Tag Archives: Municipality – Wheaton IL

Art Photography: Hierotopy. Created Sacred Space & Its Paradigms. (15 Photos).

FEATURE Image: The Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago 10915 S. Lemont Rd Lemont IL. 7/2017 5.75 mb 

INTRODUCTION.

Hierotopy derives from two Ancient Greek words meaning “Sacred Space” and in a specifically broad sense.

It is a term developed at the start of the 21st century by Alexei Lidov (b. 1959), a Russian art historian who specializes in Byzantium.

Hierotopy is the study of the creation and frequent re-creation of sacred spaces whose inter-disciplinary application extends to a vast array of media (i.e., images, shrines, architectural spaces, pilgrimage, song, incense, ritual, natural forces, such as light and darkness) as well as spans the areas of art history, archeology, cultural anthropology (diversity in social practice), ethnology (groups and culture), and religious studies.

What hierotopy is not is the study of the phenomenology of the sacred. Rather, it is a look at projects that express the sacred and the relationship of the sacred and the mundane. It is a universal language posited in a nearly infinite number of forms marked by creative human activity and expression.

As such, icons and other sacred artifacts, for example, are not seen only as isolated objects but as part of any wider project to express a wide scope of communication of the sacred and mundane. It is these projects themselves – including both their conceptual and artistic aspects, as well as the historical developments leading to their formation – which are the primary focus of hierotopic study.

In regard to this post of photographs, as hierotopy is the study of the creative direction of projects coordinating artists and specialists in shaping a unified and comprehensive vision of the relation of the sacred and mundane, these photographs are their own hierotopy project. In seeking to capture others’ creative projects in the communication of the sacred and mundane along with those embodied human interactions with or among them, each photographic image is its own original hierotopic project.

Hierotopic projects are not limited to churches and sanctuaries but can be landscapes, architectural compounds, and greater entities such as urban settings. While edifices and other macro-art and architecture are hiertopic, so are individual and simple yet equally powerful components such as the use of light in church architecture as well as sacred (including revealed religious and other) ceremonies, feasts, and folk customs.

While my photographs as a hiertopic project can include original sacred spaces which are those that appear as the result of a theophany (Ancient Greek meaning “appearance of a deity”) or a representative thereof, it can extend to its re-creation elsewhere, such as, popularly, a Lourdes grotto or Hindu prayer pole. Other hierotopic projects can involve less tangible ideas but look to express a higher order so that by way of the hierotopic project a common bond or experience on or towards such higher planes is manifested between the created sacred space and its human participant or beholder, such as, to start, the prayer labyrinth.

El Santuario/Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe of the Archdiocese of Chicago 1170 N. River Rd. Des Plaines, IL. 5/2018 7.89 mb 84% 
First Baptist Church, Kankakee County, IL 8/2017 6.63 mb
Moses, Mount Sinai, and the 10 Commandments Experience (The Shrine of Christ’s Passion) St. John, IN. 7/2017 4.83 mb
St. Edmund’s Church, 188 S. Oak Park Avenue, Oak Park, IL. 7/2015 7.84 mb 93%
Levere Temple, Sigma Alpha Epsilon National Headquarters, 1856 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, Il 10/2015. 30%.
The Sanctuary of the Divine Mercy, St. Stanislaus Kostka Church 1327 N. Noble Street, Chicago. 3/2013 1.58 mb
Corpus Christi Catholic Church, 4920 S. Martin Luther King Drive, Chicago. 10/2015 25%. After 120 years of service, the Bronzeville Catholic Church closed its doors for good in July 2021 as part of the archdiocesan consolidation plan,
Holy Innocents Church at 743 North Armour Street, Chicago. After 116 years of service, in 2021, the Chicago archdiocese combined Holy Innocents, St. Malachy + Precious Blood, and Santa Maria Addolorata to form the new parish, Blessed Maria Gabriella, 3/2013 1.74 mb
El Santuario/Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe of the Archdiocese of Chicago 1170 N. River Rd. Des Plaines, IL. 5/2018 3.65 mb
El Santuario/Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe of the Archdiocese of Chicago 1170 N. River Rd. Des Plaines, IL. 5/2018 5.02 mb
St. Edmund, Oak Park, IL. 9/2015 35%
St Bernadette. Cathédrale Saint-Cyr-et-Sainte-Julitte de Nevers, Nevers, France 1993 1.15 mb

(49 seconds). Police in Lourdes, France, interrogate 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous following the 6th apparition (Feb. 21, 1858) at the grotto. From The Song of Bernadette (1943) starring Jennifer Jones for which Jones won the Academy Award that year for Best Actress.

Grotto. 10/2022 7.86 mb 63%
Field of Honor 2021 Colonial Flag Foundation, June 30 – July 4, 2021 Seven Gables Park, 1750 S. Naperville Road, Wheaton, IL The event’s website claims: “This stirring display of 2,000 flags will bring the community together in a patriotic tribute to honor our heroes.” 7/2021 7.82 mb

Street Photography: SIGNS OF THE TIMES. (55 Photos).

