history Archives - Page 5 of 7

Chicago Skyscraper History: The Monadnock Building

Posted on April 14, 2021 by Nancy

As part of our Chicago Skyscraper History series, we’re exploring some of the architectural feats that have defined Chicago, and buildings across the world. Located in Chicago’s South Loop, the Monadnock Building is a 16-story skyscraper, perhaps unassuming considering the height Chicago’s skyscrapers see today. But the Monadnock Building has an important, impactful story to tell.

Phase 1

Following the Depression of 1873-79, Chicago saw a notable building boom across residential and commercial spaces. The Monadnock was commissioned and envisioned as an expansive office space in the heart of the city, and was so large that it was built in two phases. The northern half was completed in 1891 and designed by Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root (of Burnham and Root). Consistent with other buildings of the time, the exterior walls consisted of layered bricks in the load-bearing tradition; however, it was unique in using cantilevered steel to support the undulating bay windows. Also unusual for the time was the lack of ornamentation and stripped-down facade. During the construction, Root tragically passed away, and Burnham’s time consumed by the World’s Columbian Exhibition, the rest of construction would rely on different leadership.

Phase 2

Holabird & Roche took over the design of the second phase just two years later, but the variations in approach are still apparent. With progress in structural engineering and design, the brick facade of the southern portion didn’t need to bear the load of the building. Instead, metal frames were installed to stabilize the building. There were also differences in style; while the northern half was absent of exterior ornamentation, the southern half is considered an early application of classical architectural principles.

When it was completed, the Monadnock Building was the largest office building in the world, and catapulted business potential in Chicago’s South Loop. It captures the moment of change between load-bearing construction and skeleton frame construction. It also employed the first portal system of wind bracing in the country. Unlike many iconic structures of its time, the Monadnock is still standing today. It’s home to businesses and offices, it’s a popular destination for architectural tours and it’s a wonderful example of Chicago’s architectural legacy.

The Subsects of Modernist Architecture Part II

Posted on March 17, 2021May 5, 2024 by Nancy

A few weeks ago on our blog, we began exploring the subsects of Modernist architecture and covered the Bauhaus, De Stijl and Constructivism movements. Modernism took the world by storm at the time of its invention — reimagining everything from painting to furniture to the built environment. Over time, that impact has continued to evolve and morph into many different directions. Here’s just a few of those iterations:

Expressionism

Expressionism is the fourth subsect of Modernism to emerge in the discipline’s early years. This architectural style existed simultaneously with the Bauhaus style, but stood in stark contrast to its counterpart. While Bauhaus architecture emphasized clean, linear design, Expressionism was an outburst of artistic emotion, encouraging fragmentation and distortion to express extreme feelings. These feelings were borne from the political turmoil at the time, when the German Revolution of 1919 led many to a utopian outlook and a romantic socialist agenda.

Functionalism

As the name suggests, functionalism emphasizes one of the core traits of modernism: “form follows function.” The style, which emerged in Europe in the 1930s, touted that the design of a building should reflect its function and purpose. In the wake of World War I, this philosophy played its part in the larger desire to create a new and better world for people. This socialist and humanist philosophy was evident in many of the designs from this subsect of Modernism.

Minimalism

Minimalism is another subsect of Modernist architecture that emerged mid-century. Inspired by its predecessors, the De Stijl and Bauhaus movements, Minimalism is perhaps one of the most recognizable Modernist styles. Distinguished by its straight-forward design, stripped of ornamentation and decoration, Minimalism drove design back to its bare essentials. The movement was inspired by the hustle and bustle of urban life as well as influenced by Japanese architecture. Figures such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe popularized the design; it continued to evolve throughout the decades and can be seen in contemporary Modernist architecture today.

Stay tuned for more features on the many subsects of Modernist architecture.

Women in Architecture: Norma Merrick Sklarek

Posted on March 11, 2021May 6, 2024 by Nancy

From well-known figures like Charlotte Perriand to lesser-known names like Eileen Gray, countless women have left their mark on the history of architecture. As part of our Women in Architecture series, today we’re taking a look at another pioneering figure: Norma Merrick Sklarek, a woman who paved the way for generations of African American woman architects to follow.

Norma Merrick Sklarek

Norma Merrick Sklarek was born on April 15, 1926, in Harlem, New York. Her parents were both immigrants from Trinidad; her father was a doctor and her mother was a seamstress. Sklarek grew up going to predominantly white schools, where she excelled in math, science and fine arts, encouraged by her father. In fact, he was the one who initially suggested she pursue a career in architecture.

