The fact that we missed the biggest, awesomest, best ever architectural sensation to hit Chicago since the lighted things in the terminal-tunnels at O'Hare--which for some reason we're always finding ourselves in though we've never been to the city itself--just because we were stocking up on bratwurst and sauerkraut is, in a word, tragic. Thankfully, our ready and willing replacement picked up on it, but we feel compelled to add our two cents, as well as posting a couple of the better responses we've seen.

We like Calatrava. In the middle of the World Trade Center shitshow, he was the one who came in and did a nice little drawing of a bird instead of freedom-mongering like Danny or who-knows-mongering like Larry. Yes, the PATH station might look like a stegosaurus (which we SO called the day of the unveiling only to be ripped off by certain other "real" journalists years later), but really, with what some critics (we've got to recuse from this one) have called a B+ SOM building standing as the alleged centerpiece (assuming it'll get built) and the slightly unimaginative, albeit successful, reflecting pools, we'd say there's room for a literal dinosaur. And the NYC tower with the box apartments hanging off of it looks incredibly cool and, if nothing else, has newly reminded us that we've really got to find a rich patron.

But this? We're just not sure. Looks like a big screw. And as much as we can be into that at appropriate junctures, we're still trying to figure out what, besides its height and not-straightness, is so sweet about it. A quick sampling of criticism reveals similar doubts:

wake me up when this one's over.

....

underground unicorn

Yeah. But we're educable.