"The Thompson Center?" you ask? Who would ever see that as one of Chicago's treasures?
I admit that the James R. Thompson Center (formerly the State of Illinois Building) isn't well-liked by architects. The interior is insufferably hot in the summertime. The roof leaks. And the interior colors are the distopian 1980's version of patriotic--tomato-soup red and slate blue. And I myself am no fan of glass buildings. I'll take a Louis Sullivan before a Mies any day. Observe the gothic antiquity in the very atmosphere of Chicago. Greek revival columns line the streets of the financial district. Romanesque skyscrapers unfurl and bloom, as their roots drink from the green Chicago River. I was born in Chicago, and the history of my great-grandparents are wrapped in the stone acanthus leaves that ornament the Indiana limestone and the soot from their labor and sweat from their brows accentuate the nooks and crevasses of the white towers.
But there's something about the Thompson Center that I just like.
It can be seen from the west side of Daley Plaza (where the Picasso is) while facing north. You can see its blue glass gleaming between the 1911 classical revival City Hall on your left, and the dull brown Civic Center on your right. As you approach the Thompson Center, you'll notice a pile of craggy, white puzzle piece shapes in front.
That bit of outdoor sculpture is by the artist Jean Dubuffet, and is called "Monument with Standing Beast". It is unknown whether the standing beast was Big Jim Thompson or not. Most people just walk past it, but I love it. Not only can you walk around it, you can walk inside it. It's like a cartoon ice cave, or a snow fort that never melts. It's always very cool inside--even in the summertime. You can peek out of the holes, or you can look up through the top at the sky. There are never any other adults in there, and often small children will gravitate toward it to play hide and seek. The doorway on the left is a small, dark room, good for crouching. The entrance on the right opens to a large cavern. Well, large is relative, and the dirty white walls are close, but the blue sky soars above. Along with the Ando Gallery, "Monument" is one of my favorite spaces in Chicago. In a way, "Monument" is kind of a miniature version of the Thompson Center.
If you saw the Gregory Hines/Billy Crystal comedy/action/ipswich clams movie Running Scared, you may remember the end of the film where they descend on cables in an uber-cool glass building? That was the Thompson Center. Cool blue on the outside and bisque warm on the inside, the building takes up nearly one whole city block and is nearly all atrium. It's so big, I went to the lower food court to shoot a picture from there, and I still couldn't get everything in the shot. Most glass buildings gather light for the outside offices. The Thompson Center gathers light for the whole building. Not only are the sides glass, but the ceiling as well.
One of my favorire things to do in the Thompson Center is to ride the escalator down, while looking up through the ceiling and the glass façade that gives you a view from street level to zenith. The light is filtered through the slats, giving the view outside a hazy, recollective quality. The building on view is the Chicago Title & Trust Building, which even though it was built in 1992, still has a solid, old fashioned look to it. You can also watch the clouds roll overhead. Once as I was taking the escalator down, a blimp bumbled across my view. It's been my opinion for a very long time that the City of Chicago should offer dirigible tours.
And my next diary is for the birds.