Googling on

So you have a yen to know what art works the public finds most interesting. As is so often the case, try Google. Drifting through some searches the other day a band of images appeared on the top of the screen with the header “Artworks frequently mentioned on the web”. OK, not the most sophisticated way to track public taste but there were some surprises. For instance were they all pictures of cows or cottages by that Kinkaid guy? No, they were not. 

For a start Marcel Duchamp topped the list coming in with three of the 20 selected images (Fountain, Bicycle wheel and Nude descending a staircase). Of the rest over 50 per cent (11) were from the twentieth century though none from the twenty-first. Predictably just one was by a woman (Judy Chicago’s The dinner party) and only one by a non-European (Hokusai’s The great wave off Kanagawa). Painting as usual ruled the roost but Shepard Fairey provided a nice graphic touch. As for the Southern Hemisphere, it didn't feature.

We stumbled on this heuristic by simply putting the word 'art' into the Google search box. Now the trick will be to see if tastes change over time.
Images: Google's top twenty

Googleplex comes to Fulton Market

click images for larger view

This how functioning cities evolve.

rendering courtesy Sterling Bay

Crain's Real Estate Daily reported last week that Google is consolidating its Chicago office space, much of it at a Perkins+Will building at 20 West Kinzie, into 1KFulton (will the move come with renaming rights?), the former Fulton Cold Storage warehouse that has been stripped down to its bare bones awaiting the new facades of a Hartshorne Plunkard-designed retrofit.  The developer, Sterling Bay, is proving itself one of the most adapt practitioners in Chicago right now, with the Google catch coming off Sterling Bay doubling its investment in little more than a year at 400 South Jefferson, the former lithographers loft building in the West Loop that, like Fulton Cold Storage, was stripped to its concrete frame and given new, more open facades as the headquarters of Hillshire Brands, the Sara Lee spin-off that returned to Chicago after a decades-long sojourn in the suburbs.

1K Fulton (Work. Eat. Chill. says their website)  is the centerpiece of a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood marked by former lofts converted to residential and boutique hotels, and former industrial buildings to upscale restaurants, shops, and art galleries.  Which, in turn, will eventually be replaced by Gap stores and Starbucks when the transition fully matures.

The sea change already has its own lighthouse in the stunning new Ross Barney-designed Green Line station at Morgan Street.

As you can see in the photos at the top of this post, the last vestige of 1KFulton's historic identity - the huge sign on the tower - has now been stripped away along with the brick on which it was painted.  The Google move could be a game-changer, making Fulton Market a high-tech hub.  Is it only a matter of time before the last meat packing, fish mongering and food processing businesses are completely crowded out and effaced from the district that they gave its name?  In an increasingly virtual world, the actual retreats.

Read More:

• Crain's Real Estate Daily:  Google to move to West Loop(with pictures)
• Strippers Attack, Heat Up Fulton Market(more pictures)
• Instant Landmark:  TranSystems and Ross Barney's Morgan Street Station
• One Tower for the Meatpackers; One for the Fashionistas - Ross Barney's new Morgan Street Station bridges old and new Fulton Market. (again, pictures)