Sklarek pursued education at Barnard College for a prerequisite year before enrolling at the School of Architecture at Columbia University. Her experience was challenging, but nevertheless she persisted and went on to graduate in 1950 as one of two women and the only African American in her class.

Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles. Credit: Kent Kanouse, Flickr Creative Commons CC BY-NC 2.0 Deed

Career and Work

After graduation, Sklarek faced both gender and racial discrimination in her job hunt and was rejected by nineteen firms. She told a newspaper in 2004, “They weren’t hiring women or African Americans, and I didn’t know which it was [working against me].” She took on a civil service job as a draftsperson for the city of NY, but refused to settle. While working for the city, she took the architectural licensing examination in 1954 and became the first licensed African American woman architect in the state of New York. (Later, this accomplishment would earn her the nickname “the Rose Parks of Architecture.)

As a single mother, Sklarek’s own mom watched her kids while she worked at a variety of architectural firms. The first cordoned her to menial tasks, such as designing bathrooms, while the second gave her more responsibility. At her third firm job, Sklarek noticed her supervisor was particularly scrutinous of her. She carpooled with a white male colleague who was consistently late to work; her boss critiqued Sklarek’s own punctuality but never made mention of the man’s. In response, Sklarek bought her own car.

In 1959, she became the first African American woman member of the American Institute of Architects and in 1960, the first Black woman licensed as an architect in California. Sklarek rose in rank at her third architectural firm job, overseeing other staff and production processes. Like many women in the field, she remained cordoned to project manager positions, rather than becoming a project architect, despite her aptitude and keen sensibilities.

She worked on prestigious projects such as the California Mart, Fox Plaza, Pacific Design Center, San Bernardino City Hall, and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. She also continued to accumulate accolades throughout her career, including becoming the first African American woman elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 1980. Five years later in 1985, Sklarek co-founded Siegel Sklarek Diamond, the largest woman-owned architectural field in the country and became the first African American woman to co-own an architectural practice. Throughout her lifetime, she served on numerous boards, became an esteemed educator and prioritized mentoring other aspiring architects. She was proud to be a role model for others, acting as a figure that she herself had not had access to on her own journey.

Norma Merrick Sklarek was a pioneer of her own time, and remains today a figure of inspiration for anyone who faces discrimination and prejudice in their field. She proved that you are not what others believe you to be, and fought for others to be able to step into their full potential and leave their own marks on the architectural world.

The Subsects of Modernist Architecture, Part I

Posted on March 3, 2021May 5, 2024 by Nancy

As a pioneering approach to architecture, the Modernist discipline took the creative world by storm. It’s only natural that the discipline has since evolved and morphed to mean many different things to many different people around the world, from Japanese Modernists to the Bauhaus School in Germany and beyond. In celebration of this, we’re taking a closer look at just a few of the many nuanced subsects of Modernist architecture.

Bauhaus

The Bauhaus Modernist architectural style emerged from the Bauhaus School, founded by Walter Gropius, in Germany over a century ago. The school operated from 1919-1933. Gropius formed the Bauhaus in response to the rise of industrialism, emphasizing the importance of craftsmanship and human-centric design. The school united fine arts and craftsmanship to create one strong point of view, a style marked by its eschewment of the ornamental in favor of a sharp focus on geometric and abstract form, function and aesthetic. The simple schema of Bauhaus architecture was intended to be easily mass produced — and indeed, the style was packaged and spread globally, inspiring Modernist architecture as we know it today.

De Stijl

Emerging at the same time period as the Bauhuas, De Stijl (Dutch for “The Style) originated in the Netherlands in 1917 and is said to have peaked between its inception and 1933. The style emerged post World War I as a utopian means of social and spiritual redemption that took advantage of art and its transformative impact. De Stijl applied to both painting and architecture, proposing ultimate simplicity and abstraction through the use of stark and straight horizontal and vertical lines and rectangular forms. Though considered more prominent in architecture than painting, the movement is considered to be led by Piet Mondrian. Pioneers in the movement considered it the perfect fusion of form and function, yielding what they considered the ultimate style.

Constructivism

While the Bauhaus style and De Stijl were emerging in Eastern Europe, Constructivism entered the scene in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Constructivism was in part inspired by the Bauhaus, as well as by Russian Futurism. The style is characterized by its blend of modern technology and engineering methods, and marked deeply by the socio-political ethos of Communism. Constructivism combined existing Modernist principles like minimal and geometric design with a more experimental lens. This sense of experimental play, combined with its Futurism influences, resulted in intriguing and abstract structures. Though the style fell out of favor only a decade later, its influence can be seen in later movements such as Brutalism — but more on that later.

