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The Sears Tower (now Willis Tower) looks quite different from the Hancock Tower.

Although many confuse the Hancock Center and the Sears Tower (both are Black super-towers in Chicago), the Hancock Center is unique in that it is a single tapered tower while the Sears Tower consists of several individual towers that give the structure its collective strength. With a single steel exoskeleton with a tapered shape, the 100-story tower is visibly unique from all other buildings in Chicago. 

John Hancock Center

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Midcentury Modern is defined as a significant aesthetic and design movement that took place roughly between 1945-1975. Midcentury Modern architecture was influenced by the straight lines and symmetry of the International and Bauhaus movements, yet it incorporated a more organic, natural form in its designs. Midcentury Modern architecture sought to bring the outdoors in through large open interiors and windows. Chicago's central business district and other nearby neighborhoods possess several notable Midcentury Modern buildings. Beginning with Astor Tower in the Gold Coast and moving along to the famous John Hancock Building, the tour continues south to visit such buildings as  Goldberg's Marina City and the Inland Steel Building. The tour then features the famous Willis Tower (formally known as the Sears Tower), and ends with Goldberg's lesser-known work of River City.

<p>It was during the late 1950s that Bertrand Goldberg finally established himself as one of the elite Chicago architects. While the Astor Tower one of his lesser-known designs, the building is a significant example of Goldberg’s architectural development. The design of Astor Tower occurred shortly before the design of his famous Marina City complex, yet the two buildings were constructed around the same time in the early 1960s. Astor Tower was very unique in its construction in that the building is centered around a poured concrete core that contains the elevators, stairs, and utilities. Being centered around this core meant that each unit of the building was a corner unit. Goldberg considered Astor Tower as a prototype for Marina City, as he would use the same internal concrete core structure method for both buildings. He knew that the first five stories of the building would be less desirable due to the limited views, so he simply lifted the building up five stories, set it on stilts, and exposed the concrete core. Elevating Astor Tower in such a way created more usable space on the ground level for car circulation. On the building’s exterior once existed a system of louvred blinds intended to control light and protect the actual windows, with each unit being in control of its blinds. The frequent shifting of the louvre positions on Astor Tower’s exterior created an animated appearance on the 25-story building that Goldberg described as “a happening.”&nbsp;</p><p>When Astor Tower opened in 1962, it was known as the Astor Tower Hotel, a high-end hotel catering to Chicago’s elite. Goldberg envisioned Astor Tower as being the more affluent Marina City. In its basement, a replica of France’s famous Maxim’s de Paris restaurant became one of Chicago’s premiere establishments. Such celebrities as Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, Woody Allen, Audrey Hepburn, and even the Beatles would become guests of the Astor. In 1966, the Astor witnessed one of the most memorable events in modern music history: the end of Beatlemania. On August 11, 1966 in a conference room of the Astor Tower Hotel, John Lennon formally apologized for saying that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Many music historians consider that event as the official end of Beatlemania.</p>The prestige of the Astor Tower Hotel began to wane by the 1970s, and at the end of the decade the hotel formally closed and was converted into condominiums known today as Astor Tower. Maxim’s also closed its doors in the 1980s and the space was given to the City of Chicago which converted it into the Nancy Goldberg International Center. Then, during a renovation project in 1996, the building’s louvred blinds were removed, exposing the windows for the first time. Today, Astor Tower lives a peaceful existence in the Gold Coast neighborhood, and stands as a reminder of Chicago’s luxurious past.

Designed and constructed around the same time as his Marina City complex, one of Bertrand Goldberg’s lesser-known buildings offers prime real estate in the middle of the Gold Coast neighborhood. Bertrand considered Astor Tower as a prototype for Marina City, as he would use the same internal concrete core structure method for both buildings. Astor Tower became a 25-story high-end hotel situated on five-story stilts to offer views of the exposed concrete core. The building served as a hotel until its conversion into apartments in 1979. Astor Tower is most famously remembered as the site where Beatlemania officially ended on August 11, 1966.

