Constructing Chicago Essay Examples

In the article, the city of Chicago was described by Bluestone as an established remote trading crossroads in the Northwestern part of the United States during the nineteenth century. Furthermore, the city was said to be wrestled by conflicting nature. Because of the city’s economic significance, it became the center of early sky scrapers and modern mass transportation system. Having major infrastructure development, Chicago became the model of a modern metropolis not only in the US, but also for the entire world. The continuous natural disasters, rebuilding and trading made Chicago an instant city packed with towering skyline that competes for the title of the tallest in the world. In the article, Bluestone articulates that Chicago’s virtuosity with land and money is not the only thing that defines it as a thriving city and art. Chicago is home for museums, hospitals and first-rate universities that are among the first to be founded in the country. This fact is a testament to Bluestone’s description of Chicago as a city with spatial complexity that delivered art that is both expressive and defining. These characteristics allowed the city to create architectural expression that contradict those of other cities, which also enabled them to set their own signature. The way Bluestone describes the city of Chicago in his article depicts a development of a city’s image derived from an incomparable complex architectural perspective.
In Bluestone’s article, several aspects of Chicago’s architectural distinctions was articulated by providing examples of the way high rise buildings ornate their elevators and transforms them into a royal carriage. Chicago is an example of a city that is fueled by impressive industrial expansion that started in the later part of the nineteenth century. However, Bluestone disputed this notion of the city by combining cultural analysis and architectural history. He did not restrict his vision of the city from architectural descriptions, but instead he also explored the details of the creation of city’s churches, parks and civic buildings. The article generally accentuates the influences surrounding the structure of the city that are mostly derived from the cultural, aesthetic and moral aspirations of the city’s elite. However, it was clear from the narratives that the aspirations of the local elite were rooted from the forces of capitalism and commerce. The article also showed that architects and clients in the nineteenth century are attempting to create landscapes that are designed to create a distraction for the visitors and residents.
The distraction was aimed to redirect the people’s attention from the massive commercialization of the city while keeping the commitment to urbanize Chicago and go beyond the conventional. The parks that were created in Chicago were surveyed in the article to demonstrate the relationship between the social classes and the different infrastructures in the city. The churches, residential areas, the lakefront and civic centers could have avoided the dominance of the city’s skyscrapers by integrating the architectural visions applied to the buildings to their own construction plans. However, it was mentioned earlier that the structural elements employed in constructing the city skyscrapers and prime business areas are mandated by the separation of social class. Buildings embellished with lavish elevators, monumental entrances and spacious lobbies are made to give emphasis to the city’s image of emerging middle class of workers. Chicago’s architectural scene challenges the traditional description of a city driven by lucre and commerce. It can be concluded from the article that the parks, avenues and conservatories were made for altruistic purposes of the benevolent aristocrats of the city.
It can be drawn from the narratives that the initiative of those creations is for the sake of cultivating a democratic place where people from different social class can co-exist. Bluestone also suggests that the civic leaders of the city during the nineteenth century are intellectuals that are embracing culture and art. This is rather true because based on the descriptions of the architectural infrastructures created during that time appeared to have embodied several artistic elements that are not normally seen in an American city. It is capitalism that shaped Chicago, if there is a high consideration to the overall aesthetic condition of the entire city that will manifest in the creation of the parks and infrastructures other than the skyscrapers; therefore, artistic uniformity will be prevalent in all corners of Chicago. However, the parks were created to respond to the need for minimizing pollution caused by the industrialists. The initiative to construct the parts did not occur from mere contemplation of the city’s aesthetic necessity, but to counteract the problems brought by the same group of people that created Chicago’s commercialized image.
As the author, Bluestone was not able to mention that fact in his article, although the narratives briefly provides a very limited insight, there should have been a more comprehensive discussion about of that fact. This is because providing a more comprehensive discussion of the political side of Chicago will offer a more debatable context. It will help the article to better convey all sides of Bluestone’s arguments, which would make the article more interesting to read and talk about. Because of the sheer amount information provided in the article, Bluestone’s article was made semi-tolerable. Although at some point, the article tends to be misleading because of the over-intellectualized narratives. Overall, the author was able to effectively sum up the architectural and artistic history of Chicago and showed a few elements that would contradict a conclusion that the city was built purely out of commercialization reasons. Integrating cultural aspects in the construction of Chicago also delivered a diversity of arguments that would define Bluestone’s thesis. He is convinced that the city of Chicago was built with architectural prose and artistry because of the sheer desire of the elite to create a city of commerce represented in an artistic fashion.
There are significant evidences in the text that support Bluestone’s thesis. For example, the use of new steel frames to construct the skyscrapers in the city demonstrates engineering innovation in building. On the architectural side, parks created during the nineteenth century demonstrate grandeur that is rarely seen in most cities during that period. For example, he mentioned about Receptory Building and Stable in Humboldt Park located at the Northeast side of the city. The building houses the tools, wagons, horses and landscaping equipments needed to maintain the park. Given the simplicity of the purpose of the building, it was still created in a grander scale described as an old German style country house. Another example by Bluestone is the McGill house, which is one of the grandest mansions in the city owned by physician Dr. John A. McGill. The mansion was drawn from the French renaissance and medieval inspirations, which is a clear testament to Chicago elite’s luxurious taste in architecture.
The article was able to discuss the important piece of arguments to defend the author’s thesis using evidence and factual data. However, the overall feel of the article can be compared to a verbose weak doctoral thesis. This is because some of the areas of the article that pertain strongly to the history of Chicago, which has been told several times in hundreds of other literature. It also appears that the article was coupled with faulty premises that dialectally influenced its factual nature. Overall, it cannot be denied that the overwhelming information packed in the article will help any reader to have an understanding of the connection of architecture, arts, separation of class, urbanism and everything that contributed the development of the city. The article is a historical statement to what the city of Chicago is today.