Stay tuned for more features on the numerous subsects of Modernist architecture.

Women in Architecture: Eileen Gray

Posted on February 1, 2021April 26, 2024 by Nancy

While women’s contributions to architecture are celebrated more than ever in modern times, these contributions have always been part of the architectural world — historically, they were just overlooked. As part of our women in architecture series, today we’re spotlighting another strong female figure in Modernism: Eileen Gray.

Eileen Gray was born into a wealthy aristocratic family in Ireland in 1878. Her father, a landscape painter, encouraged Gray’s artistic pursuits so that in 1900, Gray left for Slade School in London to study fine arts in a bohemian, co-ed program that was quite unusual for the time.

From connections made at Slade, Gray learned to lacquer furniture, eventually opening a studio in 1910 with Japanese craftsman Seizo Sugawara. In fact, Gray was so committed to the trade that she suffered from the so-called lacquer disease — a painful hand rash. Her hard work paid off, however, as she and Sugawara produced commissions for Paris’s wealthy elite.

Bibendum Chair, designed by Eileen Gray. Photo courtesy of EileenGrayDesigns.com

Gray’s time lacquering was cut short by World War I. However, after a brief stint driving ambulances during that period, she dove back into the world of interior design. Her most notable project included the Rue de Lota apartment and showcased some of Gray’s most iconic furniture designs, such as the Bibendum Chair (which parodied the shape of the Michelin Man) and the Pirogue Day Bed. Gray’s success led her to open her own shop in 1922, attracting high-caliber clients like Ezra Pound. During that time, she honed her style to become more streamlined and industrial, taking after Modernist inspirations like Le Corbusier.

E-1027, designed by Eileen Gray in France in 1929. Photo courtesy of e1027.org

With the support of her romantic partner, architect Jean Badovici, Gray pursued architecture. And despite not having a formal education in the trade, through apprenticeship and field learning, Gray flourished. Gray’s most notable architectural project was E-1027, a cuboid structure. When Gray finished E-1027, Badovici announced the home in his magazine and claimed himself joint architect. Of the nine architectural projects she completed in her lifetime, Badovici took credit for four of them.The home attracted Le Corbusier, who stayed often and later disrespected Gray’s wishes that the home remain without decor when Corbusier painted Cubist murals of naked women on its walls. Critic Rowan Moore commented on the move by Corbusier in 2013, calling it an “act of naked phallocracy” by a man asserting “his dominion, like a urinating dog, over the territory.”

In spite of the disrespect she faced from her male counterparts, Gray stands evermore steadfast as an influential figure in Modernist history.

Stay tuned for more features on women in architecture.

Chicago Skyscraper History: Home Insurance Building

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Nancy

Chicago boasts many historical architectural feats — it was the host of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 and the playground of greats including Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan. But did you know Chicago was also home to the world’s first ever skyscraper? Today we’re taking a look at the historic Home Insurance Building and how it came to be.

How the World’s First Skyscraper Came to Be

The Great Fire ravaged Chicago in 1871. But it was a devastation that gave way to the opportunity to rebuild anew. As the city looked to rebuild, architects pondered what the next generation of urban structures looked like. With commerce and industry downtown exploding exponentially, these structures had to accommodate more residential space and more office space — leading to verticality as a solution. And with the Great Fire as their lesson, architects also knew these structures had to be much more durable than those that had been so easily destroyed.

Luckily, two pivotal inventions from the mid-19th century made the introduction of soaring steel-framed buildings possible. The first was the safety elevator pioneered by Elisha Otis in 1854, which allowed for the safe transport of elevator passengers. While the top floor of buildings had once been inaccessible and undesirable, the elevator changed that forever. Meanwhile, the Bessemer Converter of 1856 allowed for widespread, large-scale commercial production of steel.

The culmination of these factors led to the world’s first skyscraper in 1885: the Home Insurance Building, a ten-story, steel-frame fireproof building in downtown Chicago.

Home Insurance Building, 1885, Published by Sprang Printing, Boston.

A Closer Look at the Home Insurance Building

The Home Insurance Building, designed by William Le Baron Jenney, was located at the corner of Adam and LaSalle Street. It earned the title of the world’s first skyscraper thanks to the combination of its height and its revolutionary steel frame. The frame was composed of wrought and cast iron alongside Bessemer rolled steel beams, leading the building to weigh in at a third of the mass of traditional masonry buildings of the time.

