Yaaaa! Aliens Landed on Soldier Field!

So, Chicago was awesome, as usual. Here are the requisite Sue pictures...
(clicky to enlarge any of these)

No pics of the Tut exhibit, as pics are forbidden in the Tut exhibit. You have to pay to see it yourselves, or order the exhibit catalog and avoid the crowds. You know, whatever.

I do, however, have pictures of something that can only be described as "hideous". You see, the last time I was wandering around the Soldier Field neighborhood was when they were renovating it. That was, what? 2003? Since then I have seen the "improved" Soldier Field on television, but it doesn't look so bad from the blimp's-eye view.

From the front (meaning city-side rather than lake-side) at street-level, it looks like a giant UFO landed on top of Soldier Field. I didn't get pics of the front, as I was too horrified to think quickly enough to pull out the camera and kill the flash setting to take a picture through a vehicle window. I did, however, take some of the side from the Field Museum steps.

This one is the entire side view as seen from the Field Museum. You can see they preserved the front and back stone columns that were so iconic to the building, but the new addition does not resemble or reference the old architecture in any way that I can see.

This is a closer look at the front (city-side) part...you can see the rounded metal abortion hovering over the old stone facade.

This is a closer look at the wings of the spaceship in back (lake-side), which may or may not be less horrifying than the front. I never went on that side to see it.

And lest you think I'm just generally opposed to change, you can go here to see a stadium that was renovated yet maintained its original character and avoided the unfortunate UFO-landing-on-the-field look of Soldier Field. The original brick arches of that stadium were worked into the design instead of just kept around in a detached manner near the new construction.

Posted by Jenelle at October 22, 2006 03:38 PM | TrackBack