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From: "Architexturez." <interface.services@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 20:32:06 +0530
Jail a prisoner of ill-conceived renovation plan
By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published October 22, 2006
One measure of Chicago's architectural greatness is that even its jails
are beautiful. Not all of them, of course. But the Chicago Metropolitan
Correctional Center (MCC) at 71 W. Van Buren St. confounds all notions
of the jail as a brutal urban presence, a fortress that inevitably must
brandish guard towers, razor wire and other oppressive imagery.
The triangle-shaped 26-story skyscraper, whose irregularly spaced slit
windows make its facades resemble old-fashioned computer punch cards,
has been a visual delight since its completion in 1975. Designed by the
late Harry Weese, it represents an unexpected bonus for tourists who
come to the Loop to gape at buildings by Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham
and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Yet the jail, which is run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and is
conveniently located near the courtrooms of Mies' lordly Chicago Federal
Center, hasn't been getting better with age.
cont'd....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/arts/chi-0610220031oct22,1,6269445.story?ctrack=1&cset=true