While two additional stories were added to the Home Insurance Building in 1890, it was eventually demolished in 1931 to make way for the Field Building, now known as the LaSalle Bank Building. Despite the building being gone today, it has forever left its mark on Chicago’s skyscraper history.

Women in Architecture Part I

Posted on January 13, 2021January 15, 2021 by Nancy

While conversations about the architectural greats center around figures such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, there are countless powerful women whose names are left out. At Optima, we’ve celebrated the contributions of everyone from Charlotte Perriand to Ray Eames — and today, we’re spotlighting a few more women in architecture you should know.

Sophia Hayden

Sophia Hayden was born in Santiago, Chile in 1868 and moved to Boston at age six. Hayden discovered her interest in architecture during high school and went on to be the first female graduate of the four-year program in architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She graduated in 1890 with honors. After college, Hayden initially struggled to find work in the male-dominated world of architecture and settled for a position as a mechanical drawing instructor at a local high school.

Only a year later, at just 21, Hayden jumped at the opportunity to enter her design in a competition for the Women’s Building at Daniel Burnham’s 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Her design won the competition and Hayden was awarded $1,000, a tenth of what male architects earned for similar buildings.

Women’s building, 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

During construction, Hayden was micromanaged incessantly and had to make many compromises on her design. The stress of the situation led Hayden to a breakdown and she was placed in a sanitarium for an “extended period of rest.” After the incident, Hayden retired from architecture permanently. Her treatment and diagnosis of hysteria have much to tell us about the challenges women in architecture faced during this time.

Marion Mahony Griffin

Marion Mahony Griffin was born in 1871 in Chicago, and at nine her family migrated to the suburb of Winnetka after the Great Chicago Fire. Watching a landscape consumed by growing suburban sprawl developed Mahony’s interest in architecture. She went on to graduate from MIT in 1894, becoming the second woman to do so after Hayden.

Artist's Studio (Section). Watercolour and ink by Marion Griffin 1894. — Artist’s Studio (Section). Watercolour and ink by Marion Griffin 1894.

After college, Mahony moved back to Chicago and became the first woman licensed to practice architecture in Illinois. She found work at her cousin’s architecture firm downtown alongside Frank Lloyd Wright. There, she created beautiful watercolor renderings of buildings and landscapes — a signature style which would later be attributed to Frank Lloyd Wright. Mahony worked alongside Wright for fifteen years, contributing greatly to his reputation and success to little recognition. She was also an original member of the Prairie School of architecture.

Fair Lane, Henry Ford’s Dearborn mansion, 1913-1915

When Wright eloped to Europe, he offered Mahony his studio’s remaining commissions, but she declined. Mahony is even rumored to have said Wright’s habit of taking credit for things, including the Prairie School movement, are what led to the movement’s early death. Later in life, Mahony collaborated with ex-Wright employee, Prairie School member and her husband, Walter Burley Griffin. Throughout her career, Mahony brought to fruition many notable projects, including Henry Ford’s Dearborn mansion and the Gerald Mahony Residence in Elkhart, Indiana.

Stay tuned for more features on women in architecture.

A Brief History of Irrigation

Posted on October 21, 2020 by Nancy

Lush, verdant landscapes are a cornerstone of Optima communities. We’ve spent years of research and application honing our landscaping, arriving today at an innovative vertical planting system that incorporates self-containing irrigation and drainage. But just what is irrigation, why is it so important and how did we arrive at this solution? Today, we’re taking a closer look at the history of irrigation.

While our own landscaping research has gone on for decades, the history of irrigation dates back at least 8,000 years. The earliest known systems of irrigation originated in Egypt and Mesopotamia in 6,000 B.C. Fighting against the flooding of the Nile several months each year, ancient civilizations pioneered a technique to divert flood waters to nearby crop fields, thereby utilizing excess flood water for crops that would otherwise be difficult to grow due to lack of resources.

This ancient technique is credited as the basis of agricultural economies and societies across the world. As the process of applying controlled amounts of water to plants at needed intervals, irrigation aids in growing agricultural crops and maintaining vegetation in a way that conserves water, preserves soil nutrients and saves time and energy.

Before the Egyptian and Mesopotamian approach, primitive irrigation likely involved laborers carrying buckets of water from rivers and wells to water their crops. Increased innovation to control water flow where desired included innovations such as irrigation canals, dams, dikes, aqueducts and water storage facilities.

Nowadays, modern irrigation systems have evolved to include reservoirs, tanks and wells, with reservoirs serving to collect water from natural sources such as lakes and rainwater runoff. As our global agricultural output continues to rise, irrigation protects against droughts and famines, ensuring successful and widespread crop yields.