Astor Tower

<p>The concept of Prentice Women’s Hospital began in 1970 when the Passavant Deaconess Hospital and Wesley Hospital consolidated. Bertrand Goldberg was commissioned that year to design the new hospital, which combined the once separate facilities of Chicago Maternity obstetrics, gynecology, and Northwestern Institute of Psychiatry under one roof. Remaining true to his Modernist architecture philosophies, Goldberg designed one of the most unique and recognized Brutalist style buildings in the modern era. Perched atop a 5-story rectangular base sat a 9-story concrete cantilevered quatrefoil (cloverleaf shape) tower. Prentice Women’s Hospital became the first building in the world to be constructed with the use of CAD, computer-aided design. The cantilevered design of the concrete tower eliminated the need for structural support columns which opened up more interior space and created more design flexibility. Inside the concrete tower, each floor was arranged in quadrants with the center core possessing four nursing stations that were each responsible for a small group of patients placed along the outer perimeter of the floor. This design revolutionized the model of patient care.</p><p>Prentice Women’s Hospital opened in 1975 and continued to operate until 2007 when Northwestern moved operations into a newly constructed hospital nearby. Instead of repurposing Goldberg’s Brutalist creation, Northwestern made plans to demolish the building in order to construct a new facility at the same location. Preservationists, architects, planners, and other like-minded groups and individuals came together to protest the hospital’s demolition. A five-year battle ensued to save the building. Northwestern University ultimately won the battle and received a demolition permit in March 2013. The demolition of the Prentice Women’s Hospital began in October 2013 and continued into 2014. The National Trust for Historic Preservation cited the hospital as one of their ten historic sites lost in 2013.</p><p>The demolition of the Brutalist styled Prentice Women’s Hospital marked a significant loss for modern architecture. While the building was not aesthetically appealing, and in many ways quite ugly, the sheer uniqueness of its design warranted its preservation for future generations. Many preservationists and architects consider the loss of the Prentice Women’s Hospital comparable to the loss of Penn Station in New York City – the careless demolition of a priceless structure for the sake of real estate development.</p>

On this site previously stood the first Prentice Women’s Hospital, often considered one of Chicago’s greatest architectural works. Designed by Bertrand Goldberg in 1972 and completed in 1975, the hospital was revolutionary for its time. The Brutalist style building consisted of a concrete quatrefoil tower that sat atop a five-store rectangular base. Goldberg combined many separate facilities into one unit, thereby conserving space and improving the functionality of a hospital design system. The hospital was in use from 1975 to 2011 when it was finally vacated with the intent on demolition. The Chicago Landmarks Commission, preservationists, and many prominent architects all rallied to support the preservation of the hospital. But after two unsuccessful years of negotiations, the building from demolition by Northwestern University and a new one constructed in its place.

