Market Hall
Pullman was the ultimate in planned communities ... a bit too much so, it eventually proved. George Pullman had it in his head he was building some sort of company town Utopia, but you can't have Utopia without a lot of rules. Democracy and Utopia don't go hand in hand.
But that's a cultural issue. It's a lot easier to build Utopia from an architectural standpoint, and Pullman did his best. He built churches and plazas and parks around a man-made lake. This, for instance, is Market Hall, or at least what's left of it. It burned twice, once in 1892, and then again in 1973. The hall stood at the center of a nifty little square surrounded by curved buildings that might have been European if they hadn't had that whiff of Prairie Style about them.
The physical side of the community thrived for about 15 years, then things fell apart. The cultural reality set in, and that made it difficult to maintain the physical part. The neighborhood has steadily decayed ever since.
Market Hall
Pullman was the ultimate in planned communities ... a bit too much so, it eventually proved. George Pullman had it in his head he was building some sort of company town Utopia, but you can't have Utopia without a lot of rules. Democracy and Utopia don't go hand in hand.
But that's a cultural issue. It's a lot easier to build Utopia from an architectural standpoint, and Pullman did his best. He built churches and plazas and parks around a man-made lake. This, for instance, is Market Hall, or at least what's left of it. It burned twice, once in 1892, and then again in 1973. The hall stood at the center of a nifty little square surrounded by curved buildings that might have been European if they hadn't had that whiff of Prairie Style about them.
The physical side of the community thrived for about 15 years, then things fell apart. The cultural reality set in, and that made it difficult to maintain the physical part. The neighborhood has steadily decayed ever since.