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Second, it ignores a key fact. I gather the building Krohe wishes Saarinen had been allowed to build is the one entered in the Chicago Tribune design competition of 1922. The essential features of this building were incorporated into the 333 N. Michigan Avenue building; cf Chicago, 1910-29, Condit, pp. 118-19.
Third, Krohe assumes a great street is the result of an accumulation of great architecture. This is seldom the case. It has been said that Paris is a beautiful city full of mediocre buildings. That’s not precisely true of Michigan Avenue, which has a few masterpieces. But most of the buildings are unexceptional. What gives the street its character is not outstanding architecture but the design of the street itself, the relationship of the buildings to it (including the skillful design of the storefronts), the high quality of materials, and the diversity of uses.
Krohe’s low opinion of Chicago Place is hard to fathom. It is a handsome building by any reasonable standard and certainly an improvement over 900 N. Michigan and Water Tower Place, at least in terms of its relation to the street. The use of false windows on the facades of the retail pedestal (given the reality that mall merchants do not want genuine windows) seems preferable to the blank expanse of masonry evident at Water Tower Place and only thinly disguised at 900 N. Michigan. In any case the building is not just another piece of schlock architecture.