First Prentice Women's Hospital

<p>Post-war America witnessed a sudden middle-class migration from urban to suburban, mostly due in part to an aging urban infrastructure and the prospects of suburban life and all that it offered for growing families. Chicago, among other major metropolitan cities, suffered greatly during this time of transition. By the mid-1950s, a revitalization project led by Chicago’s newly elected mayor, Richard J. Daley, worked to reestablish downtown Chicago and its waterfront as a center the city and its economic future. To make the Loop more attractive to singles or childless couples who preferred living in downtown urban areas, constructing a new housing complex was proposed. Working in partnership with the Building Service Employees International Union (BSEIU), who mostly financed Marina City, Mayor Daley secured a reliable backer for the new housing project. The president of the BSEIU, William McFetridge, selected Chicago native Bertrand Goldberg as the architect.</p><p>Bertrand Goldberg was born in Chicago in 1913, and first became interested in architecture in 1930 as an undergraduate student at Harvard University. Two years later, Goldberg traveled to Berlin, Germany where he studied architecture at the Bauhaus, an avant-garde school of art and design. During his time spent in Berlin, he absorbed the theories surrounding the school’s philosophy that art and design can improve the human experience, which would later influence his architectural designs. Goldberg also spent a short, but influential, three months working under Mies van der Rohe, one of the most influential modernist architects. However, the Nazi Party rose to power in January 1933. The political turmoil caused by the Nazis and the potential danger of being a Jew in Germany forced Goldberg to return to Chicago in early 1933. In 1934, he continued his education at the Armour Institute of Technology, now the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he eventually earned his degree. By 1937, Goldberg opened his own design firm that came to be known as Bertrand Goldberg Associates (BGA).</p><p>The housing project went through four different redesign phases before finally being set in December 1959. By the time Goldberg was selected as architect for downtown Chicago’s new housing project, he had already been experimenting with the use of cylindrical forms in design, and all four of Goldberg’s housing complex plans included cylindrical designs. He explained the design rationale in 1960: “I also feel that there is a terrible need to get people out of boxes. Those long hallways with scores of doors opening anonymously are inhuman. Each person should retain his own relation to the core. It should be the relation of the branch to the tree, rather than of cell to the honeycomb.” The final project plan included five buildings: two 60-story cylindrical apartment buildings, a ten-story office building, a cinema, and a two-story base on which the entire complex sat. Within the base building and in the lower levels of the office building, the project team aimed to lease space for a bowling alley, gym, skating rink, bank, grocery store, liquor store, drug store, barber shop, beauty salon, travel agency, flower shop, coffee shop, and restaurants. A 70-boat marina was also planned on site to provide residents with opportunities for recreation on the Chicago River.&nbsp;</p><p>Construction officially began on Marina City on November 22, Thanksgiving Day, 1960 during a highly celebrated groundbreaking ceremony. Work on the housing complex ensued at an almost frantic pace; alternating between the two towers, the crews completed one floor per day or a floor per tower every other day. Of the 60-stories per tower, the first twenty floors were parking spaces for the residents and the upper 40-floors offered 896 apartments. The cylindrical design of the two towers created a pie-shaped layout for the apartments, providing large windows and balconies for each unit. The cylindrical, pie-shaped exterior of the two towers resembled that of two corn-cobs, which later became the nickname for the two apartment buildings. Tenants were able to move into the east tower in October 1963, and then the west tower opened in early 1963. The completion of the Marina Towers, they were the tallest apartment buildings in the world and the tallest buildings constructed with reinforced concrete. The rest Marina City complex, the “city within a city,” was not complete in its entirety until the mid-1960s. While mixed-use developments were not a new concept, Goldberg’s Marina City was the first attempt at a mixed-use development on such a grand scale.&nbsp;</p><p>Marina City quickly became one of Chicago’s most iconic landmarks and sought-after housing complexes, as Goldberg’s idea of a 24-hour, self-sustaining community came to fruition. The use of the housing complex to bring more residents back into Chicago’s urban center worked and worked successfully. Marina Towers became something of a tourist attraction, with at least 12,000 people visiting the&nbsp;model units per month during the first few years of its operation. The towers remained rental apartments until 1977 when they were converted to condominiums. After that point, out-of-state investors began purchasing holdings of the property, and the condition of the buildings began to deteriorate. Then in 1994, John Marks purchased the commercial buildings of the complex for $3.35 million and began renovating the commercial spaces: the office building was converted into a hotel, the theatre became a live entertainment venue, and the skating rink was converted into a restaurant space.</p><p>Marina City remains a mixed-use complex today, offering a wide variety of entertainment, dining, recreation, and lodging. The architectural and cultural significance of Marina City is such that it was designated as a Chicago Landmark on March 16, 2016.</p>

Situated just outside of Chicago’s Loop District on the north side of the river, Marina City, also known as the "Corn Cob Towers," has been one of the city’s most iconic landmarks since its completion in 1967. Noted for its unique nature-inspired curvilinear architecture and reinforced concrete construction, Marina City is the brainchild of the world-renowned modernist architect Bertrand Goldberg. Goldberg studied architecture at the Bauhaus in Germany and worked under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, known as one of the pioneers of modernist architecture. The idea behind Goldberg’s Marina City was to draw middle-class Chicagoans back into the city after twenty years of post-war suburban migration. Blending a unique architectural style with utility, Goldberg envisioned the complex to be a city within a city that combined residential, office, retail, and entertainment spaces. When completed the five-building Marina City complex offered Chicagoans two 65-story residential towers, a 10-story office building, a bowling alley, an ice rink, retail shopping space, a restaurant, a cinema, gym, and a small marina. Marina City remains a highly sought-after residential complex and became an official Chicago Landmark on March 16, 2016.

Marina City, Chicago

<div>The former International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) Building, now known as 330 North Wabash Avenue, was completed in 1972 by noted Chicago architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It was his final design and included numerous engineering innovations to support its height, and at the time of its completion, this was the third-tallest building in Chicago.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>Buildings constructed earlier in the century dominated the Chicago skyline&nbsp;until the late 1950s, when resumption of commercial building signaled the arrival of what became known as the "Second Chicago School" or Second School architecture. The Second School's most influential figure was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a native of Germany who served as one of the major pioneers in the development of modernism in Europe. <br><br>Ludwig Mies van der Rohe immigrated to the United States and arrived in Chicago in 1937. He&nbsp;assumed the headship of the School of Architecture at Chicago's Armour Institute of Technology (later Illinois Institute of Technology. Several of his influential European contemporaries such as Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer also came to the United States during the 1930s. Together, these architects&nbsp;sought to challenge current building design&nbsp;just as the original Chicago School architects had done. Together, these architects created designs based on 20th century modernism.<br></div><div><br></div><div>IBM traces its roots back to the 1880s when it produced such business machines as recording clocks and tabulating machines. The company hired Mies van der Rohe in 1966 to build the company's regional headquarters. By the late 1960s, the IBM Corporation had grown into an international giant with offices and plants in the United States, Europe, and Asia, employing more than 240,000 people and generating more than $6.8 billion by 1968.&nbsp;&nbsp;<div><br></div></div><div>At the time of the commission, Mies was eighty years old and had a resume that included seven decades of skyscraper and building construction throughout the world. The building is an outstanding example Mies' work, with trademark features shared by other Modern Movement architects. The 670-foot-tall IBM building enjoys a geometric, rectilinear box design, noted for its lightness that's expressed by the expansive glass and anodized-bronze tinted aluminum curtain walls.&nbsp; The windows of the curtain wall are taller than they are wide, expressing verticality and encouraging the onlooker's eye to move skyward. The I-beams also extend from the windows and reinforce the verticality of the building, typical of Mies' designs.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Upon completion in 1972, the building ranked as the city's third tallest building, which required innovative engineering. For instance, The engineers had to account for the force of wind against the exterior, which creates an air pressure imbalance between the inside of the building and the outside, which can result in water getting sucked through tiny holes in the office walls. Mies' team devised small shielded ports in the wall that balanced the pressure and prevented any water seepage. The building's electrical system and floor strength, along with the room heights, were all designed with IBM computer systems in mind. The building also included state of the art air conditioning, controlled by computer systems designed by IBM and tied to a weather station located on the roof and able to account for heating differences attached to which side of the building was experiencing the highest sun exposure.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Though Mies' designed the building, which was approved and finalized in July 1969, he died before construction started. Thus, it is his last design. An honorary bust of Mies sculpted by Italian expressionist, Marino Marini (1901-1980), was unveiled in the building lobby when the building officially opened for business.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>IBM moved out of the building in the 1990s as modern-world computer systems, personal computers,&nbsp;and inter-networking&nbsp;systems (&nbsp;(Internet) supplanted IBM's dominance. As such, the building is as much a monument to its architect as it is the twentieth-century business climate noted for its mainframe computers (notably after WWII), large office buildings and central, downtown locations.&nbsp;</div>

The IBM Building, now known as 330 North Wabash, was erected in Chicago in 1972. The building was the last skyscraper designed by the distinguished Second School architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who died before its completion. The building serves as a monument to the dominance of IBM within the late twentieth-century business world. IBM, at the time of the building's design, employed more than 240,000 people and generated more than $6.8 billion in revenue. The building is now home to the headquarters of the American Medical Association and the Langham Hotel.

