyd Wright's greatest work of his Prairie Style, the 1910 Frederick Robie House in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, near the University of Chicago campus. Your host, architectural commentator Larry Simon, will guide you around and through this astounding landmark, considered one of Wright's greatest buildings. Simon will point out the architectural details that influenced a young Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, then working in Berlin with Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius for the great architect Peter Behrens.

Then it's off to Plano, Illinois, in midwestern farm country, to intimately experience the steel and glass weekend house Mies van der Rohe designed for Dr Edith Farnsworth in the late 1940s: the Farnsworth House. Simon will connect the architectural dots between the two landmarks, from Wright to Mies, and beyond. Clearly, the Farnsworth House has become the perfect distillation of Modern Architecture in an elegant glass box. Off the Map visitors are permitted to take interior photographs of the Farnsworth House on this GoFarnsworth! MiniVan Tour.

Why go with GoFarnsworth!? It's nearly impossible to visit both of these Chicago landmarks in one day without Off the Map Chicago because of logistics. But we make it easy: Simon picks you up at Mies' landmark 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments in a minivan. And the tour moves on from there, with a return back to 860-880 by mid-afternoon. A classic barbeque lunch--a slice of Americana to contrast these amazing buildings!--is included in the cost. Speaking of cost, trying to do this yourself, by train and taxi, or with a car rental, plus the hassle of making separate reservations at each house, can cost you up to $150.

Stanley Tigerman at the Graham Foundation

"Ceci n'est pas une reverie" is both a retrospective and reexamination of the work of Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman. And you can experience it at the Graham Foundation through May 19. Throughout the exhibition, view sketches, models, architectural drawings, even some of the Chicago architect's cartoons which often take jabs at more conventional forms of architecture. Spread over three floors at the Graham Foundation's Madlener House in Chicago's Gold Coast, curators say the exhibition "builds on the playful, oneric, and surrealist undercurrent of Tigerman's work." One personal favorite on the wall is a rather sardonic Tigerman collage depicting Mies van der Rohe's landmark Crown Hall at the IIT campus sinking in Lake Michigan, in the manner of the Titanic.

The Graham Foundation is located at 4 West Burton Place in Chicago.

Visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Johnson Wax Building and Wingspread with Off the Map

Experience Frank Lloyd Wright's landmark S.C. Johnson Administration Building and Wingspread in Racine, Wisconsin, and more, with Off the Map Chicago.

If you've visited Oak Park, where Wright developed his early landmark Prairie style, and seen the Robie House and Unity Temple, let us take you on a unique, private architectural journey to Racine for a tour of the stellar architecture Frank Lloyd Wright created for Hib Johnson, chairman of Johnson Wax Company, in 1938.

We'll pick you up in Chicago and along the way to Racine, fill in the architectural details of Wright's work in Chicago and Oak Park that led to his groundbreaking work for Johnson in Racine. You'll go on a tour of the S.C. Johnson Administration Building, and then enjoy a private visit at Wingspread, the spectacular home Wright designed for Hib Johnson after the company chairman told the architect he loved his new office building so much, he wanted to sleep there.

And there's more. After our visit, we'll stop for lunch, and then drive back to Chicago through the beautiful North Shore suburbs along Lake Michigan, where your host, architectural commentator Larry Simon, will share with you some of his favorite works of Wright and Oak Park Wright Studio associate John van Bergen, including Wright's 1915 Ravine Bluff's subdivision featuring his only built bridge, as well as the first Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie House. Larry will also take you to Eliel and Eero Saarinen's landmark architectural masterpiece, the 1940 Crow Island School, and share some of his favorite, and rarely-seen, examples of mid-century domestic architecture.

For more information on this amazing day-long architectural journey exploring the world of Frank Lloyd Wright and mid-century Chicago architects, call Larry at +1 847 951 5521.

Where Mies Worked

While Frank Lloyd Wright built a veritable temple to himself in Oak Park, Mies van der Rohe chose a more utilitarian route, which certainly fits with his Bauhausian background. The great modernist, who designed the landmark Farnsworth House, the Federal Center, the IBM Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago, to name just a few, had a basic loft-style office at 230 East Ohio Street in the Streeterville section of Chicago.

Wright's Oak Park studio is marked with the limestone plaque he created that boldly reads, "Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect." The stone tablet (a faithful reproduction; the original resides at Taliesin) ensured Wright's permanence, and underscores his outspoken and oft overbearing personality.

