Architect Harry Weese should be as well known as some of his buildings — the Oak Park Village Hall, the Time-Life Building, the Metropolitan Correctional Center (the triangular jail) and the metro system of Washington, D.C.
Besides the hundreds of innovative structures he produced in the postwar years, Weese has contributed to the rebirth of large parts of Chicago, to the urban renewal of Hyde Park and to the restoration of many older buildings, such as the Auditorium Theater, Orchestra Hall, Newberry Library, and the Field Museum. He also created plans for a new world’s fair, the redevelopment of Navy Pier and Buckingham Fountain.
A new book, The Architecture of Harry Weese, by Robert Bruegmann has recently been published. This large, beautifully illustrated volume should help in adding fame to his name.
Bill Dring, an Oak Park architect who worked for Weese for 10 years, called the book “scholarly, fair, critical and sometimes funny.” Wednesday Journal interviewed Dring to experience the book through his eyes. Dring had worked on many Weese projects, including the IBM Building in Milwaukee, the Oak Park Village Hall, and the 17th Church of Christ, Scientist in Chicago.
Dring lives at 721 Ontario in Oak Park in the former Oak Park Club which his firm, Bauhs & Dring, had converted to condominiums in 1989. They also converted the former YMCA Building at 156 N. Oak Park Avenue in 1991.
The early years
Harry Mohr Weese was born on June 30, 1915 in Evanston. He was the first born of five siblings. Hyperactive and restless, the only way one could get the precocious youngster to quiet down was to provide him with pencil and paper. When he was four, the family moved to Kenilworth with imposing houses by famous architects.
After graduation from New Trier High School, he attended M.I.T. in Boston, and in 1935, transferred for a year to Yale.
In the next summer, Weese visited Europe. This had a profound effect on him; he was no longer a neophyte looking for direction. He definitely was interested in urban problems. Upon his graduation from M.I.T., he received a prestigious medal and an award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). His academic training included the Cranbrook Academy of Art and a return to M.I.T. as a research assistant. In all of his endeavors, he made valuable contacts with the “greats” of architecture. In 1942, he applied for an appointment as a naval officer. Pulling all strings, he got assigned to engineering and became an officer via the Ninety Day Wonder program.
Harry met his future wife Kitty through her brother Ben Baldwin, who was a partner of Harry’s. They married during the war in February, 1945 at the Brooklyn Naval Yard. A perfect couple; Harry had a passionate spirit and Kitty brought a mature judgment and a sense of stability.
On the job
Their first office pioneered in pushing design. It was called “Baldwin Kingery,” with three partners, Kitty and Harry Weese and Jody Kingery, a designer. They had a remarkable space in the Diana Court building on Michigan Avenue, between Grand and Ohio. It was the first shop to feature design in furniture, accessories, and architecture, with Harry having an office in the rear.
Weese would have several offices; the one at 10 West Hubbard was rebuilt after a fire. It was said that the buildings he did for himself were “quirkier” than those he did for clients. The new office was extremely casual; architects would bicycle to work and store the bikes on the ground floor. The elevator had a clear plastic roof, showing the inner workings of the elevator, the shaft, and the whole building.
Dring said that Weese had a great sense of teamwork. “We had an amazing amount of freedom. Other firms were more rigid. We also had many parties and a feeling of sociability. I made friends that I still keep, many, many years later. A young Turkish woman architect, Gunduz Dagdelen, met her husband at the firm; his name was Bruno Ast.”
Weese’s success as a designer owed much to his success as a social and civic critic. For decades, he used every means possible — newspapers, speeches, interviews, and magazines — to get his message across on the urban built environment.
The visionary
What was his vision? He wanted a low-rise leafy city preserving much that was good from the past, adapting it to new circumstances, to a new affluence and for a new taste for green space. Weese was not a perfectionist. He wanted things to work well together.
One of Dring’s favorite Weese buildings is the Time-Life high rise at 541 N. Fairbanks Court; he likes to compare it with the Daley Center by Bronson. Both are of cor-ten. Dring says, “The Weese building looks as though it were smiling.” He likes the Metropolitan Correctional Center at 71 West Van Buren, because of its triangular shape, it doesn’t look like a jail.
When Weese was designing the Oak Park Village Hall, he wanted it to convey the “openness” of the community. It does this in the open entry and the glass-walled exposure of all the departments.
But Dring does not care for the romantic river houses on the north-branch of the Chicago River, which are seen on the river tours. “I think they are too fragile,” he says. “His wife Kitty would not move in — no way.”
Harry laid down the law to his three daughters; they could not become architects. They didn’t — but they all were successful in related fields.
Weese buildings that Dring worked on include the Field Museum starting in 1967.
“We expanded the labs and installed air-conditioning. It was a $25 million project; in those days that was a lot of money. As a matter of fact, during the peak years, the 1950s to the 1980s, Weese made a lot of money because he had so many jobs.”
Unfortunately, the firm went downhill. Weese had a severe drinking problem in his later years. But Dring did not have a personal recollection of it. “I never saw him over-drinking, or drunk. Of course, I worked for him during the early years. I attribute all of his later problems onto his drinking. My memories are of a genius — one of the most creative people I ever met.”
Dring offered his criticism of the new book, saying “The author was not consistent. In the book, he tried to list names of staff who worked on various projects. He didn’t do it for all the projects. Many of the best did not have any names attached. He should have listed all the names or none.”
Dring added another critique of the voluminous book, which is 329 pages. “[It] isn’t big enough. It needs more projects. Weese did a whole lot more,” he said.