Chicago's IBM Building (AMA Plaza and Langham Hotel)

Originally known as the&nbsp;Standard Oil Company of Indiana building, or "Big Stan," it later changed to the Amoco building and, finally (as it is known today), the Aon Center. Upon construction in 1973, it was the tallest building in the city and fourth tallest in the world, but the completion of the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower) quickly surpassed that mark by the following year. The building reminds one of the U.S. transition to oil from coal as its principal fuel, its economic importance, as well as the legacy of famous entrepreneurs arising out of the Gilded Age such as John Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil.&nbsp;<br><br>John Rockefeller, who exists as one of the country's wealthiest people, founded the Standard Oil Company in 1863 by investing in a struggling Cleveland, Ohio, refinery. By 1870, he established the name "Standard Oil," and by the early 1880s , controlled nearly 90 percent of all U.S. refineries and pipelines. Critics accused Rockefeller of engaging in unethical business practices and colluding with railroads. By 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court found Standard Oil in violation of anti-trust laws and ordered it to dissolve.<span>1<br></span><br>Its tie to Chicago can be found in the 1889 formation of a Whiting,&nbsp;Indiana refinery by Standard Oil.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><blockquote>By the mid-1890s, the Whiting plant had become the largest refinery the United States, handling 36,000 barrels of oil per day and accounting for nearly 20 percent of the total U.S. refining capacity. During these years, the company's main product was kerosene, which was used in lamps. By 1910, when it was connected by pipeline to oil fields in Kansas and Oklahoma, as well as Ohio and Indiana, the Whiting facility had about 2,400 workers. <br><br>In 1911, when the U.S. government forced Rockefeller to break up his oil giant, Standard of Indiana—which had its main offices in downtown Chicago—emerged as an independent company; it soon began to purchase oil wells of its own. During the 1910s, the company pioneered a new thermal “cracking” process, in which crude oil was processed under pressure in order to produce higher yields of gasoline. By this time, the beginning of the automobile age, gasoline had become the leading product of oil refineries. <br><br>In 1920, Standard Indiana ranked as the third-largest oil refiner in the United States, behind Standard New Jersey and Standard California. In 1925, when it already had more than 25,000 employees around the country, Standard Indiana merged with the American Oil Co. (Amoco). During the mid-1930s, the company employed about 7,000 people at its Whiting plant and Chicago offices. Standard Indiana ranked as the second-largest American oil company at the beginning of the 1950s, when annual sales grossed $1.5 billion. <br><br>In the early 1970s, when the company moved into new offices [to what is now the Aon Building], Standard Indiana still employed about 8,000 people in the area. In 1985, as annual sales neared $30 billion, the company changed its name to Amoco, which then ranked as the nation's sixth-largest oil company. By that time, Amoco and other leading oil companies were huge global corporations that not only refined oil but also explored and drilled for it; Amoco also had a large chemicals division. At the end of the 1990s, when Amoco employed about 4,000 people in the Chicago area, it merged with British Petroleum (BP). While most of the company's jobs still remained in Chicago by the early 2000s, Amoco's old operations had become known by the BP name, and management of the company was directed from London.2</blockquote><br><div>The building's construction inspired those designing the World Trade towers of New York City (which were destroyed in the attacks of September 11, 2001). &nbsp;Although largely successful, one aspect of failure involved its use of &nbsp;43,000 slabs of Carrara marble to cover its facade, making it --- at the time -- the worlds largest marble-clad building. However, a 350-pound slab of the rock fell through the roof of nearby Prudential Center in 1975, which eventually led to the marble being removed and replaced with Mount Airy white granite between the years 1990 and 1992.3&nbsp;<br><br></div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<br>Like many skyscrapers, the building has undergone several sales and involved many different major tenants, notably in the changing type of economy in the&nbsp;21st century.&nbsp;The 601W Companies, a New York private real-estate investment company, purchased the Aon Center for more than 700 million dollars, or $260 per square foot. The idea of creating Chicago's third observation deck (along with Willis Tower and the John Hancock Center) has been discussed, noting that it could generate tens of millions of dollars.4<br><br>From Rockefeller and the Gilded Age idea of industry to the 21st Century economy largely based on technology, service industry, and technology,5 the Aon Center is more than a majestic &nbsp;architectural piece, it's a monument to the broader idea of&nbsp;Chicago and American history.</div>

