Blog-o-rama.

My morning: Five well-known architects, a fine paneled room and a solid table, jugs of water and glasses of orange juice. The Third Annual Real Estate Chicago Architecture Roundtable, held at the Tower Club, high atop the Civic Opera Building in downtown Chicago. Live, but before no audience except three tape recorders — one primary, two backup — and three members of the Real Estate Chicago magazine staff. I moderated. The architects who had so kindly agreed to be in my magazine were ideal panelists: a talkative, lively crew whose subjects ranged from the way Mayor Daley seems to care about architectural detail in his town in a very un-mayor-like — but not necessarily bad — way, to their opinions on the THINK project at the WTC site.

At times like this, I realize how little I know. The architects talked of “The x project, very interesting, very controversial… the y building, on the campus of Z University, did you know that everyone in the School of Architecture hates it, just hates it… Building technologies will be so efficient in the future, the mind boggles… for example, the [I’ve never hear the term] process, a real marvel…” As much as I read and listen, professionally, to the goings-on in real estate, urban planning and architecture, a lot that was discussed was still news to me.

But I learn. The end result of this roundtable will be published in the March/April issue of my magazine, after I’ve taken the raw lumber of the transcript to my editing sawmill, to be made into the smooth planks of readable prose.

One surprise was how warm the architects were to the rebuilding of Soldier Field, as a design. Soldier Field, home stadium of the Chicago Bears, was new when “Yes, We Have No Bananas” was a hit, and late in 2001 (when people were distracted by the Afghan War and anthrax) the City of Chicago (i.e., Mayor Daley), in connivance with the State of Illinois (that is, former Gov. Ryan), rammed through a redevelopment scheme. Court challenges and a highly critical reaction to the design followed, especially from the Tribune. To no avail. The project will be finished in time for the Bears to play there in September.

Soldier Field used to be the sort of the oval stadium you associate with the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, or at least with the era of leather football helmets. An imposing, gray presence, notable for its exterior-wall colonnades. According to the Turner Construction Co. (the contractor on the job), the redevelopment: “will restore and leave intact the existing exterior and colonnades and replace the existing seating bowl with a new 61,500-seat facility. The new bowl will be higher than the existing colonnades by 50 feet on the West side where the grandstands are located, and 40 feet on the East side where the skyboxes are located. A four level 2,500-space parking lot will be located at the North side of the stadium, beneath the grandstands and below grade. A two-level, 1,600-space parking structure located to the South, independent of the stadium, will also be below grade with landscaped ‘tailgating’ facilities on the roof of the structure.”

Last month, when I was driving downtown every day, I got to see the site from Lake Shore Drive. To me, it looks like they’re putting a Chihuly glass bowl inside the old gray bowl. It’s interesting, at least. But the aesthetics of the project have never been my beef with it. The operative word in the paragraph above is “skyboxes.” That’s what this redevelopment is about: public money used to make the multimillionaire who owns the Bears more money.

It’s a psychology I can’t fathom. Like Jack Nicholson’s character in “Chinatown” says to the sinister millionaire: “Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can’t already afford?”