Balloons

I've always had a fondness for balloons, particularly yellow ones.  For years I've carried with me the vision of driving my uncle's truck cross-country dispersing yellow balloons along the way--thousands of balloons set free like they used to do at my elementary school on Balloon Day.  Onto a notecard we would write our names and the address of our school, and for the coming weeks, even months, balloons would arrive back to the office to be pinned with the envelopes they arrived in onto a great big map in the office.  There we would see whose balloon had returned, and from where it had come. I would yearn to one time have the balloon that traveled the farthest and would sit on pins and needles for the entire season to follow. But alas, my name was never called.

In this picture I'd say I was about 7*.  I remember that feeling so vividly and associate it with all kinds of things--anticipation, the hoping, the longing to see my balloon return.  It was like Christmas, but with the very real fear that it might simply be gone forever. I suppose it's not much different than what we go through as designers, or at least those of us who enter competitions.  We make our projects, sign our names to them with such care, and send them off...to wait.  Some come back as 'recognized' by some far off person, but others simply land off to the side--which is the story of Watertower Bulletin, my submission for the 2005 Chicago Prize. 

In 2005, the Chicago Architectural Club sponsored its annual Chicago Prize competition, an international call for ideas that respond to a specific problem facing the city.  The question put to designers that year focused on the preservation of the beautiful, iconic watertanks that dot the Chicago's skyline. Because many of the tanks are privately owned and now defunct, their survival has a direct cost/benefit relationship: their utility to the property owner versus their financial and liability risk. Yet for the public, their value as a symbol of the city's industrial history has "long contributed to the urban flavor of Chicago and their disappearance is a civic injury suffered by all. (CAC 2005)”

My submission was a small brochure folded to 9x12," in which was advertised 14 different suggestions (like a kit of parts) for transforming the life of a watertank.  The Bulletin was meant as an catalogue, a catalyst for asking "What would you do?" In hindsight, I think I was heavily inspired by two things, also tied to Chicago.  I'd grown up listening to my mom tell stories about the days she'd worked for Sears as a catalogue copywriter for their juniors department; and my attraction to these old-time advertisements I had in my possession at the time, also an homage to the company who for over a century had in large part helped define the city's role as an industrial superpower. Having worked at one time on the renovation of a Sears-Roebuck house, I liked the mail-order vibe.

I was also admittedly disinterested in practical solutions driven by worries of litigation.  Instead, I chose to focus on my memories growing up outside the city: fieldtrips and family visits downtown, and the image I have of Chicago as a wildly imaginative yet grounded place. Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat, City of Big Shoulders, yes. Social and cultural identity has always been more my thing.

I wasn't interested in solving the problem logistically (although this would have helped); nor did I develop any of the ideas in great detail (which also would have helped). But I had great fun exploring the relationship between the proposals and the city of my childhood, as well as the role of the graphite line. I could have drawn 50 more, it was so great to simply to draw.  The project was, by nature, schematic.

Of course none of this heartfelt babble mattered as when my family and I arrived to the exhibit at the Art Institute, I found my entry shuffled in a corner, partially overlapped by other projects.  Uhhhh!  It was disappointing, but the evening as a whole was a realization on two fronts:  the love you have for your work can't depend on others' acknowledgement (although who's kidding, it's nice to win); and whatever the case, you just have to get on with it.  In this instance, my momentary rush of dejection was soon eclipsed by my family's much bigger concern: it was the last game of the Sox World Series and where were we going to watch the game?

Still, I like to think that when all the entries were exhibited again later that summer, someone looked at my little book (which in fact had to be displayed as a board), and enjoyed it.  Here's the brochure, along with details of each vignette:

  unfolded poster

           balloon launching pad

          luxury boutique hotel-each tower its own private room

        aviary (my parents are avid birdwaters)

       platform for debate

blackbox theater

       

observatory

conservatory

wind chime

        

rain water collection + irrigation for rooftop garden

           light installation

art object (perhaps in outer rural landscape) + prairie restoration (paths leading to relocated industrial relic)

pools : spas, saunas, places of restoration

All this came to mind this evening after learning of this year's recently announced Chicago Prize winners, courtesy of Lynn Becker's great blog on all things architectural in Chicago.  I don't know where Lynn got these images, but I think you'll agree that this year's winning project is Pretty. Darn. Fabulous.  The Second Sun is Alexander Lehnerer and team's solution for Mine the Gap, this year's competition that focuses on the big hole left along Chicago's waterfront after the recent collapse of financing for the famed Chicago Spire, now indefinitely on-hold (in this, the great depression at the turn of the 21st century).

 

Oh, what I wouldn't do to see this thing built!  Can you imagine? Chicago: the city of great big wonderful things. I have no doubt this giant yellow balloon would garner as much attention for the city (and revenue) as another loopty-loop, one very amazing giant silver bean. It is simply a wonderful project, idea and drawings both.

And so today I toast to balloons.  To those that transform the cylindrical bones of an object worked 'til obsolescence and those that celebrate inversions: the cylindrical void of something never built.  I will also toast to the hundreds of balloons that seem lost forever--may they be found by someone, somewhere along the way.

*You can say it: my fashion was terrible and I looked like a boy.  But check out my cool Mom with the great glasses and cute pixie cut--beside me, off to my left.  I love the sweater and sweet collar-out. Her style simply didn't transfer to her kids.