Tour of Hyde Park Modernist Architecture Aug. 19

 

-posted by chicago pop

From Forgotten Chicago, a walking tour of Hyde Park's legacy of modernist architecture - everything from the Keck & Keck house on University to the I.M. Pei boxes and, uh, Regenstein Library. It all deserves our respect. Thanks to HPP reader I. for passing this along.

Go beyond the gargoyles: From Bertrand Goldberg to Edward Dart, Edward Durell Stone to Edward Larabee Barnes, and Helmut Jahn to Mies van der Rohe, the patrons and builders of Hyde Park have enthusiastically embraced (briefly, in some cases) everything from the International Style to New Formalism, Brutalism and the current preference for sustainable design.

There are few places in the United States with a more encyclopedic and concentrated overview of the last 75 years of modernist architecture than Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. From George Fred and William Keck’s minimal 1937 cooperative apartments (below left) to Tod Williams and Billie Tsien’s towering new Logan Center for the Arts (below right, formally opening in October 2012), Hyde Park offers a comprehensive collection of 75 years of modernist masterpieces (and a few misfires). Additionally, Hyde Park offers a living example of the benefits and perils of large-scale land clearance and urban renewal. 

 

Join Forgotten Chicago as we explore Hyde Park for the first time with a walking tour on Sunday, August 19. Venturing far beyond the cliche (Collegiate Gothic and gargoyles), the beloved (a low-slung Prairie School house), and the familiar (a long-gone fair and tales of those swept up in its dark side), our exploration of Hyde Park will show an incredible array of lesser-known and often remarkable projects from the past nine decades. 

Details:

When? Sunday, August 19, 2012 at 12:50 PM. Rain or shine (severe weather will cancel tour).

Where? The tour will start in front of Powell’s Books at 1501 East 57th Street; Powell’s is a short block west of the Metra Electric District 57th Street station.

How Long? A little more than three hours and three miles of walking. The tour will conclude at 4:05 PM at the corner of 55th Street and Hyde Park Avenue, near the Metra 55th Street Station to allow participants to take the inbound 4:10 PM Metra train from Hyde Park, which arrives at Millennium Station at 4:26 PM. The 55 Garfield bus can also take those on the tour back to the Green and Red Lines.