AARON BACK AGAIN an explorer’s tale by
AARON MIKOTTIS
DISCLAIMER:
This book is not intended to be read from start to finish like a novel. I mean I guess you could, but the invitation is supposed to be to pick up the book, wander for a while, then put it down. Come back whenever you like.
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK ... 10 NORWAY ... 10 FINLAND ... 42 TALLINN, ESTONIA ... 54 ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA ... 64 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN ... 74 FRANCE ... 78 HELSINKI, FINALAND ... 98 THE NETHERLANDS ... 122 ROME, ITALY ... 132 BARCELONA, SPAIN ... 162 GHANA LIBRARY ... 180 TWIFO HEMANG, GHANA ... 212 CAPE COAST, GHANA ... 240 KUMASI, GHANA ... 250 THE ROADTRIP ... 274 CHICAGO ... 314 JOLIET CORRECTIONAL CENTER ... 330 BRIDGES AND BUILDING SITES ... 344 PLACES LIKE HOME ... 362
FROM ‘THERE’ TO ‘BACK AGAIN’ Not all who wander are lost; not all who wander are searching for something, either. Sometimes it is enough to just get out, move and explore. For me it is a satisfaction of curiosity, it is a reset of what it normal, it is a necessity. It’s an itch I can’t scratch. It’s the joy of being alive. It’s chasing the wind. To go out and explore is a wonderful thing, but having a place called home to come back to is even better. The further the journey, the sweeter the return. I will wander further, but I will always come back again. It’s important to remember who we are. But I think that it is just as important to remember where we’ve been. Where did the time go? This is my account.
I can’t think of a caption for this phoro that doesn’t dive off the deep end.
SCANDINAVIA SUMMER 2011
This is where it starts. I had gone on a bunch of amazing trips with my Boy Scout troop before this point - I have slept in a cave, stayed overnight on an aircraft carrier and a submarine. I went rock climbing, I’ve been scuba diving, and I have canoed 50 miles in the boundary waters. But that was before I started photographing anything. Hopefully this book will show some sort of improvement in skill throughout the years; I know that the way that I view the world around me has ceraintly been tuned over time. This is IIT Aurora, my first study abroad trip. As group of twelve students I was lead on a tour of Scandinavia by Professors Leslie Johnson and Lucasz Kowalczyk. Starting in Copenhagen, Denmark, we then hit up Oslo, Norway and began travelling up the spine of Norway via the fjords. We took a train overnight to Tromso, 200 miles north of the arctic circle, then began descending through Finland. From Helsinki, we went to St. Petersburg, Russia, Tallin, Estonia, and finally, Stockholm.
This is pretty much the only good picture I can find of Denmark, oops. This is the Copenhagen Opera House.
Selfie outside the Opera House, bags and all. Aaron circa June 2011.
The Oslo Opera House. This city was kind of weird the nice areas were abruptly pocketed by the bad. Two blocks away from the clean and modern train station we saw some guys shooting up heroin, laying on cardboard in an alley., wtf?
Oslo City Hall. The wizard will see you now.
Beginning the first ascent up the fjords of Norway. I listened to a lot of Royksopp on this ride.
Not all trails are created equal. Neither is every flip-shot photo op. Photo by Lucasz Kowalcyk.
What is it like to own one of these houses? How many generations ago were these built? How much of your life is really spent here and what kind of a relationship do you have to your neighbors?
The Aurland Overlook. Apparently the view out is great, but I’m not convinced that it would have been a better visit on a clear day.
Ferries across fjords. Loking away from the town, I was half expecting a dragon to come sailing through the clouds and away into the forest. It just would have seemed normal.
This is the Urnes Stave Kirke, built in 1150 AD. This is also where Chloe “do you know about ropes” Chen picked up an ancient viking curse when she decided to steal a brick from the property. Now, I’m not one to judge, but why anyone would think it’s a great idea to steal a freaking brick from a nigh-millenia old church and carry it around on their back for two months is beyond me. Immediately after she stole a piece of this church, weird stuff started happening to her. First, her camera lens broke. Then she lost her sketchbook, which was essential for the class we were taking. Then she fell and twisted her ankle. When she confided her deed to us we were all sort of aghast and started joking that she was going to get struck by a viking curse. But by time we got to Helsinki, her passport, money, and credit cards got left on a train, barring her entry with us into Russia. At this point we were starting to wonder if she was legitimately cursed. We urged her to find a way to return the brick to its rightful place. That night in the hostel, her bed bunk rail snapped, she fell out backwards, and suffered a mild concussion. The next morning, she confessed her crimes to Professor Johnson, who had to lend her money to ship the thing back to Norway. (because all her money was gone) Then we left her in Helsinki for our leg in Russia. When we came back, we found out that someone sent her passport and wallet, cash and all, to the American Embassy, who was able to return her posessions to her. We also found out that the church received the brick when they sent back a letter of thanks.
I was reading Jurrasic Park at the time - one of the ferries we took had it in the library so I decided to “check it out�. After I was finished with the book, I left it on the book shelf of our hostel in Helsinki, which was in the Olympic Stadium. I wonder where the book is now. This beach reminded me of fractals, a concept that Dr. Malcom taught me.
The remains of a lighthouse. Eggum Rest Area, Lofoten Islands.
We rented a couple cars for this leg of the journey, ending in a small fishing town with cabins that get rented out to travellers. That night we went for a hike around 10PM and the sun still hadn’t gone to bed. Also, Jarett spilled an entire jar of nutella - first on his white shorts, then all over the seat of the rental.
I only wish that we had ventured further - but unfortunately we still hadn’t made dinner yet and we were copmletely famished.
But hindsight is 20/20. I now understand that we only get so many sunsets like this in our lifetime. It’s best to enjoy them while they’re there.
Tromso, Norway, is the largest population center north of the Arctic Circle. It boasts 70,000 inhabitants, which is less than half the population of Naperville, IL.
Boats and cranes, what more can a man ask for?
The Paimio Sanatorium, designed in 1932 by Alvar Aalto, is considered one of his breakthrough projects. At the time, the only treatment for tuberculosis was to provide rest and clean air. Knowing that patients would have long stays at the sanitorium, Aalto deisgned many areas to facilitate community. He thought that he building itself could act as an instrument of healing. Despite this, fatality rates for tuberculosis in the 1930s was close to 50%. A lot of people died here and it kinda felt like it. The bright colors seemed to hint at a cheerfulness as thin set as linoleum.
This roof deck was a place for the healthier patients to lay out on recliner chairs. Apparently this was the place where all the gossip was exchanged. Maybe part of the reason the sanitorium felt weird was all of the places designed for groups of people were sitting vacant.
I kinda wonder what thoughts have gone through the minds of the terminally ill sitting on this bench. I know that’s morbid, but it definitely happened.
When I’m in places like this, I try to imgaine the life that these spaces saw. Not just silhouettes in the windows, but deliveries, smoke breaks, and repairmen on the roof.
