The City of Chicago

The City of Chicago

By: Chris Pacanowski

         As get more involved in my research for my thesis project I realized that I was looking more into the ideas of architecture and possibilities with new technology, which is always a good thing to know but I wanted to look into the city of Chicago specifically. Since my project is located in the city of Chicago I wanted to look at the history of the city and find out why exactly my site is an abandon waste land and what was planed there to begin with. Luckily there is a book called Chicago central area plan which take historic plans and gives them to the public to inform them on what Chicago was thought to be. When looking at the city of Chicago and its history there was one event that had changed the city in every way. Originally the city of Chicago was so spermatic and dispersed in separate areas but one event had changed that and the way that the city was designed, the Chicago fire. The Chicago fire basically created a clean slate for Chicago, and this was a new time for Chicago and urban planners. Within 10 years of the great fire the city of Chicago became the second largest city. The city also had great things coming for it that not only helped the city flourish but establish its new found architecture excellence. The first large event was the worlds Columbian Exposition in 1893. It was just after that when the first real master plan of the city was completely thought out. Daniel Burnham had developed an idea to plan out the whole city and make it all cohesive. The city of Chicago also had two more events they had the world’s fair in 1933 and in 1992. Due to the large events city master plans had started to develop and began to set up the city for greatness.
        As I will continue to read this book I will look all of the historical plans that are provided in it and try to figure out exactly what was thought out for my site, and why things didn’t work on it. Just quickly skimming the images I had noticed that at one point in time the site I have just south of Roosevelt was thought to be a residential community with direct access to transit to where the world’s fair was thought to be. Seeing that and understanding that there is great opportunity to be able to connect directly to the city and other parts of the nearby south side.