And metal sheds do keep the rain and snow off of ChicagoРІР‚в„ўs twenty-first century industrial workers, no less than the Lakeside Press building kept its early twentieth century workers warm and dry. Pragmatism, a notion that most North Americans enthusiastically (and thoughtlessly) embrace, says that truth is not an absolute, but a label for successful adaptive strategies in other words, what works is whatРІР‚в„ўs right. Dewey, philosopher and education theorist, was a leading cheerleader for a philosophy known as pragmatism. I am inclined to blame another Chicagoan, John Dewey. What haunts me, as an architect, is this question: Why, a hundred years ago, was it worthwhile to construct a magnificent eight story industrial Gothic factory whose grace and dignity still inspires a century later, while today it is not only acceptable but commonplace to send industrial workers to labour in tinfoil huts better suited to the sheltering of aircraft than human beings? What happened? Yet people go to work in them, as evidenced by the rows of cars parked out front.

These buildings are obviously not designed By at least some definitions, they are not even architecture. As architecture they are ciphers-works of little cost and less effort that escape the notice of designers because they are so obviously not designed. These buildings-one searches in vain for a more appropriate name for them-are little more than corrugated metal covers protecting a two-dimensional process diagram from rain and snow. Why does this building, so graceful despite its bulk, haunt me? Because it is nearly a hundred years old, and in that time, the architecture of industry has devolved from achingly beautiful buildings like this one to the quilt of one-story metal sheds one sees on approach to either of ChicagoРІР‚в„ўs two major airports. It was designed by noted architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. It originally housed a variety of printing and binding equipment, and now serves, interestingly, as a high-tech data center. The Lakeside Press Building was built in the early twentieth century by Thomas E. The building is decorated with cut stonework and insignia that would not be out of place on an Ivy League campus.

Except for the detailing, the effect is Gothic, like those remarkable European cathedrals where the heavy stone columns become impossibly thin as they race to vault across the nave. But in this case, steel spandrels make the columns-which are in fact quite massive-appear slender and graceful as they reach for flattened arches six floors up. The Lakeside Press Building, a massive cube some eight floors in height, is marked by huge soaring brick columns that are (uncharacteristically for its time) knit together by steel spandrels, giving the building an unmistakable vertical thrust not unlike Louis SullivanРІР‚в„ўs famous Wainwright Building in St. An old industrial building on ChicagoРІР‚в„ўs Near South Side haunts me by its excellence.

Industrial gothic metal