How many years has that fly been stuck to the inside of the window?
More Aalto, but these spaces were designed for the healthy. Villa Mairea, in Finland.
Aalto in Helsinki. This is the House of Culture, built in 1955. I love his textures.
Aalto above in the Academic Bookshop, the Kiasma Art Museum on the right. Helsinki is one of my favorite cities, but more on that in the next chapter when I come back to the city. Speaking of favorites, the Kiasma Art Museum is one of my favorite buildings. I love the big architectural gestures mixed with really great sensitivity to detail.
Tallin, Estonia. The medieval town dates back to 1154. By this time I was starting to figure out the pace I like to explore in. A lot of times, wandering alone is a lot better than travelling with people who don’t share the rhythmn in which you explore the world.
Dreams of rooftops.
The original walls.
Tallina Linnahall was a sailing venue created for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Although the helipad in the back is still active, the building proper has fallen into disuse. This is another example where travelling with people that match you is important - I’m certain that we could have gotten inside if the parties I was with were willing to look.
I think it’s important to cherish the experiences that we do get to have, though.
Saint Petersburg, Russia was the first time that I truly experienced culture shock. As we got off at the train station, armed guards patrolled the lobbies with automatic rifles, we had to pay to pee in a hole in the ground, and none of the writing was legible. What have I brought myself?! Thankfully this wore off pretty quickly, and I learned to enjoy the grit and the beauty of Russia’s former capital. One night we stayed out till the bridges rose, watching the lights blink in the sunrise.
The door to our hostel.
I really think that there is something wrong with these people, though. As a testament to art and architecture, this is really impressive. But that’s not how scale works, guys.
The winter palace, as out of touch with reality as ever before. So decadent.
Illuminati sighting. This church was right across the street from our hostel and had the craziest acoustics... Chanting and choral singing seemed to come from nowhere.
One night in the stairwell up to the Hostel, we met a group of Danish students. They were apparently in a barbershop quartet, but a really terrible one. They sung the “itsy bitsy spider” so out of tune that we had no idea what they were singing until the leader tried to explain to us what the song meant. Then they got us to join in, “harmonizing” in Danish. I’m sorry to report that we did not help the tune much. I learned that night that the Danish are very proud of their nation’s acheivements on the global stage. I was informed that in the real little mermaid story, Ariel dies. I was then told that I should:
“Go home and cry, cause THAT’S WHAT THE DANES DID!”
Street dreams in St. Petersburg.
Stockholm, Sweden, was the last port of call for me. The rest of the group was going to fly out of Copenhagen, but I had to leave early to get to Ben and Joanna’s wedding. This is the Woodland Cemetary, crematorium, built in 1940.
I want to be buried in a place like this. I realized that day that the cemetary itself can be a beautiful place, good for the soul.
FRANCE SEMESTER FALL 2012
I don’t know man, Paris just wasn’t my thing. The semester that I spent in IIT’s Paris program was sort of transformative in how much autonomy I had and I think it changed me for the better. That being said, Paris just ddin’t vibe with me quite right, so my highlights were in other cities. Maybe it was the climate, maybe it was the urban fabric, or maybe it was maybeline. Whatever the case may be, I have an emotional connection to the city because of the amount of time that I spent here but it’s not really a city that I want to live in. I guess if I’m not enchanted by my every day life then I’m not going to take a lot of pictures, but I am seriously lacking here. Not just in quantity, but the kinds of pictures that I would take today are missing too. I guess I chalk this one up as a learning experience.
At least I got this one. This is running through the Jardin de l’Êcole de botanique on my usual route.
One of the first days I got to Paris, Ko and I walked to the Bercy arena as we were wandering around, but it wasn’t until I was making my Paris themed activity book that we decided to scale the thing and go sliding down. The grass was pretty lush so you could really get good speed going down this thing. It was pretty terrifying at first, but jumping off at the bottom wasn’t so bad. The fountain on the right was also part of the Bercy Arena and jumping across was oh so fun. I made that jump part of my weekly running route.
Above: This stepped terrace is part of a college campus, what a great idea. Right: No, Ko and I are not dancing. As part of my Paris activity book, I mapped out an index of ground surface and rated them all for slideability. The wood decking at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France was the all time winner, this is a shot of us testing it out. The wood is so slippery when it rains that the owner had to install traction strips along the major routes into the library, awesome!
Above: Takin’ the luge at Parc de Belleville. This playground was freaking sweet and conveniently located right by Perl, one of the best art supply stores in the area. The first time I rode the slide, I fell and scarred up my brown faux-leather jacket...I was really annoyed at first, but now it’s just one of many defects that represent where I’ve been with that coat. Right: This shot was so hard to capture! I was off on my own one day hunting for cool activities for my pocket book, so I had to take this photo via timer. Not to mention that I was using Elisabeth’s old Canon Rebel, whose lens had to be focused manually, and I had to prop the awkwar lens up on my bunched up coat. Anyway, this was at a plaza in the Chinatown part of Paris.
The CitÊ des Sciences et de l’Industrie was one of my favorite buildings in Paris paths go up down, across and all around! I never actually went in here, which was probably a mistake, but walking around was really great and I came back a bunch of times. It is located at the end of the canals and right next door to Parc de la Vilette, so there was plenty of good reasons to be in the area. I am convinced that blasting music in headphones is the best way to experience this site and I turned this idea into a guided walk that I had to lead for my urban exploration class. Personally, I think something with a dominant and steady beat is perfect, I chose 4x4=12 by Deadmau5 as my go-to album.
Ahh, driving through the French countryside with Baine, Ko, and Eric, on the hunt for Le Corbusier. I had no idea that it was so gorgeous. It kinda felt like we were thrown backwards in time because nothing was modern in aesthetic. I could almost see World War troops charging over the hills.
Cloudy days and rays of sunshine in eastern France.
The La Tourette monastery by Le Corbusier. We also went to Romchamp, but I don’t have any particulalrly good pictures from that excursion. It was a typically French overcast day, but that just added to the atmosphere. There is a lot of history here, and you can feel it. I love the serenity that you get at monasteries. It almost has the same quality as an abandoned building.
Left: Baine outside the Salines Royale, aka the Royal Saltworks in the Arc-et-Senans commune. The complex was designed by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux; I’m a huge fan. To me, he feels like a logical progression from Palladio. Above: The Paris crew. Top row, L-R: JJ, Ko, me, Anne Attal, (our French teacher) Eujin, Eric. Front row, L-R: Bobae, Cecilia, Steve. Not pictured: Andrew Schachman, one of the best professors I’ve ever had.
