“A bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture.”
Thus begins “An Outline of European Architecture” by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, one of the 20th century’s most celebrated architectural historians.
This quote, written in 1943, came to mind as I visited the recently completed Cragin Park Fieldhouse in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood. Designed by locally based STL Architects, the new structure raises questions about whether it might be a building or architecture.
Cragin Park is among the more modest parks under the control of the Chicago Park District. It’s small, occupying just a little less that one single city block with Drummond Place to the north, Lockwood Avenue to the west, and Wrightwood Avenue on the south. The eastern edge of the park is the north-south alley that serves businesses along Laramie. Quintessential Chicago bungalows line the north and south sides of the park, giving Cragin Park a strong sense of place rooted in this particular local building type. Its previous fieldhouse, which sat on the same site as the new building, was so modest that it made the Chicago bungalows that ring the park seem like grandiose architecture. The recently completed replacement packs considerably more architectural ambition.
The Cragin Park Fieldhouse isn’t STL’s first foray into fieldhouse design; the firm produced the well-received Williams Park Fieldhouse at 2820 S. State that opened in 2019. That building still shines as bright as a new penny in the relatively tight confines of the 8.5-acre Bronzeville park in the midst of the Dearborn Homes.
The Chicago Park District has often embraced the role of architecture in its landscapes. The history of park structures is a rich vein in Chicago’s architectural history. Classics include Dwight Perkins’ Café Brauer in Lincoln Park (1908), a landmark of Prairie School design that combines a classical plan with Prairie School details. The same is true of The Refectory in Washington Park, designed in 1891 by D.H. Burnham & Co.; the triple-arched Refectory (1907, Richard E. Schmidt, Garden & Martin); and the Georgian and Tudor Fieldhouse (1928, Michaelsen & Rognstad) both in Humboldt Park. A more contemporaneous example of top-notch design in the parks is John Ronan’s Park District Headquarters and Fieldhouse in Brighton Park, completed just three years ago.
But good architecture hasn’t always been the norm in our parks. Bunker-like structures such as the concrete fieldhouse in Bridgeport’s McGuane Park, completed in 1972, demonstrate a more utilitarian approach to park amenities without much architectural interest. Even a more recent addition such as the Leonard Louis Fieldhouse in Chinatown’s Ping Tom Park (2013, Wright & Company) seems dropped into its riverfront location from a suburban warehouse district.
At just 4,000 square feet, the Cragin Park Fieldhouse is a small building, particularly for a fieldhouse. The entrance to the building is on the north side of the structure, although a series of doors can open the multipurpose room to the park on the east side of the building. The double-height lobby is small but welcoming, and the two circular light fixtures that float in the upper regions of the space are a jaunty accent to the more staid expression of the building. The floor plan tucks restrooms between the double-height entry and multipurpose room and uses the upper-level space above the toilets to smartly shield rooftop mechanical equipment from view.
Flexibility is key to the design; almost half of the building is devoted to a multipurpose space that can be readily subdivided into two identically sized spaces. Eight exposed steel columns support four 34-foot-long king post trusses that align with large translucent windows that provide ample natural light at each end of the space. Perforated wood panels provide acoustic properties and add warmth to the space. Painted panels provide durable surfaces that can be easily cleaned and repainted.
The building expresses a clear architectural character with its exposed steel structure — although the 20 steel columns are all located inboard with just two of them visible from the exterior — and that pair is seen only through the large glass windows on the front façade. And some of the exposed steel connections are more than a bit fussy. In the lobby, the beams and columns join with such deliberate overelaborations as to mock the simplicity of the overall building. In the multipurpose room, stiffener plates in the columns align with the joints in the wall panels at some columns, while inexplicably, others do not. Details always matter, and this is especially true in a minimalist building such as the Cragin Park Fieldhouse. The lack of close coordination between these simple details undermines the structure’s coherence and intent.
And while much of the small structure is almost all right, when dealing with a minimalist expression, just a little bit off can be everything. There is no margin for error.
A probably unintended counterpoint lies just a few short steps northeast of the new building where a small metal shipping container is surrounded by recently planted evergreen trees. The modest structure provides additional park storage, but the landscaping belies its less-than-temporary nature. Architects have long toyed with shipping containers as objects of exploration, deploying these off-the-shelf metal structures for a wide variety of uses. But sitting so closely by the new fieldhouse, it seems to challenge the actual building’s material aesthetic: Which is more functional? Which is more minimal? Which is more architecture?
I applaud the new Cragin Park Fieldhouse for its ambition. Ambition is good; much of our contemporary built environment today is quite lacking in this regard.
But those good intentions are not enough. And the new Cragin Park Fieldhouse is trying so very hard. It’s thoughtful, well planned, and well executed to a degree. But despite a few poetic moments in its interior, its exterior can seem too simple and even mean.
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In time, the small shipping container that is its neighbor may age better, and the Cragin Park Fieldhouse might find itself more like Sir Nikolaus Pevsner’s bicycle shed.
Edward Keegan writes, broadcasts and teaches on architectural subjects. Keegan’s biweekly architecture column is supported by a grant from former Tribune critic Blair Kamin, as administered by the not-for-profit Journalism Funding Partners. The Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.
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