IN CHICAGO
TU Delft / Archeworks, 2017
Studio: Msc2 Complex Projects
Site: Chicago
Selected for the ARGUS annual
“Chicago once was the fastest growing city of America. These glorious times from the roaring 20s and post-war 50s are, however, left far behind. Chicago’s population has dropped to a low not seen since 1910. My first impression of Chicago was of the loop. I loved the skyscrapers, the endless views offered by the grid, the river, the lake, the liveliness of the city. During the first days I also started to feel the segregation, the differences between the poor and the rich, white and black and the loop and the rest of the city. It started to feel like a rather lonely, disconnected city.
The variety of neighbourhoods, however, intrigued me. The neighbourhoods are defined by their diversity. I believe that the neighbourhoods give the city its identity as identity is strong in all quarters. That’s why I see all the different neighbourhoods as the mid-city of Chicago, which I defined as ‘the in-between condition of an area inside the city boundaries. On its own it seems undefined, but its identity is inextricably linked with the city and defines it.
My area in the section was Garfield park. It’s a very complex area and it really made me aware of the fact that your perspective is just one of many. Therefore, I used the method of a hand-drawn map as a narrative for the different perceptions and layers, including my own future idea for the area.
What I want to show with my project are the possibilities of a neglected area like Garfield Park. The beauty that, despite all the problems, is still there. We live in an age of individuality, look at the outcome of the American elections. Individuality is at once the curse and the glory of a city like Chicago. It is what made the city grow and what has been ruining it since the very start.
With my project, I want to make the City of Chicago, the government, aware of the fact that the city has to keep all its inhabitants. Black, white, poor, rich. This variety is what makes the city. The current trend of people fleeing the city consists of large amounts of minorities (such as the black people in the case of Garfield park). If all these people, all these minorities flee the city, the city loses its culture, its history, its Geist. It would become a cultureless city.
As Michelle Obama’s formulated it in her final speech: "You see, our glorious diversity, our diversities of faiths, and colours, and creeds; That is not a threat to who we are. It makes us who we are.“