Founded on the shores of Lake Michigan in 1833, Chicago is the industrial and commercial hub of America’s Midwest. The construction of railroads and a canal connecting the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River rapidly inflated the business taking place in Chicago and the city grew quickly. With the growth of commerce came a need for dramatically increased office space. Builders and architects responded to this need by creating enormous structures, many of which still stand today, as long-term solutions to the real estate needs of a busy city. Reflecting its strength as a business center as well as a place where design and function come together, Chicago’s landmark buildings and historic skyscrapers:
Sears Tower
Sears Tower: Amid the various peaks of the Chicago skyline, a tower of steel and glass juts up from the city floor for more than a quarter mile. Built for Sears, Roebuck & Company, and completed in 1973, the 110-story Sears Tower contains about 3.5 million square feet of rentable office and retail space. At a cost of more than $175 million, the Sears tower took area of 16 city blocks and stacked them into the sky. Sears Tower held the place of “World’s Tallest Building” for about 25 years before losing its position to new towers built in South Asia. A tour of The Windy City will not be complete without startlingly fast ride to a view of Chicago from Sears Tower’s Skydeck.
1. Adler Planetarium Sundial & Sears Tower, 2. Sears Tower EyeCatching_1, 3. Sears Tower, 4. sears tower, 5. Chicago, Skyline. Sears Tower, drive To Nashville5.20.06 090.jpg
Tribune Tower
Tribune Tower: The tower’s design was chosen through a global competition for what publisher Col. Robert R. McCormick dubbed “the most beautiful office building in the world.” Completed in 1925 to the design of winning architects Howells and Hood, the 36-story tower is a monumental gothic skyscraper. The long rectangle of the lower portions of the tower connects to a crowned top with flying buttresses topped with gargoyles illustrating the values and vices of humanity. If you visit the tower at night, you’ll see the gothic features illuminated by by floodlights against a backdrop of Chicago’s skyline.
1. 2008 Tribune Tower, Chicago, IL, 2. Tribune Tower flyng buttresses, 3. Tribune tower, 4. Tribune Tower Buttresses - Tribune Tower, Chicago, IL, 5. 2008 Tribune Tower at Night, Chicago, IL
The Carbide & Carbon Building
The Carbide & Carbon Building: Built in 1929, the C&C is one of Chicago’s premier examples of an Art Deco skyscraper. The structure is 503 feet tall and is separated into 37 floors that initially housed the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation until converted for its current tenant: Hard Rock Hotel Chicago. Atop the tower of polished black granite with green terra cotta details, a smaller tower covered in gold foil is lit at night and gives the building a look similar to a bottle of champagne.
1. 2008 Carbide & Carbon Building, Chicago, IL, 2. Carbide and Carbon building, 3. Tulips, 4. IMG_0148.JPG, 5. Carbon and Carbide Building
Mather Tower
Mather Tower: The 42-story, 521-foot Mather Tower embraced the “Jazz Age” Chicago zoning ordinance that called for setback towers. Herbert Riddle’s design used layer upon layer of setback in his terra cotta-encrusted gothic design to create a tower that visually launches into the sky like the rockets conjured by the tower’s shape in a viewer’s mind. Restored in 2006, the upper floors of the tower contain a members-only hotel while offices occupy the rest of the space.
Board of Trade Building
The Board of Trade Building: Designed by Holabird & Root, the 605-foot tall Chicago Board of Trade Building was constructed in 1930 at a cost of more than $11 million. In respect to the city’s initiative to build skyscrapers with multiple setbacks to allow more light onto city streets, the building’s vertical elements are cut periodically by dramatic setbacks. Paying dramatic homage to its Art Deco design, the exterior of the building features numerous inlays and sculptures. A 31-foot tall aluminum statue of Ceres tops the building with a face devoid of features due to the sculptor’s belief that no building in Chicago would ever be tall enough to afford a close view of the sculpture.
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Chicago Water Tower
Chicago Water Tower: The only public building to survive the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 only two years after its construction, the water tower if often viewed as a link to Chicago’s past. The second-oldest water tower in the world, the structure held a massive standpipe 138 feet high that created tremendous water pressure used for fighting fires and supplying water during high-use times. The standpipe was later retired but the water tower remains as a link between the hollowed-out logs that formed Chicago’s first municipal water lines and the modern triumphs that bring fresh water to millions daily.
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The Wrigley Building
The Wrigley Building: Modeled after the Sevile Cathedral’s Giralda Tower in Spain, the white terra cotta of the Wrigley Building’s two towers covers a?structure?that is both innovative and reminiscent of the past. Finished in 1924, the Wrigley Building was constructed by William Wrigley, Jr as a world headquarters for his highly successful chewing gum company. A stand-out feature of the Wrigley building is the clock tower with its four dials, each 19-feet in diameter with 9 foot-long minute hands. A computer database in maintained to track the?maintenance?and and location of every terra cotta tile on the Wrigley Building.
1. 2008 Wrigley Building, Chicago, IL, 2. Wrigley Building, 3. Chicago - Wrigley Building, 4. Wrigley Building, 5. The Wrigley Building @ Night
35 East Wacker The Jewelers Building
35 East Wacker: First called Jewelers Building, the 40-story, 523 foot building was constructed in 1927 and spent a few years as the tallest building in America outside New York City. In keeping with other towers constructed during the same period, 35 East Wacker has a dramatic setback before culminating in a smaller domed tower. The four turrets that top each corner of the set back initially held tanks of water used as an early fire prevention system. The tanks have long since been removed, but the remaining turrets remind visitors of the days when the Great Chicago Fire was still a vivid memory to Chicagoans.
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The Manhattan Building
The Manhattan Building: Designed by William LeBaron Jenney in 1891, the Manhattan Building was the first high-rise building constructed using a steel framework more than 15 stories tall. Massive bay windows allow light into the building while a granite exterior gives way to brick on the upper floors in an aesthetically pleasing effort to reduce the building’s weight. Without interior columns or other support structures common in modern skyscrapers, the Manhattan Building is a remarkable testament to the surviving power of its innovative construction.
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Tags: chicago office buildings, historic chicago buildings, skyscrapers