Self-contained Irrigation at Optima Sonoran Village

At Optima Kierland Apartments and Optima Sonoran Village, our self-containing irrigation and drainage system enables a palette of vibrantly colored plants at the edge of each floor to grow both up and over the edge of the building, culminating in a beautiful rooftop garden. Thanks to the innovations of many civilizations before us, these gardens are easy to maintain, and a beautiful natural respite for all our residents to enjoy.

A Brief History of the Plaza

Posted on August 26, 2020May 23, 2024 by Nancy

At Optima, we’re believers that exceptional design has the power to inspire awe and wonder, and to enhance the human experience. One such component of design, the plaza, is a perfect example of this: designed as an open, public space, plazas create hubs for community activity and human connection. To learn more about the role this seminal piece of design has in creating public space, we’re diving into the history of the plaza.

Plaza Mayor, Madrid. Credit: Francisco Anzola on Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

The First Plazas

From colonial cities in Spanish America to the Spanish East Indies, there were several types of plazas serving as the center of community life. The plaza mayor often referred to the space centered between several administrative, religious and government buildings. The plaza de armas, meanwhile, served as a rallying space for troops, and the plaza de toros translates, quite literally, to bullring.

Perhaps the most significant example of such plazas is the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Spain. Dating back to 1619, the plaza was constructed during the reign of Philip III by architect Juan de Herrera. Though the plaza saw several disasters since then and was reconstructed an equal number of times, it remained (and still remains) a pivotal public fixture in Madrid. Plaza Mayor has served many diverse purposes, from being the site of a marketplace, to bullfights, to military parading ground, to public executions, to even trials during the Spanish Inquisition and crowning ceremonies.

Evolving over time to a space of leisure, the Plaza Mayor is now the site of outdoor cafes, restaurants and, inevitably, tourists. It draws people in with yoga workshops, concerts and festivals — a far cry from its dabbles in militant history. The Spanish plaza is also related to the Italian piazza, with both belonging under the umbrella term “town square,” which includes city squares, plazas, piazzas and city greens.

The Modern Day Plaza

Following in the footsteps of Madrid’s adaptable Plaza Mayor, the modern day plaza can refer to a multitude of spaces with a multitude of purposes. Within our own portfolio, a prime example of a plaza is at Optima Signature and Optima Chicago Center. By sliding the podium of Optima Signature North and juxtaposing Optima Chicago Center to the West and South, the buildings create a dynamic plaza space, which features lush landscaping, planters and benches. Kiwi, a large-scale sculpture designed by Optima founder David Hovey Sr, adds to the visual energy of the space.

Aerial view of the plaza at Optima Signature and Chicago Center

Now, plazas refer to open spaces within neighborhoods that boost economic vitality, pedestrian mobility and safety as well as providing aesthetically pleasing areas. No matter the interpretation of the word, there’s always one belief at the core, and that’s gathering and celebrating community.

The History of LEED Certification

Posted on April 1, 2020September 1, 2020 by Nancy

As real estate development continues to evolve a more environmentally-friendly mindset, green building certification programs are becoming a worldwide normality. LEED — or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — is a common practice across the globe and within our Optima properties.

The first concept of LEED emerged in 1993, spearheaded by international environmental advocacy groups. By the early 1990s, the demand for sustainable buildings was already on the rise; the combined development in environmental legislation and the concern of tenants and shareholders pushed real estate developers, architects and industry leaders to re-think their methodologies. Non-profits, government agencies, architects, engineers, developers, builders and manufacturers came together to officially introduce the LEED program in 2000.

Since then, LEED has grown into the world’s most widely-used green building rating system, with nearly 80,000 projects participating across 162 countries. From residential buildings to commercial spaces, LEED provides a framework that project teams can use to create efficient, cost-saving green buildings.

So how does a building become LEED certified? It depends on the project. There are various LEED rating systems for different situations, including building design and construction, interior design, building operations and maintenance, neighborhood development, homes, and cities and communities. Depending on the given system, requirements can range from material choices, to greenhouse gas emissions, to energy and water consumption, to air filter systems. Through these strategies, LEED buildings have a positive impact on their residents or tenants, their communities and the environment.

Landscaped Courtyard at Optima Biltmore Towers

From our building materials to our amenity spaces, we are in constant pursuit of bettering our buildings with environmentally conscious practices, something we’ve been passionate about since our beginnings. Ultimately certifications like LEED help us improve our buildings, support environmental efforts and create a long, lasting impact.

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