Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Calatrava Spire Completed - then Vanishes!

Our indefatigable correspondent Bob Johnson happened to visit the excellent Model City exhibition at the Chicago Architecture Foundation recently, and this is what he saw.The Chicago skyline, with the Santiago Calatrava-designed Chicago Spire, at 2000 feet high, dominating everything else and making even the Trump Tower look like a serving of shrimp de Donald.When I checked it out last Saturday, however, the Spire had vanished. Not even Garrett Kelleher's smile remained.The story is that there was so much interest in the Spire, the CAF made a model of it, but only puts it on display sparingly. Another source said that the Spire model was "on loan" from the developer and was only exhibited for special events, at the developer's request.

Since the spectacular model of downtown Chicago is meant to represent the city as it is, the Spire model's normal place is in storage between Brigadoon-like sightings. But, like the Dude, the hole abides.

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