#_leo

[So I spend an hour really frustrated with the limited options of exactly what you can and can not do with HTML in the context of one of these posts, and then trying to edit the CSS of the Theme to be more accommodating before realizing this is maybe enormously distracting and unproductive. I was hoping to be able to tag our name (like _leo,  so it’s not visible) and then have that dictate the style of the post. Maybe you’re better with these things than I.]

So this building ultimately led to our current process. I visited it in December of 2013 and was blown away both by it’s presence and how effectively its design creates a space for reflection. It may be splitting up various aspects of its design and construction that I find valuable into different posts.

The design by Jean-Baptiste Louis Bourgeois was selected in 1920 after an international competition. Bourgeouis looks like this: Bourgeois designed the building, but it is ultimately John Earley (aka, and I'm not making this up, people call him this, "The man who made concrete beautiful") who made the structure in its present form possible. Earley looks like this: Earley's contribution to the project hinged on his rigorous and methodical production of precast, exposted aggregate concrete forms. Basically, he built a concrete factory where he meticulously seperated aggregates by size for a consistent texture, made molds for these enormoulsy detailed sculptural/structrual elements, cast them at his location, which I think was in D.C., shipped them to Chicago, where they were installed. Look, so there's nothing sexy about discussing the process for making precast concrete forms. Enthusiasts for this stuff evoke images of very stern-faced engineering types at 1950's era drafting tables, but Earley's work is incredible. The resulting forms, which are made to fit the curve of the dome look like this: Earley also won the bid on the inside work which would have otherwise been done in plaster or terracotta. The result was this :

Earley, I learned yesterday, did a few other things for concrete that fit within the "sacred spaces" category. He also had a thing for color, and basically invented a technique of painting with concrete. A little background on concrete -- there are basically three parts: a course aggregate (crush stone for instance), sand, and cement which hardens over time. We could go into the chemistry of cement here, but lets not. Early, in order to make a pseudo-mosaic technique that allowed an enormous variety of hues to be permanently embedded with great detail, meticulously sought out aggregates of myriad colors from all over the world including stone, ceramics, etc and incorporated them into his exposed aggregate technique in which the individual particles are visible. The results can be seen in his work on the Franciscan Monastery in D.C. :