Villa Park, IL. 5/2018 4.06 mb
Evanston, IL. 2/2019 4.94 mb
Lisle, IL. 3/2018 3.38 mb
Chicago. 6.30 mb 95%
4/2020 7.39mb
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Chicago. 7/2015 4.16 mb
Chicago. Symphony Center. 10/2014 1.99 mb
Chicago. Macy’s State Street. 1/2018 872kb
Chicago. Loop Synagogue. 9/2015 4.73 mb
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Forest Park, IL. 7/2016 5.11 mb
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Chicago. 9/2015 2.75 mb
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Chicago. 7/2016 5.01 mb
Chicago. 9/2015 3.82 mb
Chicago. 6/2018 3.64mb
6/2021 95%
Watseka, IL. 8/2017 6.24mb
Kentland, IN. 8/2017 3.16mb
Chicago. 8/2015 3.54 mb
Chicago. 2/2018 4.74 mb
Westmont IL. 12/2017 7.83 mb 98%
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Cedarburg, Wi. 6/2018 6.23 mb 95%
Chicago. 9/2017 2.80 mb
Chicago. 2/2018 6.58 mb
Chicago. The Loop. 2/2018 3.63 mb
Chicago. 12/2015 4.30 mb
Chicago. Symphony Center. 10/2014 2.51 mb
Post Office. 3/2017 4.11 mb
Chicago. 2/2018 6.18 mb
Downers Grove, IL. 6/2018 7.35 mb
12/2018 6.67 mb 99%
Chicago. 10/2016 6.06 mb 99%

In the heart of the Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago’s Southside, Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church was formed in 1902. During the Great Migration, African-Americans made Ebenezer their church home.

Ebenezer developed a reputation as a center for gospel music. Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993), the father of gospel music, introduced his blend of Christian praise and blues at Ebenezer and started the first gospel choir here.

During the 30-year pastorate of Rev. Frank K. Sims, distinguished guests of the church included Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), Ralph Metcalfe (1910-1978), Adam Clayton Powell (1908-1972) and Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972).

In 1966 a banquet honoring Dr. Frank Kentworth Sims on the 7th anniversary of his pastorate of Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church featured Nobel Peace Prize recipient the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as the guest speaker and Mahalia Jackson as guest vocalist.

SOURCES:

chipublib.org/fa-ebenezer-missionary-baptist-church-archives/

https://ebenezerbronzeville.org/about/

Westchester IL. 5/2022 7.33mb 98%
6/2022 7.02mb
Lisle Il. 9/2022 6.57 mb
Downers Grove, IL. 10/2022 5.80 mb 99%
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Chicago. 6/2022 5.86 mb
Paris (7th arrondissement). 10/2002 65%
Chicago. 12/2017 141 kb 25%
San Diego. 10/1999. 60%.

The Loma Theatre, designed by S. Charles Lee (1899-1990), was opened on May 5, 1945 with its first feature, 20th Century-Fox’s Technicolor musical film, Diamond Horseshoe, starring Betty Grable. See – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8wTy6_Si5U&t=106s – retrieved December 29, 2022.

Mann Theatres operated it from 1973 to December 1987 (Its last feature was Paramount Pictures’ Fatal Attraction, starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close). The Loma ’s vintage signage is intact along with some of its movie-house interior although today it serves as a bookstore. For some interesting memories of a friendly and classy movie house, see – http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/1716– retrieved December 29, 2022.

S. Charles Lee was one of the foremost mid20th-century architects of movie houses on the West Coast. Simeon Charles Levi was born and grew up in Chicago. There Lee worked for Rapp & Rapp, the renown Chicago architectural firm that specialized in movie theatre design. Rapp & Rapp’s significant work in this period included State Street’s Chicago Theatre in 1921, and the Bismarck Hotel and Theatre, and the Oriental Theatre both in 1926.

The Loma Theatre’s architect was influenced by Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) and Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959). In 1922, before moving to Los Angeles, Lee was impressed by the Chicago Tribune building competition on North Michigan Avenue whose competitors juxtaposed historicism, such as the Beaux-Arts, with modernism. Lee considered himself a modernist, and his design career expressed the Beaux-Arts discipline and a modernist functionalism and freedom of form.

Beginning his career in California in the 1920’s, by the 1930’s S. Charles Lee was the principal designer of motion picture theaters in Los Angeles. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Lee is credited with designing many hundreds of movie theaters in California, including San Diego’s Loma Theatre at 3150 Rosecrans Boulevard.

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Wheaton, IL. 5/2022 7.76 mb 99%
Chicago. 9/2015 6.33 mb
Alsip, IL (Demolished). 7/2017 4.56 mb
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Chicago. 6/2022 2.11mb

Art Photography: JOHN PAULDING (1883-1935, American), Over the Top to Victory (“Doughboy”) (1921), in Wheaton, Illinois. (2 Photos).

FEATURE image: Over the Top to Victory (“Doughboy”), 1921, John Paulding, Memorial Park, Wheaton, Illinois.

“Over the Top to Victory” is a bronze sculpture that depicts an American infantryman in World War I (known popularly as “doughboys”) that was created by American sculptor John Paulding (1883-1935).

The statue was cast in 1921 by the American Art Bronze Foundry in Chicago and stands in Memorial Park in Wheaton, Illinois.

Paulding studied sculpture at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is best remembered today for his World War I memorials.

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917 the soldiers fought valiantly. An armistice was signed on November 11, 1918—the origin of today’s Veterans Day—in a victory for the allies. The war had started in August 1914 and had gone on for over four years.

The statue was dedicated on Armistice Day, November 11, 1929, in honor of all World War I veterans in Wheaton, Illinois. Memorial Park had been established in central Wheaton in 1921 specifically to honor war veterans. Four months before this statue was dedicated—on July 12, 1929—the Wheaton Illinoian opined about The Doughboy: “The statue is a fitting memorial to the soldiers of the community who died fighting for our cause. Let us not forget so easily!”

After more than 70 years standing proudly outside in the elements, the statue was refurbished and conserved in August 2000 by Venus Bronze Work, Inc., in Detroit, Michigan—and rededicated on Veteran’s Day of that year. The same local American Legion Post led the dedication ceremonies in both 1929 and 2000.

"Over the Top to Victory" Doughboy Statue
“Over the Top to Victory,” 1921, bronze, John Paulding (American, 1883-1935), Memorial Park, Wheaton, Illinois.

Photographs and Text: