860-880 North Lake Shore Drive-Chicago, Illinois, USA (architect Mies van der Rohe)

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Horseman SW612P + Rodenstock lenses

(detail Gandolfi Variant + 6x7 Linhof Rapid Rollex)

 

 

 

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900-910 North Lake Shore Drive - Chicago, Illinois, USA (architect Mies van der Rohe)

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Horseman SW612P + Rodenstock Lenses

 

 

 

Facing the beauty of Lake Michigan, The Esplanade Apartments on North Lake Shore Drive − not far from the famous Navy Pier − designed by architect Mies van der Rohe, probably enjoy the most beautiful situation of all his works.

These seminal and innovative buildings used unprecedented construction technologies, which became the standard used by Mies in all his future high-rise projects.

Completed in 1951, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive were the first towers in the world to exhibit the promise of glass-and-steel-frame construction, while the 900–910 towers, finished in 1955, were the first to totally accomplish the aluminum and glass curtain wall which became the hallmark of Mies’ oeuvre.

On the neighbourhood of The Esplanade Apartments is the John Hancock Building – which you can admire on the first photograph −, the Magnificent Mile portion of Michigan Avenue and Oak Street Beach. Also not far from here, you can go for a walk in Lincoln Park, which I also showed on a previous post about Mies' Commonwealth Promenade Apartments. 

I have used the Horseman SW612P, with Rodenstock lenses and a 6x9 roll film back, to produce these photographs on Kodak Ektachrome E100S film.

My son Jorge, assisted me on this rewarding task, in 1999. I think that we will never forget the days we have spent in Chicago.

 

 

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Chicago, The Loop - Summer 1999 (Horseman SW612Pro)

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The Loop seen from the South Side, IIT Campus in the foreground

Riding the train from O'Hare International Airport into the Windy City, we soon started to have the funny bitter feeling that maybe we made the wrong decision when, wanting to save some bucks, we left the expensive cabs behind us and rushed to the train station.

As the city got nearer and nearer, numerous strange and peculiar looking people seemed to feel a certain kind of special attraction for all the crazy bags and cases that we transported.

Who knows, maybe it was just simple curiosity?

I bet that all the gangsters in Chicago must have gotten scared of that two little funny creatures coming maybe from the outer space, carrying only-God knows what kind of secret weapons on their metallic cases...

Strange robot cops out of nowhere going to everywhere? Who dares to ask?

In fact, we are loaded with cases of precious photographic equipment: 4x5 inches Gandolfi Variant, Horseman SW612Pro (both of course with the necessary lenses), exposure meters, color meter, filters, roll film holders, tripods, film, and so on and so on.

Did I mention our wallets, credit cards, passport, money, clothes, sleeping bags and the like?

My son Jorge, by then in the beginning of his twenties, looks like asking if we will ever get out of there alive... I try to look calm and reply that he should pretend that we are at home, that we are just doing the most natural thing in the world, we are hardcore Chicagoans and no one can do us no harm, no matter which hellbound train we ride!

Truth is, we are for the first time in our lives walking on american soil...

Chicago Transit Authority was kind enough to offer us the very first cheap emotions!

Chicago, here we come!!!

As possibly some of you know, I was in Chicago on assignment, photographing the works of Mies van der Rohe for Editorial Blau. I have posted some material before, so people familiar with this blog should know what I am talking about.

This time around, the talk won't be about Mies, but about the "few times in between", the few times that I took the chance of photographing something else. Looking back, I understand that in a way it was a lost chance, as I realize that I should have made much more images than I did on my spare time.

Photographing for a book on Mies' architecture obliged us to be focused on our task, also losing countless hours on burocratic stuff like permissions and the like.

Chicago is a fantastic city and Lake Michigan is just unforgettable, you can find millions of motives to photograph and a lot of music to hear! Maybe I will be back one day shooting on my own, without pressures and obligations. I will then maybe find the peace of mind to do my own stuff at my own pace, with my own rhythm.

If chance happens, should I do it in Large Format? Leica? One lens, ten lenses?

Color, black and white? Sheet film, roll film? Square, panoramic?

I guess that I better do it all and then some more...

And I promise that I will try some other pizzas, not only Luigi's world famous (in IIT Common's... He invariably asked if we wanted one - paper - plate or two plates... You understood right, for both of us! Wanna get Luigi fucked up? Ask him for a napkin... And then maybe some salt... You better run soon!).

And I won't forget the world's best chicken wings, and the world's dearest donuts, and the world's funkiest McDonald's, and the world's best blues, and the world's nicest everything...

Yes, that is Chicago too!

All photographs made with Horseman SW612Pro + Rodenstock lenses

(Faraway view with Gandolfi Variant and Schneider lens)

All images shot on 120 film (6x12 and 6x9): Kodak E100S and E100VS

On this trip I had the chance of testing the then new Ektachrome E100VS. I found it a touch too saturated and with a little bit too much contrast.

I know that it is supposed to be saturated...

It just happens that I am an old dog, and old dogs not always like to change their food...

As I said before, my son Jorge was my assistant on this trip. God knows that I would have gone mad for sure without his help. Jorge happens to be a very nice guy, taking it easy... His patience and good nature made me do it with a smile, very often even with a loud laugh.

Once again "thank you, my son. In the end, we did have a really good time, didn't we?"!

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Mies van der Rohe - Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago

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Built at the end of Mies' tenure at IIT, in the 1950s, Crown Hall houses the School of Architecture and City Planning, as well as the Institute of Design.
Without much doubt, it was Mies' most prized building on the entire campus.

A single, uninterrupted place (36,6x67m, with 5,5m height), Crown Hall was the largest interior space Mies had ever realized: one enormous, completely open, glass-enclosed room, which ceiling is suspendable from one exterior steel structure.
On Mies' own words, this easily adaptable place was "the clearest structure we have done, the best to express our philisophy".

If we compare these photographs with some older images made shortly after construction, I think it is interesting to observe what the patina of time has produced on this amazing structure; the creeping plants can't manage to hide the modernity and the genius of it's apparently simple design...

I made these photographs with a Horseman SW 612 Pro and a Gandolfi Variant 4x5 camera (MDF version, level III), using a Horseman 6x12 roll film back.
The lenses employed were either manufactured by Rodenstock or by Schneider.
The structure detail was shot on 6x7 with a Linhof Rapid Rollex roll film holder, used on the Gandolfi Variant.

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Mies van der Rohe - Chicago's Commonwealth Promenade Apartments

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Nice view over The Loop from Mr. Norsik's apartment...

... and the other way around

Now, I am getting kind of lazy...

I wrote a lot on my last post on Federal Center, so I am taking the chance of just posting one more work on Mies in Chicago, without needing a lot of words.

I just would like to mention Mr. Norsik. He was a very nice and polite gentleman who invited us to his apartment, for to show us the nice view you can see from there. I was just under my dark cloth focusing and composing a shot of the buildings (see last image), when he showed up and introduced himself. A really very nice and friendly person!

I never managed to send him a book, as I promised, because in the meantime I had lost his adress.

So, Mr. Norsik, if you happen to come across this lines, just please send me a mail...

It is not always easy, to fit such a big building inside such a small tiny bit of film...

I had been wise enough to buy a Apo-Grandagon 35mm before the trip.

Just amazing how "wide" it can be!

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Mies van der Rohe - Chicago's Federal Center

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In 1999, I spent six weeks in the USA and Canada, photographing the works of architect Mies van der Rohe. A good deal of that time was spent in Chicago, where Mies was a very influential personality. My older son, Jorge, helped me out as my assistant, as Luis, my second son, had done the year before in Europe.
Altogether I drove 27.000 km across Europe and North America (I am too lazy to find out how many miles that makes, but you can be sure that it is a LOT) to accomplish that assignment. Of course, I am also not counting the flights from Europe to America and back. Just talking about road-mileage...
As we had a lot of gear, and also for the pleasure of better seeing the country, we opted to rent a car to travel from Chicago to New York, where we did Seagram Bulding, then all the way up to Canada to make some buildings in Montreal and Toronto.
From Canada we drove back to Chicago to photograph the emblematic Farnsworth House, in Plano, Illinois, but I will talk about that in another day...

And also about Detroit, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Des Moines, Newark, Elmhurst, etc., etc. We had to drive to all those places searching for some Mies's buildings.

When all that was done, we enjoyed a cross-country ride down to Houston, Texas, to photograph the Brown Wing in the Museum of Fine Arts. From Houston we still drove back to New York (not missing the chance to visit New Orleans), where we finnally got our plane back home, via London.

Lots of cheap motels and lots of hamburgers and fast-food... Yes, we got a little short on money!

At the end we were rather exhausted, but I had finally fullfilled the dream of travelling through such, for me, mythical places as Chicago, Mississippi and Louisiana. Since I was a kid that I am a big lover of The Blues, and started buying blues records when I was thirteen or fourteen.
Believe me, it was really not that easy to find blues records in those times in Portugal. We were still living in a dictatorship under Salazar's regime and the country was very poor (not only) culturaly speaking. I can say that we were almost hermeticaly separated from the rest of the world.

"Proudly alone", as they used to say. Well, I guess that in a certain way we still are...

Chicago´s Federal Center+ The Loop Post Office+"The Flamingo" by Alexander Calder

The other side of the Post Office

Beatiful "Flamingo", raising 53-foot (16m) above the ground

We carried a Horseman SW612 Professional with Rodenstock optics, and a Gandolfi Variant 4x5 inches with Schneider lenses. I use a black Variant made of MDF, and I find it to be a very ruged and versatil instrument. It has lots of movements, really competing with a monorail camera in this aspect. On the downside, it really is so heavy as a monorail camera...

To keep our outfit "small", we used only 120 film in the 6x12 Horseman roll film magazines , both on the SW612 and the Variant (I also used a 6x9 magazine on the SW612, what makes a nice combination with the Apo-Grandagon 35mm, and for some details I also had a 6x7 Linhof roll film holder on the Gandolfi).
As far as I remember, I didn't use any sheet film in this trip.
I remember using Ektachrome 100 VS on a lot of images. It was a new emulsion by than, but I must say that I am not a big fan of "vivid" emulsions. I think that sometimes they have too much contrast.
As I often say, newer is not necessarily better! I mean, in my opinion.

The year before, in Europe, I even took my Gandolfi 8x10 inches along, together with a Corfield WA67, mainly for interior photography.
You can see some of that photographs on my first post on Mies van der Rohe about the Neue National Galerie in Berlin, Germany.

I hope that you enjoy the images.

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