All that glitters is not gold. The surfaces of early Chicago’s landscape

Abstract

Original Chicago was a village in the mud. Historians recall that “the site was unpromising” (Mayer and Wade 1969: 3). Were it not for its location at the mouth of the Chicago River into the Lake Michigan, the swampy grounds encircling the Frontier outpost’s wooden huts around 1830 would never have become a world city. Its environment had to undergo heavily transformation. Which technical operations and artificial remaking of the ground surfaces have given its shape to the Midwest’s metropolis?

Keywords

• Surfaces and Materials
• lo Squaderno No. 48