The Aon Center was completed in 1974 as the Standard Oil Building. It is 1,136 feet in height and has 83 floors. This makes it the third tallest building in Chicago. Only the Willis, formerly the Sears, Tower and the Trump International Hotel and Tower surpass it in height. The US operations of the company Aon are housed here. Aon is a British company whose main headquarters are in London. The services the company provides include risk management, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, investment banking, human resource solutions, and outsourcing.


The Aon Center

<div>The Daley Center an Plaza is named after longtime Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. The main building of the Daley Center was designed by Jacques Brownson of CF Murphy Associates. It was completed in 1965 and is an example of the international architectural style. The International Style began in the 1920s and 1930s. Characteristics of the style include the use of steel and glass in construction, large open interior spaces, and the use of cantilever construction. The Daley Center is home to over 120 court and hearing rooms, the Cook County Law Library, the Clerk of the Circuit Court offices, and certain divisions of the Sheriff's Department.&nbsp;<br></div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Adjacent to the center, Daley Plaza, is home to an untitled statue by Pablo Picasso measuring 50 feet in height. Other features of the plaza include a fountain, memorials for the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Interestingly, a public protester, named Farhad Khoiee-Abbasi, frequents the northwest corner of the plaza and has become a minor celebrity in the area. Little is known about him beyond his appearance and the cryptic signs he holds. He was first seen in 2006 holding a sign that read, "FBI Agent Chris Saviano, stop raping my wife!" He has also held signs speaking against former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (son of Richard J. Daley), former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and former President George W. Bush. It is also known that he was involved in an extensive and tense divorce. He has also been seen protesting in Washington DC and in New York City's Times Square.&nbsp;<br><br></div>

Located in the historic Loop of Downtown Chicago, the Daley Civic Center opened in 1966 and hosts various family friendly events. During the summer, the building's plaza regularly hosts various farmer's markets and ethnic festivals. It also hosts the city's famous Christmas tree every year.


