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In light of the fact that Chicago (well, the Chicago region) is first among cities that can boast as backdrops for Frank Lloyd Wright’s legacy, I thought it only appropriate to take inspiration from him for fixing Chicago’s most recent, ill-fated, act of architectural braggadocio.

Among the thousands of real-estate developments that fell victim to changing economic realities in recent years, none were so prominent as the Chicago Spire.  Sculpted by Santiago Calatrava as an instantly-iconic torquing tower of metal and glass, the tower would’ve been the nation’s tallest, peaking near 2,000 feet.  So far however, financing problems (which do not appear likely to improve any time soon) have prevented the project from going anywhere but down, literally, into a 110 foot wide and 76 foot deep concrete hole.

A little over a year ago, Blair Kamin informally solicited ideas for how to make use of what would have been the Spire’s cylindrical foundation.  Entries ran the gamut from subversive (employ it as a black hole to toss money into for the Chicago Olympics or as a home for the new Children’s Museum) to infeasible (fill it with Richard Daley’s ego or Beanie Babies).

Perhaps thinking that if money were on the line, better (but hopefully no less whimsical) ideas would come along, the Chicago Architectural Club just launched Mind the Gap, which is open for entries (until May 3rd) that propose how to make the most of Chicago’s deepest scar of real-estate speculation gone bad.

Why not transform the hole into an inverted version of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York?  After all, Wright was the most bold, most visionary architect of the 20th-Century and consequently, might identify with Santiago Calatrava, who is Wright’s equal when it comes to bravado, albeit as an artistic engineer, not an intuitive architect.  Moreover, Wright himself once proposed an audacious mile-high tower (The Illinois), which would’ve housed hotels, condos, government offices, shops, and basically any other human habitation that comes to mind.  Although Wright’s design was basically conjectural, I suspect he would also be sympathetic to the Spire’s financial and political problems, since his tower would’ve been plagued by them to an even greater degree (Wright claimed that The Illinois was structurally feasible, though he probably admitted - if only to himself - that the tower was a non-starter politically, and a fool’s errand, financially).

Structurally, the Spire’s hole is an obvious analogue to the Guggenheim as well, though with less personality (the hole is just an empty vertical cylinder, with no sloping sides).  As the mirror version of Wright’s museum, the hole could employ a circular ramp on which patrons stroll upward to the surface, after taking an elevator to the bottom.  Viewing artwork while on a walk from deep, inside the earth up to the light of day would be quite engaging.  While most of the structure would be under ground and out of site, I am sure a clever ground level structure, possibly an angled, unraveling ramp that spills out of one side of the hole, could be devised to inject the site with a bit of energy and supply the neighborhood with a few interesting sight lines.

An inverted Guggenheim Museum in Chicago would also be an ideal venue for architecture-centric exhibitions, given Chicago’s status as an urban mecca for architecture.  And what better location to exhibit the curiosities, dreams, and achievements of architects than on the site of one of the profession’s most ambitious schemes to ever almost rise over Chicago?

In what can only be described as an eerie coincidence, the Guggenheim is currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of its New York building by hosting “Contemplating the Void,” which is an exhibition of over 200 ideas submitted by architects who were asked to conjure up new (and quite hypothetical) uses for the Guggenheim’s cylindrical volume.  Surely, one of the 200 ideas could work for the Spire’s hole in Chicago!

Related Posts:  (1) Latest setback for Michael Reese Hospital isn’t as bad as it seems; (2) Disposable architecture: historic preservation’s modus operandi; (3) Why Chicago and Rio de Janeiro are better off with a Brazilian 2016 Olympics; (4) Alert: some company invests in Chicago real estate deal; (5) Chicago’s Aqua Tower in fact made of concrete and glass; (6) Sears, er, Willis Tower going green; birds still angry.

Image courtesy of (1) ciltis and (2) alotor.