[wyliepoon]

As promised, here are my photos from the Modern Skyscrapers Tour by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.

Chicago Federal Center complex by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1959-74) are the classic black box towers in the same style that we in Toronto are familiar with through the TD Centre. Like the original TD Centre, the Federal Center is composed of two black towers plus a pavilion, in this case, the Loop post office.

Entrance arcade of the Citadel Center by DeStafano + Associates with Ricardo Bofill

Inland Steel Building (1957 by SOM) introduced new concepts such as completely unobstructed floor space (by locating the elevator/service core in a tower beside the office space), stainless steel cladding, and something we Torontonians are familiar with... green glass! It was the first new office tower built in downtown Chicago since the Great Depression.

Chase Tower (1969) is noted for its curved facade

55 West Monroe (1980), Helmut Jahn's first significant skyscraper design, reflects the skyscrapers that surround it.

One South Dearborn (2005) has an attractive plaza with a parallelogram pattern in everything, from pavement to glass to benches.

In the lobby of One South Dearborn, there are pits of fist-sized balls of melted glass which are lit from below at night.

Richard J Daley Center (1965) was for a while Chicago's tallest building, despite having only 31 floors. It houses courtrooms that require extra floor height. The Cor-Ten steel structure strengthens itself as it rusts to a brownish-red colour. In front of the Center is The Picasso, designed by the famous artist, and resembles different things when viewed from different angles.

James R Thompson Center (1985 by Murphy/Jahn) was closed on the day of my tour, so I was unable to check out the massive atrium inside.

120 North LaSalle (1991 by Murphy/Jahn)

181 West Madison (right, 1990 by Cesar Pelli) is a tribute to Eliel Saarinen's famous competition design for the Chicago Tribune Building. Next door is Moriyama & Teshima's Chase Plaza, incorporating a facade from 1912 by Holabird & Roche. Aren't we Canadians so good at facadism?

Entrance to 181 West Madison

Lobby of 181 West Madison

190 South LaSalle by John Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson is a postmodern masterpiece in Chicago, borrowing its gabled roofs from the now-demolished early skyscraper, the Masonic Temple.

Lobby of 190 South LaSalle

No need to introduce this landmark to you!

After this tour, it was a trip on the Red Line out of the Loop to visit Wrigley Field. It happened that the Chicago Cubs were out of town the weekend I was there, and tours were offered at Wrigley Field. Despite the hefty admission price of $25 (which goes to the Cubs' charity), I decided that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and went.

Men's washroom featuring trough urinals

The suites

View from the concession area on the upper deck of the ballpark

Visitors' locker room... smallest in MLB

Walkway behind the famous bleacher seats

Manually operated scoreboard

Cubs' locker room

Cubs' dugout

A few shots of Wrigleyville, the area surrounding the ballpark...

The famous buildings across the street from Wrigley Field with rooftop seating.

A note about baseball in Chicago. It's really hard to understand the rivalry between the Cubs and the White Sox until you have really met up with a bunch of people from Chicago. The SSP guys from Chicago usually spend their time talking about skyscrapers, but occasionally their discussions digress into big Cubs-Sox debates, with lots of name calling.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Wylie: Good CHI pix! I remember the Calder Stabile at the Federal Plaza,the First National Bank building(now Chase)center with the 1st Clock- and it is too bad the State of Illinois Building/James Thompson building was closed-the atrium is incredibly neat-go to one of the top floors to really get a feel of it and the good Wrigley Field pix-I fully understand the CHI baseball rivalry-my Uncle and Cousin were big-time White Sox fans being from the SW side of the City-my cousin called the Cubs the Flubs as an example. Memories and observations from LI MIKE

 

[Zephyr]

Thanks for the pictures wylie'.

• Don't agree with you about the Phillip Johnson building being a "masterpiece," but to each his own.
  
  
• In NYC I become a Yankee fan, in the Bay Area of California I become a Giant fan, in Toronto I have no choice, I become a Jays fan, but when in Chicago ... I don't become anything, because I am now a devoted Sox fan, meaning of course White Sox since there are some fans from Boston that live there as well. Wish I could have seen the two stadia side-by-side, U.S. Cellular Field has underwent major renovations although it is not an old ballpark, but that was not your tour. I guess if you had to pick one - Wrigley Field is the more photogenic, and certainly the more historic. And to think, at one point Wrigley was the last Major League baseball field to have no night games, because the people in that neighbourhood made sure that there would be no lights allowed with their constant protests of any proposals. Now the lights look like they have always been there, and with its expansion of the bleachers and several other changes, it still looks like a classic ol' ballyard.
  
  
• "Inland Steel Building (1957 by SOM) ... was the first new office tower built in downtown Chicago since the Great Depression." The tour guides should have substituted "Chicago Loop" for downtown, because the Prudential building (now called One Prudential Plaza) is downtown but outside the loop, and is a skyscraper that was built before Inland in 1955. Prior to the Prudential, the last skyscraper built in downtown Chicago was in 1934 - LaSalle Bank Building. And why do I mention this non-descript depression era bank at all, because the world's first skyscraper, Home Insurance Building, stood on the western part of the site and was demolished to make way for this building.

 

[junctionist]

This building really stood out for me:

Any info on it?

 

[shumoon]

^ That building is the First United Methodist Church of Chicago, located at 77 W. Washington St. This Gothic style highrise was designed in 1924 by the architecture firm Holabird and Roche. It is also known as the Chicago Temple Building. The building rises 23 stories. Its peak culminates with a pointy spire above a "sky chapel" which was installed in 1952. Offices occupy the intermediate floors. It is distinguished as the tallest church building in the world, though not the tallest church in the world.

 

[ProjectEnd]

Thats Ulmer Münster right? At least by spire height I think...