Mies is another matter. In photographs, wearing handsome bespoke suits and often holding a cigar, he appears distinguished, quiet, even distant. The simple, clean, nondescript building that housed the office of the great builder of mid-century skyscrapers matches his image, and pretty much sums up his observation that "less is more."

No trace of his presence remains at 230 East Ohio Street. I once asked the building porter if he knew on which floor Mies had his office.

"Mies who?" he asked.

New Roosevelt University Tower Casts its Shadow on Louis Sullivan landmark

What would architect Louis Sullivan think of the nearly-completed Roosevelt University tower next door to his landmark Auditorium Building?

When viewed from the corner of Congress and Wabash, the multi-colored zig-zag glass tower serves as a sort of patchwork background for the seven-story tower of Adler & Sullivan's Auditorium, home of the urban university and the Auditorium Theatre. The firm's offices were located in this tower, and a talented young draftsman named Frank Lloyd Wright was in charge of the drafting room there. It was during this time that Wright was building his own home and studio in Oak Park, where he would develop his unique Prairie houses around 1901.

The new addition to Adler & Sullivan's landmark masterpiece is by the Chicago architectural firm VOA, and soars 32 stories. Organic? Well, not exactly. But, like other great Chicago skyscrapers, from the Monadnock to the Marquette to Mies van der Rohe's Federal Center, the university's sleek new vertical campus breaks new ground. It offers a handsome, dramatic contrast to Sulllivan's Auditorium--and a modern addition to the Chicago skyscraper skyline. And it's hard to imagine that Sullivan, who has been called the "poet of the modern skyscraper," wouldn't have approved of that.

Inland Steel Building Being Brought Up to Date

The Inland Steel Building, one of my favorite mid-century Chicago Loop skyscrapers, is being brought into the 21st century with a major renovation which will make workspaces more environmentally and economically sustainable.

The 1958 skyscraper designed by architects Walter Netsch and Bruce Graham of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill is defined by its sleek stainless-steel and tinted green glass skin. It was the first skyscraper built in the historic Chicago Loop after the Great Depression. The Inland Steel lobby was recently restored back to its original state. SOM will supervise the updates of the skyscraper located at 30 West Monroe Street, which was designated a Chicago landmark in 1998. 

Built as the headquarters for the Inland Steel Company, the brushed steel and glass curtain wall and dramatic steel column behind the building which houses the elevators and mechanicals, is SOM's intepretation of architect Louis Sullivan's observation that "form ever follows function."  

You can visit the Inland Steel Building plus other amazing Chicago Loop skyscrapers such as the Monadnock, Rookery, and Sullivan's Carson Pirie Scott department store with Off the Map Chicago. My "City of Skyscrapers" walk is an architectural history excursion of the skyscraper, born and bred in Chicago. This private walk features unique visits to some of my favorite lobbies, from the Rookery to the spectacular art deco Board of Trade. We also visit the 1895 Marquette by Holabird & Roche and experience the architectural conversation it has with Mies van der Rohe's landmark Federal Center.

Targeting a Louis Sullivan Landmark

The retailer Target is moving into the recently-restored Schlesinger & Mayer department store, one of Louis Sullivan's greatest designs and a landmark of modern architecture, at the corner of State and Madison streets in Chicago's historic Loop.

Which makes sense. After all, this Chicago architectural landmark was built as a department store, and has always been a department store--most recently, Carson Pirie Scott & Company.

The big challenge: how does a major retailer stamp its own identity on, or around, or on top of, Sullivan's trademark black ironwork of organic ornamentation that anchors the gleaming white building to the ground? If you look hard enough at the intricate metalwork in the magnificent rounded corner entrance, you'll discover the architect's initials: LHS, in a distinctive monogram.

With recent approval of the Chicago landmarks commission, Target is proposing to place its trademark red bullseye inside the rounded glass entrance, behind Louis Sullivan's iron ornament, and hang two-story red banners in alternating windows. Red awnings will also be placed above the massive plate glass windows lining State street. Awnings were part of the original Louis Sullivan design.

Dressing up Sullivan's 1899 Chicago landmark with 21st century signage might be something that Sullivan, termed the "Poet of the Modern Skyscraper" would have approved of. It seems to flow nicely in the organic process he championed with his theme, "Form ever follows function."

All of Target's signage ideas sound well-considered and subtle. The proof will be how they actually look when the retailer opens its doors in about one year.