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THE CHRONICLE
I DECEMBER 6, 2010
ARTS & CULTURE I DECEMBER 6, 2010 I THE CHRONICLE
acre complex across from Wacker Drive between State and Dearborn streets, or what’s known as Marina City, was conceived by architect Bertrand Goldberg in 1959. He used “city” in its title because, as he saw it, a multi-use complex with residences and stores where people could live, work, shop, work out and dock their boats without leaving the complex was an urban architectural dream—a true symbol of Chicago’s “can-do” attitude. And although much of the managerial cohesiveness Goldberg envisioned isn’t intact 50 years later, his forward-thinking design—including the iconic Marina Towers, which grace album covers and serve as the backdrop for countless films—is still nothing short of revolutionary. Opening in 1962, Marina City was the first mixeduse complex in the U.S. to include housing. At the time they were built, the towers were the tallest apartment buildings in the world and one of the city’s first all-electric buildings. On Nov. 22, the Portland Cement Association, which provided technical support for Marina City in the early 1960s, hosted a press conference to celebrate 50 years. Marina City began construction on Nov. 22, 1960. The conference honored the opening of “one of the most complex urban buildings ever built,” Goldberg’s son Geoffrey Goldberg said in a press release. The complex’s now 50-year-old design and functionality prefigured urban recovery, according to Pulitzer Prize winner Blair Kamin, architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune. “It was really an early indication downtown Chicago was not going to go the way of downtown Detroit, for example, or other Midwestern cities where the downtown cities collapsed and were overcome with suburban development,” Kamin said. During that era, many people were fleeing downtown for suburbia, and jobs in the city were disappearing, not least for the janitors who cleaned the buildings downtown, Kamin explained. In an attempt to counteract the economic shift, the union that represented the janitors helped fund the complex. Marina City cost $36 million to build. “It symbolizes that original attitude of rolling up our sleeves and saying ‘We can do anything; we can build the biggest apartment building in the world,’” said Steven Dahlman, editor for Marina City Online, a webonly publication devoted to aggregating the history and news of the complex. “Chicago always led the world in architecture, and I think Marina City is a very important symbol of that attitude.” As for the design’s uniqueness, Goldberg broke from the straitlaced, rectilinear urban designs dominant in the ’60s, Kamin said. He also used concrete as his primary material for the two towers, though steel was commonly used at the time. “They have a marvelous cylindrical quality to them, and they’ve been compared to corn cobs,” Kamin said, referring to Marina Towers. “Their floor plans also resemble the petals of a flower. They have a central cylindrical core, and they have petal-like balconies that form their perimeter.” Goldberg found the rectangle stifling.Curves were more naturalistic and organic, and they related more to human beings, Kamin added. THE THREE-AND-A-HALF
“I mean, after all we’re not blockheads, right?” Kamin said. “We have curves too.” Sitting right on the Chicago River, Marina City is a piece of sculpture, and there’s no better place to view an architectural sculpture top-to-bottom than next to a body of water, Kamin said, because there’s nothing to impede the view. “[Goldberg] really anticipated many of the more free-form naturalistic architecture of today like Frank Gehry, who was revolting against the sterility of the box,” Kamin said. Dahlman, who began MarinaCityOnline.com in 2005, owns a studio in the west Marina Tower and rents a one-bedroom apartment in the east tower. After photographing the structure many times, Dahlman said his fascination with Marina City grew and he was unable to find a news site or publication devoted to the subject. A professional photographer, former news reporter and writer, Dahlman plans to publish Marina City’s biography as a book after he organizes the historical information he’s uncovered. Though Dahlman admits there are probably nicer places to live in the city, he said people who live in the residential buildings recognize they are living in a slice of Chicago history. Tim Wittman, an architectural historian, historic preservationist and adjunct art and design faculty member at Columbia, worked for the city landmarks commission for 13 years. He teaches a course called Architecture in Chicago Now, in which he takes his students on walking architecture tours every week. Wittman interviewed Goldberg for a proposed but never initiated landmark designation in 1995. The other buildings, with the exception of the two towers, were financially threatened at that time when the bank that owned them went bankrupt, and many of the tenants started to move out as a result, he said. But a new owner opened the House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn St., in place of the vacant theater, and the Hotel Sax, 333 N. Dearborn St., replaced the office building, which eliminated the urgency.
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MARINA CITY FACTS The Marina Towers are featured on Wilco's 2002 “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” and included in a collage on Sly and the Family Stone's album 1971 “There's a Riot Goin' On.” Marina City also appeared in “The Bob Newhart Show” (1972–1978), “The Hunter" (1980), “Knight Rider” (1985), “Nothing In Common” (1986), and "Cradle 2 the Grave” (2003). Former White House press secretary James Brady, singer John Denver, Yvonne Daniels, the first female disc jockey at WLS Chicago, and Max Robinson, who was the first African-American network news anchor in the U.S., are among some of the famous residents of the Marina Towers. Originally, Marina City was intended to accommodate 1,000 boats. That was later changed to 700 boats, then 500 boats. Today, 12 boats might be a conservative estimate.
“Goldberg was about four or five decades ahead of everyone else thinking about green design,” Wittman said. As for the “city within a city” idea, Goldberg originally proposed, multi-use complexes for maximum efficiency were an entirely new concept during that era, Wittman said. And by the second half of the 20th century, people were starting to segregate the landscape by use, he said. For example, a shopping district exists in one area, and a residential district in another area. “Goldberg’s idea was to put it all on one site, and that’s exactly what people are designing now,” Wittman said. “Creating a multi-use facility is the biggest idea in the past 10 years. Well, no it’s not. Goldberg did it in 1960.” However, the cohesiveness Goldberg intended did not last 50 years. “The sad thing for Gold-Blair Kamin berg was he always imagined the thing would be one entity that would be coordinated—there would be a “The project to designate Marina City was dropped management company that would be looking over in favor of other more pressing issues,” Wittman said. the whole building,” he said. “It’s not that it’s unworthy of being a landmark, but But when the original financer went bankrupt, the it’s really hard to designate something that new.” building ended up in the hands of a Texas bank during Wittman agrees the design and functionalthe savings and loans crisis of 1988–1991, Wittman ity of the buildings were groundbreaking because explained. The buildings were sold in pieces. So now Goldberg seemed to anticipate modern themes Marina City has hundreds of owners, especially after in architecture. Specifically, Goldberg designed a turning the apartment buildings into condos. green air conditioning system before they called “Goldberg’s vision was a much more coopit green, he said. erative [one],” Wittman said. “One management “The air conditioning system has no condensers company would make the decisions, and that and no chemistry,” Wittman said. “They take advanpart of it has not worked. From an architecture tage of the location of the building being next to the and design standpoint, the building has largely river, and they siphon water out of the river, filter and been a success. But from a financial managepump it through pipes and radiators, and they blow ment standpoint, some parts have worked much air through the radiators.” better than others.” Marina City’s air conditioning system requires little to no maintenance, a minimal amount of electricity and doesn’t create pollution, according to Wittman. hbloom@chroniclemail.com
IT WAS REALLY AN EARLY INDICATION DOWNTOWN CHICAGO WAS NOT GOING TO GO THE WAY OF DOWNTOWN DETROIT.
ANNIVERSARY MARKS MARINA CITY AS ONE OF CHICAGO’S CROWNING ARCHITECTURAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS TO DATE
STORY BY MINA BLOOM DESIGN BY JONATHAN ALLEN PHOTOGRAPHY BY BROCK BRAKE
Courtesy of Terry’s Photography (1960)
Courtesy of Steven Dahlman (1967)