I got your hipstamatic right here.
Sometimes my instructions for a project are more explicit than others. Duke told me to do something with the name of the night – “Crystallize” – that had some sort of connection to the elements of a supersaturated solution. Or something. So I went back to the well, and drew upon my love for Time Life reference books for inspiration. In that sense, I’ve made this poster many times over. It’s just never looked like this.
I’ve long had a fascination with words and the aesthetic appeal of blocks of type. And what designer isn’t mesmerized by type? So it was fun to use text bodies as pictorial elements, and since I can resist adding layers of meaning (even if no one will ever see it), I sought out or created copy that had some relevance.
The poster is going to be printed in full color, but the handbills are one-sided black and white. On some other projects, that might have worried me a little, but if there’s one thing I love it’s a nice, poorly reproduced black and white flier made on a beaten and battered copy machine. For the sake of the final result, I hope the printing goes very, very poorly, and that someone has to hand cut the 4-ups.
Everyone should have their own opium den to get crosseyed in. Gotta watch for the smoke machine though.
In my humble opinion, Aqua is undoubtedly the building of the decade in Chicago. At first, I don’t think I was such a fan. I “got” it, I understood what it was trying to be and do. Unfortunately, the building loses a good deal of it’s cachet the further away the viewer is. But up close, it is remarkably more engaging. So much so that I felt like I was getting vertigo from looking up at it from the ground for so long. I wish it were located somewhere not so isolated, but at the same time, there is a nice, functioning architectural amusement park thing going on in River East.
One of the things that drives me away from architecture is all of the theoretical and political hand wringing, chin stroking, and general what-iffing. Aqua could be a lot of different things. But as architecture, no matter how timeless or permanent, is still a marker of time and place. And for what this building is, where it is, and who made it – it is wholly exceptional. Let us not forget that it is situated spitting distance from what was supposed to be one of the defining buildings of the 21st century – Santiago Calatrava’s Chicago Spire – that will likely never be built, and is marked only by a colossal hole in the ground. And in terms of real life, breathtaking, innovative design, Aqua excels.
So despite the fact that this is a building that’s been written about and photographed endlessly, being near it means you can’t help but take your camera out and start shooting away. It’s that good.
I have a friend that lives here. It is amazing looking up from the ground near the building. Mirage pools seem to appear and disappear.