smashing
They demolished the Berwyn Spindle but they might re-erect it because they saved the two top cars, which makes me wonder which cars they will choose – this was a spindle of 1970s cars, after all, which still had elegant lines, unlike the box-cars of the 1980s, and I can’t imagine the Beetle and the T-Bird topping out a short stack of c. 1999 Escorts and Corollas or even nasty Buicks. I suppose it is like a totem pole, in which case it should span time, but I think the original effect of this spike of cars in a parking lot was to suggest that your car could belong there as well and if all of the spindled vehicles are out of date the piece means something else entirely….
This is the last week for the “Squandered” show at CAF and I am in it but it is still worth seeing and there have been a great series of events along with it, the most recent being Daniel Bluestone’s lecture last Wednesday, which summarized all of his interesting research into the history of preservation in Chicago and the idea of an “aesthetics of eclipse” provided by layers of history in the landscape. I guess that is why I wonder so hard what kind of cars they will put on the new Spindle, since its original criticality depending on the abnegation of such an aesthetics of eclipse but with a Beetle on top how can you do that? Continue Reading
in the middle of the night
Last night, in the middle of the night they demolished the Berwyn Spindle, an artwork of cars and commentary in a Berwyn strip mall that was once bedecked with simlar works. Local efforts to save it and the fact that it was the suburb’s most famous landmark did not help.
Well, they helped enough that the demolition occurred in the middle of the night, like a crime. It reminds me of other middle-of-the-night demolitions, from the sheds behind Dearborn Station in the 70s, the DeKalb Post Office in 1990, even lots of suburban teardowns where the owners know the neighbors will object. Demolition at night, under the cover of darkness, a wholesale admission that what you are doing is wrong, or at least viewed as wrong by society.