Today I've been looking on line at pictures of Chicago from the 1940's and this one immediately caught my eye. It's of the interior of the late-great concourse of Union Station, looking pretty much as I remember it from my youth in the sixties, dramatic beams of light and all.Wouldn't you know it, the picture was made for the Farm Securities Administration by none other than Jack Delano, the photographer who made the great images of the Michigan Avenue Skyline which was at the time dominated by an enormous Pabst Blue Ribbon sign.
The pre-eminent scholar of the Chicago School of Architecture, Carl W. Condit, considered this to be one of Chicago's best interiors and one could say that the comparison between those pictures and this one is a trip from the ridiculous to the sublime.
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1 comment:
Great image - my favorite of Union Station. I've seen another photo of the Great Hall from WWII, when (apparently in honor of the war effort), hundreds of model fighter planes were suspended from the ceiling. Like a kid's bedroom on steroids.
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