Chicago skyline guide

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Chicago's skyline is the world's tallest and easily ranks among its most magnificent. It boasts three of America's five tallest buildings and, if you include its antenna, the massive Sears Tower remains the tallest skyscraper in the world.

[edit] Understand

See Architecture for more on Chicago's skyscrapers and some of their shorter, notable counterparts.

In the late 19th century, Chicago's downtown was an ideal location for architects of ambition; the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 had literally gutted the downtown area, creating a relentless drive to re-build and ample space in which to do it. Chicago's architects solved the problem of the load-bearing wall, liberating structures from the limits of what a masonry foundation could support. Built in 1885, William LeBaron Janney's 10-story Home Insurance Building was the first to use a steel-frame skeleton to support its walls — at one-third of the weight of a structure using conventional means. Real estate prices and building heights soared in the years that followed, but the boom years of the 1920s financial bubble saw an unprecedented wave of skyscrapers that shattered previous records for size, including the still-extant Mather Tower, Tribune Tower, and later the Chicago Board of Trade.

The second wave, oddly enough, occurred during the 1960s and 70s, when urban centers across America were experiencing white flight and severe population decline. The answer of Chicago's first Mayor Daley was simple: build, and then build some more. As a result, while the residential population spread across a wide range of suburbs, commercial activity remained fixed at the center of the city. It was during this time when Chicago gained its most famous modern skyscrapers, including the three tallest: the Sears Tower, the Aon Center, and the John Hancock Center. (It was also during this time — as occurred during the first wave — when a giant swathe of early skyscrapers were recklessly demolished.)

The third wave of supertall construction is underway right now. Driven by downtown Chicago's current residential real estate boom, the hottest in the country, existing buildings are converting office space to condominiums and hotels, and builders are racing to erect what will be some of the world's tallest buildings, which may radically re-shape the city's skyline.

[edit] Views

Using this guide, you should be able to figure out what buildings you are looking at from any of Chicago's most popular skyline-gazing spots. The CTA Red Line is the best means for reaching most of the viewing points that follow; see individual district articles for more detailed directions.

The most popular views of Chicago's skyline are over Lake Michigan from the east. The two main locations for easterly views are:

The Loop view from Adler Planetarium:

and the Near North Side view from Navy Pier:

The clearest view from the North Side is at Uptown's Montrose Point:

The most popular view from the South Side is at US Cellular Field:

And a typical West Side view can be found at Ashland L Station on the CTA Green/Pink Line, near the United Center:

But perhaps even more remarkable are the views from the skyline itself, none of which are more spectacular than from the John Hancock Center Observatory:

[edit] Buildings

The following is a reference list of Chicago skyscrapers, in descending order by height, listed on the views maps. For directions, maps and information for buildings that are open to visitors, see individual district articles. All but one of these buildings can be found in the Loop and the Near North.

