Lofty History: Architectural Historian Thomas Leslie Offers a New History of Chicago’s Ever-Evolving Tall Buildings

Civic Center with “Untitled” (Pablo Picasso, 1965-1967). View from the south. (Author’s collection)

From NewCity Design

Thomas Leslie’s latest, deeply researched, visually handsome book on the history of Chicago skyscrapers took root in a long-ago moment of wonder and revelation beneath the Hancock building. His family was visiting the city. “I remember when I was twelve or thirteen and saw the John Hancock Tower for the first time and realized ‘Oh, that’s about the wind.’ You know, the building’s [X-bracing], it’s for the wind.” Leslie, a professor of architectural history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a resident of Chicago, says that one common feature in Chicago high-rise architecture is that its creators have always been fluent in the newest technology and they have wanted their buildings to “have a certain legibility to them” that makes that technology evident to those that behold their creations. “That clarity, that even a twelve- or thirteen-year-old kid could see, is something I’ve been chasing in my research,” Leslie says. “I am fascinated by...

Read more ...