HELSINKI SEPTEMBER 2012
Oh man, Helsinki is definitely my kind of city. It’s basically the antithesis of Paris; it gave me all kinds of good vibes. I think that it’s some combination of the sea air, the scale, and the density. While Paris has parks out the wazoo, it always felt like I was inside an ubran-sized room. In other words, it doesn’t quite feel like being outdoors. Not so in Helsinki, being outside feels like being outside in the big open world. This was the second time I got to visit Helsinki and I’m really glad that I got the chance. I probably wouldn’t enjoy their dark winters but Helsinki is definitely in my top 5 cities. This time, Ko and I got a hostel on the sea fortress island of Suomenlinna, built originally in 1748 to fend off the expanding Russians. (They would take over Finland in the early 1800s) It was a sweet place to stay, but unfortunately we got stranded on the mainland our first night. Our plane was delayed from Paris and we had to take a way later bus to get to the city. Turns out, they stop running the ferries after a certain point in the night so we had no way to our beds. It was pretty freaking cold at night, so we ended up crashing at a huge two-level McDonalds until we could catch the first ferry at 5am.It was an absolute shit show because McDonalds is apparently THE place to be when you are drunk after midnight. Trash was freaking everywhere and I kept on getting yelled at by the staff for falling asleep in my stall.Sorry guys, I was just really tired!
Seaward bound at sunrise.
One of the days I was here I rented a bike and cruised around. It was great to be able to cover so much city so fast. There’s a lot of battlements and fortress to cover on Suomenlinna, so I brought it over and rode around on the island, too. Suomenlinna, also known as Sveaborg, was originally built in 1748 but battlements were installed in World War I and it was used then, too. In the early 1900s, after the Finnish Civil War, a prison camp existed on the island, and the place I was staying at was converted from barracks-to-hostel. Nowadays Suomenlinna hosts a variety of museums and it’s still used as an active town, with around 900 permenant residents.
What’s the point of planning everything? One night, Ko, Eric and I climbed around on the battlements until 2am. We found a cat stalking around with bells on its collar out there and we followed him around for an hour or so before he finally disappeared at the King’s Gate.
The same day I rented the rented bicycle, I headed to the north-east outskirts of the city, away from the residential areas and deeper into the manufacturing side of things. I was on the hunt for industrial buildings for a school assignment... the scenery aint bad!
On the hunt for a game shop that would sell me Magic: The Gathering cards in Finnish as gifts for Kyle and Baine. I really like the quality of light in Finland.
Töölö Bay and Finlandia Hall. This was the second time I had been here and it was kinda weird to see the same boats at the dock still sitting there. In the background you can see the Olympiastadion Helsinki, built for the 1940 Summer Olympics. World War II threw a wrench in that plan, and the games were cancelled. The stadium got another shot in 1952, though, when Helsinki got to host the summer games. Part of the stadium got converted into a hostel and that’s where I stayed when I was here as part of my Scandinavian tour.
This time around I got to go inside the stadium and up the tower instead of just hearing Bon Jovi play from my hostel room. This was the same day that I discovered Salmiakki, salty liquorice that is a Finn-favorite. I got a variety pack of all the different recipies throughout history and I was snackin’ on em all day. Salt and black liquorice sounds like a repulsive combination - it was pretty gross at first but downing a few I was hooked.
Alvar Aalto deserves every bit of fame and recognition that he received. What a master of texture and material - it feels like a place that would be easy to call home. This building was even better the second time around.
Definitely not Ikea.
The Helsinki Cathedral, built in 1830. I heard from a local that in the winter time people bring sleds and slide down the stairs and out into the plaza, nice!
Strange clouds on the horizon. It’s really hard to grasp exactly how massive these cruise ships are, it’s insane.
Will I ever come back to Helsinki? I thought it would be great to live here, but I would certaintly need to learn to speak Finnish. I’m not super hot with foreign languages so that’s kinda a problem. It’s also super far away from everyone I know and love, but I could definitely do it for a short period of time. I guess the short answer is that I have no idea what life has in store, but I will continue to chase the dragon in the hopes that I land someplace that has Helsinki-like qualities. Left: Get off the path! Walking around Töölö bay and looking up at the amusement park.
THE NETHERLANDS SEPTEMBER 2012
At the tail end of our Helsinki trip we had a few days off so we decided to go to Amsterdam and take day trips out to Rotterdam, Utrecht, and Almere. Unfortunately I wasn’t enamoured with Amsterdam so I don’t have any good pictures there. After spending five really active days in Helsinki, four cities were kind of exhausting to take in all at once. There were some good memories in the day trips, though.
Sunset at Utrecht University.
May we all have sunset chairs in our lives.
Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys!
Dormitories.
The whole reason we went to Almere was to go see the opera house there designed by SANAA. Well, it just so happened that only the ticket booth was open that day. That was a huge bummer but we decided to relax in the foyer for a bit and take in what we could. After 20 minutes or so the superintendent offered to take us on a personal tour, score one for the little guys!
Almere Opera House
I would argue that empty auditoriums are more powerful than full ones.
ROME
OCTOBER 2012 Ahh sweet sweet Rome. Rome hit the spot in so many ways; we had all been working too hard in studio and we really needed a break. It was October, so Paris was starting to get chilly, and the warmpth was welcome. Food was cheap, and the gelotto was great. And then on top of it all, it’s home to the former throne of the world. For anyone with even the most mild appreciation for all things old, Rome is continuous bliss. The Roman builders were truly masters.
Front flips over Roman ruins
Foro Romano is my favorite park, hands down. A total 10/10, it’s the go-to goldmine for Roman ruins. The heart of Ancient Rome, the site held temples, public plazas, the royal residence, and grand spaces for commerce and politcal offices. Venue for public speeches? Check. THE triumphal gate? Check. (Parisians are just pretenders)
The brickwork is beautiful.
While the Forum itself is located in the valley between two hills, the royal residence was up on higher ground. What’s mind boggling to me is that Roman ruins are crazy old, but a lot of the buildings I saw on the horizon were older than the country I come from.
It’s so big. (that’s what she said)
Right outside the apartment unit that we rented on airbnb. Just around the corner and down a few more blocks and we found this tiny resturant with some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. Cheap as dirt but oh so good. I’ll probably be chasing that dragon for the rest of my life.
Apartments really don’t need to be blah buildings. Once again I was on the hunt for Magic: The Gathering cards, this time printed in Italian. I love the light and I love the colors - I just had to peek in these courtyards.
Korean girl. American shirt. Roman setting.
What would the builders of the Trajan Market have thought?
How I envisioned experiencing the tranquility of ancient churches
Welcome to reality, boys
The Barberini family had way too much money on their hands, but it makes for a pretty cool museum. The house had rooms for getting between rooms, which needless to say was pretty obnoxious. That being said, I laid down on the bench in the dining room (left) and actually got lost in the ceiling. It was like when the library comes alive in The Storykeeper, but with more Mozart.
The Pantheon.
An arena, where people were freaking killed for sport. How have the terms changed in the modern age?
How could they not be masters, with Rome as a resource? I hope someday to be able to create something as elegant as this.
The Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, more commonly known as the Square Colsseum, was errected by Mussolini as a symbol of fascism to the world for the 1942 World‘s Exhibition. Italy’s involvement in World War II, however, meant that it never took place. It was closed for restoration while I was here. We stood in a faceoff on our sides of the fence.
The Baths of Diocletian was another euphoric ancient ruin type experience for me. This was a real place. Talk about keeping it . I like to think that we wouldn’t let something like this fall into ruin these days, but then I look at the superdome in Detriot and Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago. Buildings rise and buildings fall.
Left: My last day in Rome. After finding Magic packs, I stumbled upon a nature corridor that was on the nearby outskirts. After wandering for a few miles, I filled up on fruit from a local market and headed to Foro Romano for the second time. Weaseling free entry with a student ID and plea letter from Professor Schachman required a bit of fanagling, but it worked, and I spent the rest of the sunlight walking amongst the ruins. After dark, I met up with Sarang at the train station. (And almost missed her, apparently there are two McDonalds in there on different floors, why?! I had a payphone with no credit on it, so I could only receive the text messages saying that she was there.) We had just met the night before. When our train line broke down and I needed a translator to figure out which overcrowded bus to get on, I got up and asked this Korean girl with headphones on where to go. Why her? I have no idea. Well, we both needed to take the bus to Pyramide. For some reason she asked to add me on facebook and by the next morning I asked if I could buy her a drink for helping me get home.
Be spontaneous.
BARCELONA DECEMBER 2012
It was the end of the semester and I was finally free from the shackles of studio. Baine flew in from Chicago and after seeing some Corbusier in the French Countryside we were ready for somplace warm. Last minute we decide to fly into Barcelona; Mies and Gaudi were on our minds. Unfortunately, because it was the end of the year I had next to no money. My budget was less than 25 €, including lodging. We picked a hostel without a whole lot of deliberation and it turned out to be the best decision we made. It was super social, leaving us out later and later each night. When you go to bed at 4am it’s kinda hard to get out the door before 2pm. But we made due, saw some good stuff, and got back in time to make dinner and go on yet another bar crawl with our fellow hostel patrons. Barcelona follows something called the Exiample grid, which means that the city has long, broad avenues and blocks have chamfered corners, which gave the octagonal buildings an interesting street presence. This setup meant that the city was really pedestrian friendly, so we walked everywhere. This was great on the wallet, but pretty rough on Baine who got some sort of weird fungal infection. His feet turned a raw, pale, blue color, and smelled worse than anything I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. He was genuinely afraid that he was going to have to amputate his feet, which was both hilarious and horrific.
We asked some random person at the hostel where we should go; we were told to go to the Olympic Park and check out the plaza and communication tower designed by Calatrava made to broadcast the 1992 games.
Hey, listen to random people’s suggestions.
Talk about a glowing example of expectations not matching reality. One of the reasons Baine and I wanted to go to Barcelona to begin with was to go to the world famous Barcelona pavillion; this thing is like a gosh darn crown jewel of Mies van der Rohe’s career. As a student of IIT, where our entire campus was designed by Mies, there was kind of a lot riding on this thing. Surprise surprise, there was this “great” expedition going on where they decided to showcase the service elements of the pavillion literally by sticking a mop, bucket, and pile of 2x4s in the pools. Or by piling garbage smack dab in the middle of my shot. Then there was also the nervous nelly staff, who refused to let me do backflips on the pavillion. Lighten up, guys!
The Saint Jordi Hostel that we were staying at was amazing, I can not overstate how perfect the setup was. At the back of the building, there was a huge kitchen will giant fridges connected to a dining area. This was separated from a projector room by a wall of perch-like seats. This was always playing something, sometimes movies sometimes a stream of music videos and it was connected to the other common areas by a 10 station computer lab. On top of all this, they led a bar crawl or beer factory tour every night of the week, which would end at a club, where the hostel would pay the cover charge for everyone. This led to a very social hostel. I’m still facebook friends with a bunch of people I met here and looking at their pictures is really cool.
Looking down from Gaudi’s Park Guell at dusk.
Talk about reality exceeding expectations. The Sagrada Familia, designed by Gaudi starting in 1883. He would go on to dedicate his life to this project, spending 43 years on it before his death. When he died, the project was only 25% complete. The anticipated completion date is 2026, the centenial of Gaudi’s death. State of completion aside, this building was absolutely everything people say and more.
In designing the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi quickly realized that the structure of the numerous vaults could not be easily calculated graphically. Instead, he turned to suspending weights on cables and representing the structure three dimensionally, obtaining the equilibrated forms directly. Although hanging models were common for the study of single arches in the 19th century, the scope of this study into not just vaults, but an entire cathedral, was unprecedented. What a breathtaking space.
Somehow, the atmosphere was untarnished by the milling tourists, void of the nuisance I experience in Rome. Maybe it was the lack of orders to be ‘silent and respectful’, or maybe the cathedral lacked choke points like a shrine filled with holy artifacts or a monodirectional altar.
I wanted to go in this scaffolding so so badly. Sadly, I didn’t.
GHANA LIBRARY SUMMER 2013
My third and final study abroad trip was a two part project. In the spring of 2013 I joined a studio lead by Frank Flury and designed a library, first as individuals, and then as teams. Then, in the summer, we went to Ghana and built the thing. Everyone told me before I left that doing volunteer work like this was going to be this transformative life altering event and that it was going to feel oh so good. Geez guys, don’t set super high expectations or anything. It wasn’t great. I’m really glad that I went; it was an invaluable experience in a lot of ways. But it wasn’t what I was expecting for a whole host of reasons. Everyone involved in the project had a large learning curve to overcome, but Frank is a very disorganized person and this led to a lot of neglect in areas that should have been tightly wound. For starters, the curriculum was very willy nilly. The expectations for research and design development were far too lax. When we were working on the project as a group, the design criteria and scope were very loosely defined. What was buildable? What could we achieve? Nobody had any idea. In the end, no team had the winning design. Frank just told a few of his favorite students what to do.
Night shots of the finished building. Photos taken by Sherry Huang.
Digging and pouring the foundation. Photos by Diane Konecky
The last couple shots show a lot of community involvement, but that was really an exception to the norm. We had a total of two times where we had the village come out and help, and that was just for unskilled labor. To be fair, Sam, Patrick, and Takyi we amazing assets to our team. Sam and Patrick were two 19 year old residents of Hemang, and Takyi was a general contractor from Accra. These guys came out to the site every single day and worked harder than almost anyone. Takyi’s knowledge of building in Ghana was invaluable - not to mention that he is a far better teacher than Frank. The best lead by example and his actions spoke very loudly. But that’s not the same thing as involving the community. We were not building a structure that respected local typologies, no input was given to us, and nobody was asking. Instead, we just came in with the intent of purchasing their problems away with an alien building and an alien way of life. What was the result? The community did not view us as companions working for a larger goal. They saw us as wealthy benefactors and their attitude was to take, take take.
There’s nothing wrong with giving a thirsty man a bottle of water, but isn’t it better to teach him how to dig a well for his whole village? I wasn’t really sure that we were even helping these people. The fact of the matter is, the people of Ghana are completely capable of helping themselves, most of them just don’t know it yet. The problem is somewhere between a lack of vision and a lack of education. It felt like the people of Ghana were just waiting around for a bunch of foreign people to drop in and throw some money at their problems. And guess what? That’s exactly what we were doing.
Early morning on the site. Picture of the slab being poured by Sherry Huang.
Shoutout to Diane - although sometimes we had very different behavioral styles and we didn’t always understand each other, I would have gone crazy in Ghana without her. Thursdays were our days off the site and in the kitchen. It wasn’t much of a break because we were pretty ambitious in our meal plans but at least we didn’t need to deal with other people. Sometimes we would sneak in a movie in between cooking, cleaning, and prep. The first time we made bean burgers, the texture and taste was so close to real meat that Matt was legitimately pissed off when we “spilled the beans” and told the crew that there was no meat involved. He was convinced it was the real deal. The second time we made bean burgers, we got the patties just right. We also grilled garlic bread buns, added a guacamole garnish, fresh tomato, and a fried plantaine desert.
This is what we had to work with in the kitchen: one plastic chair, a wooden plank for a cutting board, a knife with the handle duct taped together, one swiss army knife, a camping stove with two very uneven burners, two teflon pans with the non-stick surface half-scraped off, and two pots.
Foggy rainy season mornings
Photos by Diane Konecky
In terms of actual frequency of rain it really wasn’t bad. It just meant that there was a lot of humidity in the air in the morning and when it did rain, it poured. Did you know that bamboo leaves are really, really itchy? Neither did any of us when we were climbing in it and chopping it down for the formwork.
Photos by Diane Konecky Something I learned about construction: The solid steel American made hammers (pictured) are way better than the Chinese ones with plastic handles. (not pictured, probably because they were all broken) Eventually we got sick of trying to make wood handles or just dealing without a hammer, so we got a local metal worker to weld steel tube onto the hammer heads. Then we wrapped the handle in duct tape, and it was good as new. Better than new, actually, but still not as good as the hammers we brought.
Plastering the cement block walls. Photos by Diane Konecky
On the fourth of July, Frank somehow convinced the village to slaughter a goat for the occasion and celebrate for us. Props to Frank, we really needed a break. The morning of we got up and discovered that a goat was tied up under the stairs to our dorms. Within the hour the local goat kebab guy (sorry I missed your actual title!) came by, butchered the goat, and then spent the rest of the day cooking up the goat. It was kind of weird because the goat totally knew what was up and it shrieked just like those Taylor Swift “I Knew You Were Trouble” goat videos. Some of the women were wailing, but everyone ended up eating the kebabs, which were spectacular. It was the first meat some of us had had for nearly a month so nobody could resist. At night, some of the political leaders of the village came by, the booze was flowing and speakers pumping. We didn’t have any fireworks, but we did discover that bamboo explodes.
Photos by Diane Konecky
Photos by Diane Konecky
Photo by Diane Konecky
The night before we left, the cheif threw us a party at his palace. Invited to the party was our class, the locals who helped on the site, the political leaders of the village, and a bunch of middle aged women that none of us had ever seen before. Sam had my phone all night, so I take no responsibility for these pictures. Above: Hay guys! Top Right: “Taller” Jesus and his congregation. (Pronounced “talla”. Taller than what? Taller.) From left to right: Theophilus, Patrick, Ian “Taller” Jesus, and Sam. Bottom Right: Is this real life? Apparently the camera had been drinking, too.
It was a complex love-hate relationship. It’s easy to dwell on the negative, but it is also easy to try to idealize the trip. It was a fantastic trip in a lot of ways, but the library itself was a constant source of frustration. Funding for our trip was hastily clobbered together. It was ongoing during our trip and we were seemingly always on the verge of being completely out of money. Then what? What were the actual numbers? Owen wouldn’t say, and neither would Frank. Design concerns aside, we didn’t really engage the community with the project; they were just recipients of what we threw at them. I’m not really sure that we made a good building. Then, of course we almost didn’t finish the library on time. Thankfully, there was more to Ghana than our site.
Back Row L-R: Ian, Penelope, Nick, Matt, Ropo Middle Row L-R: Me, Paola, Sarah, Violet, Owen Front Row L-R: Maria, Diane, Ashley-Anne Not present: an accurate representation of how we felt
TWIFO HEMANG SUMMER 2013
My home for two months. Next time I am somewhere this alien, I will find a way to be more intimately involved with the life of the community. Because of the struggle of building a library quickly, nobody had much time to do a whole lot of anything else. I did a lot of observing, but I also attended a protestant church several times, I went shopping for groceries every week, and I utilized the marketplaces of Heman and Praso many times. (Prsao is the big town a few miles over that sat at the crossroads of a few major routes.) This is a collection of the time I got to spend out and about. Doing anything in the town required some getting used to - its hard to really absorb the workings of a place when everybody, points, stares, and tries to take advantage of you. How do you observe the every day life of a village when you are the first white person anyone had seen in real life? I got a feel for it after a while, and my novelty as a spectacle wore off around the same time.
The main (only paved) road in Twifo Hemang. The bulk of the commerce happened along here in the form of stands, wares, and shops popping up along its edges. This made it really easy for most of my classmates to completely miss what the village really was like. Pictured here are some school kids running around - you could tell who goes to which school by comparing the color of their uniforms.
Typical sights walking down the road. Welcome to the refrigerator store, boys. I’m not really sure how often those units get bought - goods that must be kept cold are kind of a luxury item. Even if you had the money for a fridge and the stuff that goes in it, (like meat) having power throughout the day is not a given. It took me forever to realize what a ‘cold store’ meant, but that is where most people go for refrigerated goods, and they just eat it right away. Cold stores have the full setup - refrigeration, perishable goods, and backup generators.
This is from when I walked around by myself because nobody else wanted to do this. You bet I’m going to wander through this village when the chance is right in front of me. I remember as we were leaving, a lot of people were making starry eyed plans to come back in so many years. I doubt that many of them will ever make it back here. I for one don’t plan on returning to Ghana. If I had the opportunity to go somewhere that far away, I would want to go somewhere new. Give me an ever changing horizon.
It was three days before we were going to leave and I really wanted to see what the inside of houses looked like, so I asked Sam if he would walk me through his neighborhood. Nobody was home when we got here but Sam just plunged in. I was like, woah there, are you sure this is ok? He insisted that this was acceptable behavior (seriously?) and I really wanted to see what it was like, so in I went. Traditional Ghanaian homes are centered around the open courtyard. In this case, a ring of bedrooms forms a U around the courtyard and is capped off with a series of service rooms shaped like an l. The slope of the site made this a pretty unique space - descending into the courtyard space made it feel like a room carved out of the earth. Domestic life is very hierarchial, so the parents bedroom was probably at the highest level, the children’s rooms descending in birth order. In the bottom right picture, the rooms from left to right are: toilet pit, shower, storage. The family shared a detached kitchen space with a few other families offsite.
Sam, my guide. He came to the site every day to help out with the construction and he had the best attitude of any one I’ve ever met. Work hard, laugh harder. These are some communal kitchen spaces that Sam’s family shares with some neighbors. The top shot shows a chicken coop, a storage unit, (firewood beneath, too!) and a covered space. The bottom shot is a peek into the storage shed directly to the left of the top shot. They form an L in plan, surrounding a big fire pit .
This was one of the times I convinced Diane it was a good idea to walk around. We saw some grandmothers doing laundry through the open door to the courtyard. They were eyeballing us, so I started talking them and got permission to step inside and take a few pictures. From what I understand, the courtyard is very much public space to them, even though there’s laundry strung out everywhere. Maybe it wasn’t so weird that I went into that other house after all, but to someone not brought up with this notion of space, it felt really personal to be here, and that was weird.
Of course a credit union would have corintian columns. (sort of) Seriously, where do these ideas come from what is their precedent? Is this the effect of colonialism or is the the result of more recent influence through movies and television shows? And then you get stuff like this. (Right) Clearly I’m missing some sort of cultural context.
Twifo Praso. Back here was off the beaten path, more on the back fringes of the marketplace - This is where some people got bead bracelets and where I got the DVD “C4: the Code of Money and Death�. (a local action flick that was hands down the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life - I got it for Roma.)
This is the Praso marketplace. On the left, that’s market day - colors, wares and people everywhere. Every other day, it looks like the shot above.
If you need some metal work done, I’ve got a guy. Religion is extremely saturated in Ghana - It’s an all encompassing lifestlye way more than a bullet point on an identity out here. It’s impossible to walk down the road without seeing something like “God’s Timing is Best Enterprises”, “Christ Our Savior General Store”, or something to that tune. Ghana is roughly 70% Christian, with another 15% Muslim. Those guys mostly stick to the north of the country (closer to the influence of merchants from North Africa) so it was pretty unusual to see this sign. Seeing how they treat religion really made me question the value of missionaries going abroad. It seems to me that the locals are taking care of their own. Why should Americans travel halfway across the world, drop themselves into a completely foreign culture, and attempt to change the way the local people live? Let us not forget the person in need next door.
Doors of stores. Twifo Hemang.
It’s really common in Ghana to start a building project without the money to finish it. As a result, buildings get assembled in haphazard phases, sometimes decades apart from each other. I don’t understand why anyone would plan this way, but I guess that’s what makes me, me, and them, them.
Sometimes questions are better than answers. It’s not hard to invent a narrative for a building - It’s all in the details. I love marks of use on a place, in this case it’s the pink paint on the window bars and the patchwork of roof repairs. Why did the owner choose to put the lightbulb right there?
We can debate the merits of modern living all day long, but I find something really beautiful about the homes of rural Ghana - no fluff, just simple geometry, bright colors, and cultural building traditions. Verandas are a common building element in Ghana. I love the empty chair sitting out there; how many hours has its owner spent quietly sitting and watching?
CAPE COAST SUMMER 2013
Cape Coast was the closest thing that we had that could be considered both a city and a tourist attraction. If you wanted a hamburger, this was the place to go. You pay through the nose for an exceptionally mediocre burger, but men have gone mad for less. Meat is meat. This is also the place to go if you wanted crafty gifts, or if you wanted to see the ocean or other white people. Cape Coast was the capitol city under British rule, before it was moved to Accra. As a result, Cape Coast is of medium low density, has reasonably paved roads with drainage, and high speedish internet. It doesn’t shut down with the sun - it operates in huddles and strides in a flickering yellow light - just like Twifo Hemang but one step up in scale.
This is looking away from the main road and out towards the residential side of things.
I can’t fathom the set of circumstances that lead to this wall being built that way.
The influence of colonial occupation has made a lasting impact upon the fabric of coastal architecture in Ghana. Beyond an increase scale and density, the Europeans introduced a sensibility for permanent building materials like kiln fired bricks and concrete. Other visual cues of European occupation can be found in Ghanaian homes, like the introduction of Doric columns, gabled roofs, and ornamental lintels. (As seen here)
Pretty high up on the list of trivia questions about my life I’d like answered at the gate of heaven: “Was Takobell Fast Food any good?” I passed this thing multiple times but it was never open. Right: Multiple story dwellings are common in coastal architecture, thanks European invaders!
KUMASI JULY 2013
Thank goodness I was able to take this trip. Ian Sission and I somehow got to take a couple days off under the guise of research that I “needed to do” for my History of Vernacular Architecture class that I was self leading. This trip was actually really useful - I ended up reading a lot about Kumasi over the course of the next semester and having the context of visiting the place was great. Kumasi is the second largest city in Ghana, formed at the nexus of several large inter-continental trade routes. Consequently, it was the capital of the Ashanti Empire until it was sacked by the British in 1874. British occupation then transformed the city, giving it the structure that we see today, by zoning areas, putting in a rail line, and establishing the Kejetia open air market. A lot of the asthetic of the city is owed to European building techniques as well. Getting to Kumasi was quite the odyssey. Before we even left Twifo Hemang Ian lost his phone. We left before dawn - this is before taxi drivers get out, so we jumped at the chance when some random dude driving a nice car offered us a ride to Praso. Well, it turns out the phone fell out of Ian’s pocket in that car, so any contact with the outside world was cut off for the rest of the trip.
We made it to Foso featuring casually sleeping baby
We got to Praso without any other incident, find our tro-tro (“bus”) and departed for Twifo Foso. (pronounced “forsoo”) We needed to get to Foso because it’s our connection to the highway, but Praso and Faso are connected via a stretch of what may very well be the worst road I will ever ride on. It closes seasonally, but our relatively mild rainy season meant that we could still make the trip. A bumpy ride is a bit of an understatement - there was more pothole than dirt road for more than 45 minutes of jungle. So there we were, the only white people for miles, crammed with 15 people and a rooster into a 12 passenger van, hip life music blasting, bouncing deeper into alien territory, praying we don’t snap an axle.
But, we got to Foso, found our next tro-tro, and made it to Kumasi. The roads were much smoother from that point forward and we made it without incident.
The views from the hotel room. Sweet wifi! This was the first “high speed� internet since I got off the plane in Accra, so I took advantage and downloaded a few albums. Notables include Yeezus, Random Access Memories, and Full Circle by Heiroglyphics. I got to watch some state news, which was kinda interesting. The way business people dress is very Western so it kind of felt out of context from anything I had seen in Ghana.
