Picasso x Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, Travel Sketch

While Europe was an obligatory designation for ambitious American architects of the 19th and 20th centuries, Chicago remains the premiere pilgrimage site for students of Modernism. In 1997, thirty local, national, and international architects were invited to submit “travel sketches” of visits to the Windy City for a special exhibition. Although the subjects of these drawings proved diverse, Mario Botta’s simple sketch seems to suggest that the most iconic piece of architecture in Chicago is in fact a sculpture: the Chicago Picasso. The sculpture also appears in a wide range of other drawings in the collection that celebrate the distinctive qualities of buildings in the Loop , including Carter Manny’s “Tour Jacques,” which riffs on Picasso’s nationality and the French-sounding first name of the locally born architect of the Daley Center, Jacques Brownson. In siting, materials, and scale, Picasso’s gift to the city has proven to be an enduring part of Chicago’s status both in popular and architectural imaginations.