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CHICAGO 101
INDEX | UPDATES | INTERVIEWS | LINKS | ABOUT |
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You expect
to find great cities clinging to  continental
coasts and hugging huge harbors. But gleaming skyscrapers leaping from
streets smack dab in the middle of the Midwest? Chicago doesn't even fit
its own state; it's misplaced in the endless flatness of Illinois. Yet
here lies one of the world's most intriguing cities, a rewarding study
in culture, architecture, history, politics, and most of all, people. I
grew up in nearby Western Michigan, but only as a college student did I
start making the trip habitually. I moved here in 2002, and now it's my
job to learn and write about the city as a reporter.
This site is hardly a complete rendering of Chicago; it's just one writer's scrapbook of the city, an ode to his muse. But I have made an effort to look beyond the well-tread tourist trademarks such as the Sears Tower and Navy Pier. Not because they aren't splendid, but because I'm wary of the postcard phenomenon--the abbreviated, souvenir-oriented approach we take to traveling and learning. I've found that the city's natural and cultural wonders can be just as compelling in less noticeable corners. This site is meant to whet the appetite of the tourist and newcomer, and to convince the lifelong Chicagoan that there's always more to learn. In Chicago, every street corner has a story. At its best, architecture is much more than shelter, a way to keep out the wind and the rain, or real estate, a way to extract profit from a chunk of land. It is art--art that at once expresses the spirit of its times and transcends them. And in the past, at least, no American city has raised construction to the level of art as consistently and as brilliantly as Chicago. -Blair Kamin, from Why Architecture Matters: Lessons From Chicago RECENT
UPDATES:
INDEX:
LINKS:
ABOUT
THE WRITER AND PHOTOGRAPHER:
All words and pictures Copyright
2001-2004 Nathan L.K. Bierma. Reproduction with attribution welcome upon
permission. |
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