One of the reasons that I wanted to go to Kumasi was to visit the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. (KNUST) It was kinda nuts how differentthe campus was from the surrounding landscape. Founded in 1952, the majority of its buildings were built in the golden age of Ghana’s independence, and as such, the university boasts a fantastic expression of African Modernism. Ghana no longer builds like this - their new construction has regressed in many ways and I was on the hunt for the reasons why. In the Architecture building, I met a graduate student named Agustine Owusu-Ansah, and we talked for several hours about the history of the nation’s built landscape and where the profession was headed. Ultimately, I ended up finding a lot of answers to my questions and I wrote about my findings in a 62 page research paper over the next semester.
The architectural woodshop, a beautiful expression of compressed mud brick, beam girders, and wood trusses. Standing out here, I experienced my most frustrating experience with racism. At this point I was accustomed to everyone pointing, staring, trying to hustle me, and being exploited for my supposed wealth. But this was something else. I was just minding my own business taking photos for research when a professor at the school came up to me and demanded to know what I was doing. I’m not sure what he wanted to hear, but my explanation was immediately cut off for more questions: “Who are you with? How did you come here - you can not simply come into this school uninvited. Taking photos is forbidden.” I knew that none of this was true. Before I left, Teddy Mensah, an IIT and KNUST alumni, had told me that I could in fact just walk in and taking pictures was just fine. But this random professor would hear none of it. “A ‘friend’ can not just give you permission to come here”, he said, and attempted to kick me out. Well, I was having none of it and I tried deflecting his questions with questions of my own, hoping to get some information about the buildings I was looking at, the history of the school, and their plans for the future. This sort of worked, and once Ian came towering around the corner from wherever he was exploring, the professor realized that he was outnumbered and was not going to get his way. I was here to learn, not exploit. We are better together. The world is better when shared. I am not the European invaders of the 1400s. I took my leave and he did not pursue.
In a lot of ways, Kumasi was a lot like I expected - a scaled up Cape Coast and a slightly downsized Accra. This is because coastal architecture comes from the same building traditions as the tropical belt, and it bears the same marks of European influcence.
The Kejetia Open Air Market is the largest single marketplace in West Africa, made up of over 10,000 stalls and vendors. I wish I took a shot under the canopy of the endless stalls, but my camera was really cumbersome and I needed to get smudges and raindrops off my lens. The train tracks on the ground are from the rebuilding of Kumasi after the British sacked the city in 1874. Originally bisecting the city, the rail lines have been relocated after the market swallowed the area.
A block away from my hotel. Kumasi is organized a lot like medieval cities; there are ribs of major roads that encompass and bisect regions, forming rings in the city. The buildings facing these roads generally follow similar aesthetics and functions. One layer beyond is the rest of the city, and it plays by its own rules.
Adum Street, originally home to British, Lebanese, and Ashanti merchants, shares a common boundary with the Kejetia Market, and is still a marjor source of commerce in Kumasi today.
Different part of town, different style of living.
Aparments and houses. If it were possible to peek inside every building and peer around every corner, I would. On the way back, to Twifo Hemang, the van broke down and we got stranded at the side of the road for an hour and a half waiting for a replacement van to pick us up. As I was milling about, I caught a reflection in the side view mirror. I thought to myself, woah hey, another white person, what the heck is he doing out here? Then I realized I was just looking at myself. That was the first time I saw my reflection in five weeks.
THE ROADTRIP
FEATURING: THE COW THAT NEARLY KILLED US SPRING 2014 Chuck and I wanted to camp in a desert, so we decided to go to New Mexico over spring break. We also invtied Luke Dorn, who was a great addition to the trip. Cue friday night. We all decided to skip camping in Kansas the first night to save time and just press forward to the Rockies.
Sunrise the first morning. Still driving.
Entering the foothills of the Rockies.
We reached our first camp site as the sun was going down. Turns out, at 13,000 feet above sea level there is four feet of snow and all of the camp sites are completely snowed in. So we resorted to pitching our tent on the parking lot, which was under three inches of ice, (right) and cooked our first meal on the trunk of the car. (left) Not exactly our finest hour... not to mention Chuck and I were convinced that we were going to be eaten by a bear that night. As we were going to sleep, we kept hearing a heavy scratching noise all around our tent, like something was prowling and sniffing. After what felt like an hour of paralyzing fear, we decided to wake up Luke. Re rose from his sleeping bag like a vampire from a coffin and had his six inch bowie knife already in hand. He silently leaned over to the door, unziped it, peered outside, and discovered that it was just the wind moving our rain fly around because we couldn’t stake into the ice.
Things weren’t so bad in the morning, though. The view from the parking lot and beginning our descent.
Next on our IITinerary was Great Sand Dunes National Park, home to the tallest dunes in North America. On the way out, it was my turn to drive, which would be like my third time ever driving stick. Driving out into horizon, we listened to Ice on the Dune by Empire of the Sun, and it was perfect.
We were cruising down winding roads right across the border to New Mexico when we came across some state land. Cue one dirt road, one wooded hill and a perfect clearing at the top. After a freezing night on a sheet of solid ice, If felt good to sleep on soft ground.
The morning group shot. For some reason we decided that it was necessary. right there and then.
Chuck lost his sunglasses to the Rio Grande gorge when we was looking over the rail. The look of shock on his face was hilarious. We watched the glasses plummet for like thirty seconds, lololol.
Tent Rocks, National Park. I was pretty sure the wind was going to blow us off the top.
After night three, we took shower no. 1 of 2 on the trip. This was somewhere near Santa Fe,
White Sands National Monument was up next. This was easily my favorite park of the trip, We ventured out sunglasses and bare feet. It was like an alien world.
The largest gypsum dune field in the world - it just kept on going. on. After about an hour, we hit this formation. It kinda felt like we were shipwrecked.
The destination: the Alkali Flat, or, the source of all this gypsum. Getting back took more than two hours from this point. The “path� was comprised of orange posts stuck in the dunes and they were not always easy to follow. Needless to say, it was great.
We liked the park so much that we decided to come back and watch the sunset after getting a proper meal from the nearby town. #WorthIt
Carlsbad Cavern felt kind of theatrical, but what can you do. The dispersed camping down the ridge into Rattlesnake Canyon Gorge more than made up for it.
Mountain lion territory. Of course this made Chuck super paranoid of everything, but pretending to see a ranger on the ridge got the best reaction.
Suddenly, the crash. After finding a lousy camp site with cars and people everywhere, we decided to go a few hours further. Around midnight, we hit a black cow on a dark counrty road. The cow was a renegade, somehow escaping from its pen. Luke was driving around 55 mph before hitting the brakes. There wasn’t much time to react. Up and over, the cow left hoof prints in the roof, totalled the engine, and tore the entire exhaust system loose. Chuck was sleeping at the time of impact. System of a Down was playing quietly, but the album we had played immediately before was Acid Rap by Chance the Rapper..