[edit] The top ten

• Sears Tower, : 233 S Wacker Dr. 1451 ft. The [[Chicago/Loop#See|Sears Tower]] remains [[North America]]'s and, depending on your criteria, the world's tallest skyscraper. It was built for Sears, Roebuck, and Company in 1974 by Bruce Graham of Skidmore, Owings, and Merill. The innovative design successfully handled the challenges of air flow and elevator/emergency support for an unprecedented number of people, but the employees at Sears' formerly collegial suburban campus complained that it handled the challenges ''too'' well — they never saw anyone outside their own departments any more! Sears is no longer the building's major tenant, but a number of other, small firms have offices in the building, which also features Chicago's most popular observation deck on the 103rd floor.
• Aon Center, : 200 E Randolph St. 1136 ft. Originally known as the Standard Oil Building, The Aon Center is [[United States of America|America's]] third tallest building, after the Empire State Building in [[New York (city)|New York]], and 14th tallest in the world. It was built in 1972 by architect Edward Stone and initially was faced with marble, but the windy city began to blow the marble off the sides of the building. The entire building had to be refaced with granite—a costly job at one-half of the entire building costs! It is named after the biggest: the Aon Corporation, a risk management firm.
• John Hancock Center, : 875 N Michigan Ave. 1127 ft. The [[Chicago/Near North#See|John Hancock Center]] is the fourth tallest skyscraper in the US and, if you include its very long antennae, the third tallest in the world from base to pinnacle. The building was a pioneer of several architectural features designed by Fazlur Khan, a Bangladeshi-American structural engineer. According to the logic of the structural expressionist school, these features are visible and emphasized, lending the building its originality. Most notable is the building's pioneering use of X-bracing—if you don't know what this means, you will when you see it. There is a great view from the Observation Deck on the 95th floor and a fine restaurant on the 94th.
• AT&T Corporate Center, : 227 West Monroe Street. 1007 ft. Built by Adrian Smith in 1989, the granite-clad AT&T Corporate Center is one of the city's more distinctive skyscrapers for its massive size, spiked roof pinnacles, and a style evocative of both Gothic and Japanese architectural styles. It is the eight tallest building in the US.
• Two Prudential Plaza, : 180 North Stetson Avenue. 995 ft. This tower was built and connected to the original Prudential One for the Prudential Financial Corporation in 1990. It is the eleventh tallest building in the US.
• 311 S Wacker Dr. 961 ft. This is perhaps the tallest building in the world without an official name, although locals know exactly what to call it: The White Castle Building. It is distinctive for its "crown," which is brightly illuminated at night. If you are nearby, head into its lobby to see its enormous indoor garden and fountain.
• 900 N Michigan. 871 ft. This skyscraper is a [[Chicago/Near North#Buy|vertical shopping mall]] on the Magnificent Mile, anchored by Bloomingdales in the back and the Four Seasons Resort between the towers. It's especially visible at night when its four "lanterns" are lit up.
• Water Tower Place, : 845 North Michigan Avenue. 859 ft. This is the [[Chicago/Near North#Buy|pioneer vertical mall]] on the Magnificent Mile and is home to the luxurious Ritz-Carlton Hotel, a ton of retailers, and some of Chicago's swankiest apartments. (Oprah lives here, by the way.)
• Chase Tower, : 21 South Clark Street. 850 ft. Located at the exact epicenter of CTA's Loop transit system, this building is distinctive for its vertical curve. It has been re-named for each of the successive banks that have bought out its previous tenants — for example, it was the BankOne Tower until a couple years ago.
• Park Tower, : 800 North Michigan Avenue. 844 ft. Chicago's tenth tallest building houses the Park Hyatt at the street level and luxury condos in the upper levels.

[edit] Shorter, but proud

• Three First National Plaza, : 70 West Madison Street. 767 ft. This huge office building, just north of the Chase Tower, was built in 1981. Its nine-story atrium features Henry Moore's gigantic statue, Large Internal-External Upright Form.
• Chicago Title & Trust Center, : 161 North Clark Street. 756 ft. This 1992 building's slanted roof is brightly illuminated at night.
• Olympia Center, : 737 North Michigan Avenue. 725 ft. Built in 1986, this is a tall granite building which tapers as it goes up and houses offices and apartments.
• 330 N Wabash (IBM Plaza). 695 ft. This is Mies van der Rohe's second tallest building, built in 1973 for IBM. IBM has since left the building, and the building may at present be as much as 50% vacant, prompting a plan to convert floors into luxury condominiums.
• 111 S Wacker. 681 ft. Built in 2001.
• One Magnificent Mile (One Mag Mile), : 980 North Michigan Avenue. 673 ft. A highrise including luxury retailers, office space, and luxury condos on top.
• RR Donnelly Building, : 77 W Wacker Dr. 662 ft. This 1992 building is one of Chicago's more attractive skyscrapers and has a classical theme to its design. Notable current tenants include United Airlines and Microsoft.
• Daley Center, : 55 West Washington Street. 648 ft. The 1965 Daley Center is Chicago's principal civic center and boasts a gigantic Picasso statue on the adjacent plaza. A true Chicago landmark, the Daley Center was featured in ''The Blues Brothers'', who drive across Daley Plaza and crash through the glass walls of the building. The Mies-esque design was ''intended'' to age visibly: the color has faded in a rust-like direction from exposure to the elements.
• 55 E Erie St. 647 ft. This all-residential tower was completed in 2004.
• Lake Point Tower, : 505 North Lake Shore Drive. 645 ft. This high-class, curvy residential tower stands alone to the east of Chicago's skyline by Navy Pier. It was built in 1968 by two students of Mies van der Rohe and has been home to some famous Chicagoans, including Sammy Sosa and Alice Cooper.