Daley Civic Center

<div>The Inland Steel Company can trace its roots to the Chicago Steel Works, which produced farm equipment during the 1870s and 1880s. After that company had gone defunct, Rosell Buckingham acquired the equipment and sought investors or buyers in creating a new steel company. On October 30, 1893, the eight investors incorporated the Inland Steel Company, purchased the 40 rail cars of second-hand machinery from Roswell Buckingham and started operating out of Chicago Heights.&nbsp;<br></div><div><br></div><div>In 1901, the Inland Steel Company accepted an offer to build an open hearth steel plant on the southern tip of Lake Michigan in what is now known as Indiana Harbor. &nbsp;Monumental costs, nearing $1 million forced the company to sell some of it assets, but by 1914, Inland Steel was a full-production steel manufacturer operating on its new site. &nbsp;By 1917, Inland's annual production topped one million tons, and that number grew throughout the economically-booming 1920s. Even during the Great Depression, Inland Steel purchased several local steel companies; its power grew immensely.</div><div><br></div><div>Because Inland Steel enjoyed such financial strength and produced so much steel, Inland Steel was prepared to meet the demands during World War II. Under the federal government's Defense Plan Corporation, Inland built two additional blast furnaces and 146 coke ovens. The company broke production records by providing steel for bombs, shells, tanks, planes, and ships. As a result, the company received awards from the Army and Navy for "high achievement in the production &nbsp;of war material" and from the United States Maritime Commission for "outstanding achievement on vital wartime contracts."&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>After the war, Inland Steel shifted production back to consumer products so that by the mid-1950s, the company had emerged as the eighth largest steel manufacturer in the country, and the only major steel manufacturer located in Chicago. Thus, a need existed for developing a long-term plan, including building a modern headquarters, eventually leading to the construction of the Inland Steel Building.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill were chosen to design and head the project. The firm had previously designed buildings in the spirit of the International Style of Architecture, notably in New York. The Inland Steel Building was not the first postwar skyscraper built in Chicago, but it was the first truly modern construction, comprised mostly of a metal and glass exterior. In time, Chicago's skyline became dominated by massive glass and metal structures, such as the more-than-100-story buildings, the John Hancock and Sears Tower.&nbsp;<br><br>The American steel industry declined steadily during the 1960s and into the 1970s, but Inland Steel did not suffer as many other steel companies had done. By the late 1990s, Inland Steel was seen as a smart buy; it was purchased by Ispat International in 1998.&nbsp;<br><br>To look at the tower is to look at the once flourishing steel industry and its influence on America. The building also demonstrates modern construction, as well as a 20th-century need for large headquarters, something that has changed with the technological advances of the 21st century.&nbsp;</div>

Completed in 1958, the Inland Steel Building was the first modern glass skyscraper erected in downtown Chicago since 1934, during the interwar period. Built with dynamic stainless steel and glass curtain walls, Miesian-inspired exposed structural frame and unobstructed office floors, the Inland Steel Building demonstrated the significant gains made during the war and post-war years and represented a new boom in Chicago skyscraper construction. Meanwhile, the name points to the building's occupant, Inland Steel, reminding us of a time when the American steel industry flourished. 

Inland Steel Building

<p><p>Planning for new office space for
the Sears, Roebuck Co. began in the late 1960s, when Sears was generating 1
percent of the annual value of all the goods and services produced in the nation,
according to The Sears Tower by Craig and Katherine Doherty. A huge company
needed a huge headquarters. The company figured it would need enough room for
more than 13,000 Chicago area employees to meet its projected growth through
the end of the century.</p>

<p>After interviewing many
architects, Sears hired Skidmore, Owings &amp; Merrill, the architecture firm
that recently had completed Chicago’s John Hancock Center. The team included
Bruce Graham as lead architect and Fazlur Khan as structural engineer, a man
later called the “Einstein of Structural Engineering.”</p>

<p>Sears envisioned a building with
enormous floors, some of which would be rented out to other businesses before
Sears needed them for its own employees. Indeed, the first plan would have made
the Sears “tower” 40 stories of 110,000 square feet each. This would have been
just fine for Sears, but not for the other, much smaller businesses Sears had
hoped would rent space.</p>

<p>Each new plan called for an
increasingly vertical design, offering more floors with less space. When the
building design finally called for 104 stories, someone suggested that only six
more would create the world’s tallest building at 110 stories. Thus, a
skyscraper among skyscrapers—and the icon of Chicago—was conceived.&nbsp; According to the Tower’s website, visitors
can see four different states from the observation deck: Illinois, Indiana,
Wisconsin and Michigan.</p>