Honestly, it was surreal. After the car stopped, the engine starting belching smoke and made this horrible grinding noise. Luke threw the car into park, shut it off, and we fled from the vehicle. We were in shock for a mintute, checking each other for injuries and pushing the car out of the middle of the road. Miraculously, nobody suffered anything worse than a graze. One of the first things we did was make sandwiches and eat some apples. We couldn’t leave valuable cargo behind, after all. So we called 911 and an ambulance and some cops came and checked us out. After logging everything, we called a tow truck which hauled us and the Corola away from the wreck.
The cow.
So that was that. Chuck’s cousin Vivian lived like 45 minutes away from the crash site and her phone rang right as she was plugging it in for the night. She came and grabbed us from the tow truck lot. The next morning, we cooked the remaining hamburger meat salvaged from the crash, headed to the airport, and flew away on our first standby flight.
LIFE ON WABASH JANUARY - AUGUST 2014
Characterized by a bleak feeling of despair and a persistent paranoia telling me that that I chose the wrong profession. Altogether, it was a miserable time. I think I thought that if I stared out the window long enough, my problems would resolve themselves and I just might catch that fleeting feeling of optimism I used to know so well.
Staring at the wall. I thought to myself: if I can just keep putting one foot in front of the other, then I will end up somewhere someday. But first, get out of bed.
Looking east from my third story balcony.
Despite years of imagination, graduating didn’t feel great. It felt like a lot of anxiety that I was magically supposed to be something now, but I was being swallowed whole. It felt like an incredible struggle had earned me an even greater struggle, and its sentence was going to be way longer than the five years it took me to earn my Bachelor’s degree.
Work. Kill me now. Some days I just wanted to Wa-’bash’ my head against the desk.
Wishing for Icarus, aspiring for optimism. I thought to myself: at least he knew what it felt like to fly.
One of many chilly mornings. Perhaps the amount of time I spent standing in front of the window sounds like a waste of time, but at the moment it was what I needed.
The fog sets in.
FROM 21ST TO 87TH MARCH - AUGUST 2014
The feeling of movement was my escape and the Lake Shore bike path was the medium. Every thursday I embarked on a 28 mile bike ride and I would follow the sun back home.
Mercy Hospital as seen from the 31st Street harbor.
One of my favorite parts of the Lake Shore Path, near 47th Street. I called this part “the slingshot” because, after a period of relative darkness underneath dense tree cover, the path veers towards to lake and out into the sunshine and I couldn’t help but pedal faster and ride faster.
The walls of the South Works used to hold iron ore for making steel. Rome has its columns, Chicago, it’s industry.
The cross section.
Indiana as seen from the Steelworker’s Park at 87th Street South. This was my destination. After lingering for a while, it would be time to head home.
Chasing daylight.
BEHIND BARS SUMMER - FALL 2014
This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been to prison, and it won’t be the last. Built in 1858 by inmates, the Joliet Correctional Facility is an incredible artifact of american history. It has held POWs from the Civil War, Bob Dylan has sang about the prison in his song ‘The Times, They Are A-Changin’, and it was featured in the movie Blues Brothers, to name a few. The Joliet Correctional Center was accessible to explorers in the summer of 2014, but by the fall, the security checkpoints were chained shut and the doors were secured.
Beyond the gate a look at the administration building from inside the courtyard. This would be the last time that I would enter the courtyard during the day.
Looking out into the complex. I would only get to explore a small fraction of the site.
Poking around at the evidence on polariods. Looks like the summer of 1995 was a blast.
The bathrooms in the adminstration wing are nothing short of lavish.
This is not an exit.
Apparently there’s a leak; photo taken from the attic. The administration wing was built before the use of galvanized steel. So, when the window panes broke, moistuire penetration corroded the steel angles connecting the floor joists to the load bearing wall. Give it a few years, and boom, structural collapse.
The lookout. Photo taken from the outpost on top of the visitor check-in building adjacent to the prison proper. Route 66 is seen in the background.
Stop! Decending the spiral staircase that lead into the interior of the compound. This would be the last time I would enter the prison proper before it was locked up.
What goes ‘bump’ in the night is almost certainly afraid of running into this in the dark.
Some local grafitti artists have compiled a thorough to-do list for future explorers.
Apparently there’s a leak in the prison block, too. No wonder the place got shut down.
The security checkpoint between the prison proper and the administration wing. Photo was taken less than a week before the facility got locked up.
BRIDGES AND BUILDING SITES SUMMER 2014
I have an inexplicable fascination with bridges; those made for trains prove especially good for exploration because they are very climbable and carry less traffic.
The Ashland Avenue curved pony bascule bridge, built in 1936.
Built in 1919, the St Charles Airline bridge was the world’s longest bascule bridge for over a decade. Almost 100 years later, the bridge is now owned by the Canadian National Railway and is still used daily.
With the absence of bright stars in Chicago, I’ll settle for bridge-gazing. Looking up at the St. Charles Airline Bridge.
Workers perform repairs on the massive counterweights of the St. Charles Airline Bridge.
All better.
Scoping out the Canal Street bridge during the daytime. When it was constructed in 1914, its 1500-ton main span was the heaviest of any vertical lift bridge in the United States.
The first ascent. The top platform measures in at 195 feet above the chicago river.
One of my favorite views of the skyline is from the St. Charles Airline bridge. Standing over the river is an amazing vantage point.
i355 in Lemont. What’s crazy is that this path connects to the Joliet Iron Works and the train tracks at the canal go to the Joliet Correctional Center.
The scale was unreal. The Romans would be proud.
The New City megaproject is a giant campus widely regarded as a giant suburban shopping mall and an eyesore. That being said, the site was great to explore. Chicago looks pretty good 19 stories up.
The whole world is good for exploring, not just the parts of town considered “nice�.
PLACES LIKE HOME Before I had a camera, I had the marble game on the rug in the front porch on Melrose, an ice rink in the back yard, and a dragon in a tree. On Avon, I had a computer in the basement, ghosts in the graveyard, and the best climbing tree ever. In 2007, I moved to Monee. A lot of memories have faded into the expanse of time, but I still have a few photos to help bring back the past.
Running down Ohlendorf.
It’s a stretch of barren farmland.
4341 Ohlendorf, cleaning out. Above: The Office Right: Living Room
Going to the Zumhagen’s.
One of many runs in Fullersburg Woods.
God saw he was getting tired and a cure was not to be. So He put his arms around him and whispered ‘come with me’. With tearful eyes we watched him suffer and slowly fade away. Altho’ we loved him dearly we could not make him stay. A golden heart stopped beating, hard working hands to rest. God broke our hearts to prove to us He only takes the best.
- Amelda Mikottis
Granpda Johhny and Grandma Amelda’s house.