After Theseus had killed the Minotaur and escaped, King Minos imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus to the Labyrinth. When Theseus was to be sent to his doom at the hands of the Minotaur, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos approached Daedalus to ask him to devise a means of escape for Theseus whom she loved. In Greek mythology, Daedalus, the great architect, inventor, and sculptor, built the world famous Labyrinth to confine the half-man, half-bull Minotaur in the Crete for King Minos. The Arts and Sciences in the Modern World: The La Salle Corridor with Holding Pattern The other lauds Chicago’s leading role in technological achievement but also draws attention to the “holding pattern” in which the planes circle above Chicago. One provides details of the myth including an account of how Icarus plummets to the ground and perishes as a result of having ignored his father’s instructions not to fly too close to the hot sun in wings made of wax. Explanatory plaques prepared by the artist affixed to the walls make this explicit. The mosaics also compare ancient and modern manifestations of hubris, possibly cautioning the technologically sophisticated industrialists whose headquarters were very nearby as well as the occupants of City Hall across the street and all Chicagoans and visitors.
In the other, lively figures populate every window facing the sky in which the planes fly. In one, Daedalus and Icarus are in flight against a bright blue sky and in the light of the sun. The compositions of both the exterior and interior mosaics evoke the pleasures that attach to human creativity applied to concrete needs. The glass mosaic materials have an ancient pedigree yet the work is placed in a shiny metal and glass entranceway.īrown’s use of myth might also suggest more philosophical thought about the permanence of the human struggle to combine art and technology, as well as its delights and dangers.
The subject of the exterior mosaic gestures toward the classical yet its design is modern and playful. He representation of this principle into the compositions. In Brown’s view, this coexistence powerfully expressed a democratic principle. These two mosaics by Chicago Imagist artist Roger Brown comment on an extraordinary feature of this corner of the city that Brown expressly adored - the way neoclassical and modernist architectural gems coexist in harmony on a block dense with notable buildings. The pair of mosaics adorn a striking 40-story contemporary office facing the neoclassical Chicago City Hall and a very short way down the street from the financial district where the Board of Trade and a number of significant modern and neoclassical buildings sit nearly side by side. Inside the lobby a second mosaic presents jet planes flying above the Chicago Loop’s epicenter. They seem to celebrate Chicago as a site of age-old technological dreams realized. The Arts and Sciences in the Ancient World: The Flight of Daedalus and IcarusĪbove the doorway at 120 North La Salle Street a mosaic depicts Daedalus, together with his son Icarus, soaring high in the sky on the wax wings he designed and built.
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