<p>Originally opened in September
1973, it is home to more than 100 different companies, including prominent
financial services firms, law firms and insurance companies. Built for Sears,
Roebuck and Company, the structure reaches 110 floors and a height of 1,451
feet (442 meters), excluding broadcast antennas and their supports. The
building today is considered to be the second tallest building in the United
States, and twelfth tallest building in the world. It is second to One World
Trade Center in New York City, which stands at 1,776 feet.&nbsp; The Willis Tower stands out from the rest of
the city’s skyline, even though Chicago includes some of the most spectacular
architecture anywhere. Offering more than 4.5 million square feet of office and
retail space, Willis Tower is the premier corporate office building in Chicago.</p>

<p>In the early 90’s of the past
century, the Sears’ financial fortunes changed. They sold the building in 1993 (another
version says 1988?) after moving to the suburbs. The building's name was left
unchanged until July 16, 2009, when it was renamed in to "Willis
Tower" for one of the skyscraper's tenants “Willis Group Holdings”, a
London-based global insurance broker.</p>

<p>Today, the Willis Tower is known
as the second tallest building in the United States (behind One World Trade
Center in New York City, which stands at a towering 1,776 feet tall) and the fifteenth
tallest building in the world.&nbsp; For
comparison, the world’s tallest building is nearly twice as high at 2, 717 feet
tall (the Burj Khalifa in Dubai)!</p></p>

The Willis Tower, formerly known as Sears Tower, is one of the most well-known skyscrapers in the world.  For a while, it was the tallest building in the world.  It had been named for one of the world’s largest retailers until recently, after it was purchased by Willis Group Holdings, an international insurance broker.  Willis Tower is a world-renown landmark building and a Chicago icon.

Skydeck on the Willis Tower’s 103rd floor, an observation deck, attracts more than 1.5 million visitors per year. In the early 21st century the Skydeck underwent a major renovation that included addition of “The Ledge”, four glass boxes that extend 4.3 feet (1.3 metres) from the building. The Ledge opened in 2009, offering a breathtaking view of the city of Chicago and the outlying area.


Willis Tower (Formerly the Sears Tower) 

<p>In 1968, after the success of his Marina City, Bertrand Goldberg envisioned the culmination of his “city within a city” concept with his River City project. From the beginning, River City was designed to be another mixed-use, high-density community along the Chicago River&nbsp;just outside of the Loop.&nbsp;</p><p>Construction began on River City II in 1983 and was completed in 1986. This mid-rise housing complex varied in height from eight to fifteen-stories and contained 446 dwelling units situated over four-stories of commercial space that included offices, restaurants, a gym, a private outdoor park, and a 70-boat marina. The façade of River City possesses vertically stacked curvilinear arches of each residential unit that is evocative of a railroad viaduct.&nbsp;</p><p>Unlike Marina City, River City did not offer balconies. Instead, the River City units possess clerestories on the interior that provides light from the inner atrium; and inside the atrium is River Road, a private concourse modeled after European streets that serves as the main artery for the building’s residents and visitors.&nbsp;</p><p>The River City II plan called for the extension of the snake-like structure, creating a small miniature “city within a city,” but that would ultimately never happen. A downturn in the real estate market during the mid-1980s stalled any construction for the foreseeable future. River City would be Bertrand Goldberg’s final urban housing project, and his dream of recreating urban society never fully came to fruition.</p>

Continuing the success of his design of Chicago's Marina City, Bertrand Goldberg built this complex as part of his “city within a city” concept that offered residents a blend of urban living within a community. In 1968, Goldberg put forth his River City project which offered a second mixed-use, high-density community along the Chicago River similar to his Marina City complex. Organized in groups of three 72-story tall cylindrical towers connected by skybridges, Goldberg intended to create a new concept of a city he hoped might inspire future developments. However, it took ten years for his architectural firm to acquire the necessary permits for such an ambitious building project. Ultimately, River City would be constructed horizontally instead of vertically and arranged in a snake-like fashion. River City would be Bertrand Goldberg’s final urban housing project. While it was a success, his vision of building a city-within-a-city as a model for urban development was only partially realized. 

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Midcentury Modern Architecture Tour

John Hancock Center

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