[edit] Even shorter, but still rising above the crowd

• River East Center, : 350 East Illinois Street. 644 ft. This skyscraper was built in 2001 as an all residential building and houses Chicago's largest movie theater in its base, the AMC River East 21.
• Leo Burnett Building, : 35 West Wacker Drive. 635 ft. Built in 1989 for Leo Burnett Worldwide, a major advertising agency.
• The Heritage, : 130 North Garland Court. 631 ft. This recent (2005) arrival is a very successful office and residential building, owing to its favorable location just across the street from Millennium Park.
• Chicago Place, : 700 North Michigan Avenue. 608 ft. This 1991 building houses luxury condos and an [[Chicago/Near North#Buy|eight-story vertical mall]] anchored by Saks 5th Avenue.
• Chicago Board of Trade, : 141 West Jackson Boulevard. 605 ft. When it was built in 1930, it was the tallest building in Chicago and remained so for 35 years. The building still houses the [[Chicago/Loop#See|Chicago Board of Trade]], as well as its competitor, the US Futures Exchange, and is a registered National Historic Landmark. Admire its beautiful art-deco exterior.
• CNA Plaza, : 325 South Wabash Avenue. 600 ft. This 1972 International Style building would blend in to the background of the cityscape, were it not for its bright red paint job. It also lights up rooms at night to occasionally display messages, especially around big sporting events.
• Marina City, : 300 North State Street. 588 ft. One of the Chicago skyline's most distinctive features are the 1964 twin concrete corncob towers of Marina City. They are mostly residential, with parking on the lower middle levels, and house the House of Blues concert hall and hotel. Its apartments are "wedge-shaped" and the building is unique for having no interior right angles (among other things).
• Smurfit-Stone Building (Diamond Building), : 150 North Michigan Avenue. 582 ft. Anyone who has seen ''Adventures in Babysitting'' should immediately recognize this 1984 building, as its slanted roof played a very important role in the film's climax. Popular wisdom holds that the building was intended as an anti-phallic complement to Chicago's many masculine skyscrapers, as it somewhat resembles a vagina.
• Mid-Continental Plaza, : 55 East Monroe Street. 582 ft. Although not among the very tallest, this 1972 skyscraper is one of Chicago's (and the world's) most massive buildings. It has no setbacks and covers a full city block.
• North Pier Apartments, : 474 North Lake Shore Drive. 581 ft. A Streeterville luxury apartment tower built in 1990.

[edit] Last, but not least

• Onterie Center, : 446 East Ontario Street. 570 ft. Named after the two streets at its base, Ontario and Erie, the 1985 Onterie center features a diagonal brace structure, which was pioneered by Fazlur Khan, the structural engineer behind the John Hancock Center and Sears Tower. It is a mixed-use structure with retail, office, and residential space.
• Palmolive Building (Playboy Building), : 919 North Michigan Avenue. 565 ft. This art deco Chicago landmark was built in 1929 for the Colgate-Palmolive Company, but became better known for its next tenant, the Playboy Company. The building really stands out on nights when its powerful beacon lights up the Chicago sky. The building is currently being converted for residential use.
• Kluczynski Federal Building, : 219 S Dearborn St. This skyscraper was built in 1975, designed by Mies van der Rohe. The building is named for the Illinois 5th district congressman John Kluczynski, who served from 1951–1979. An adventurous (and oddly urban) raccoon may have set a raccoon world climbing record by reaching the scaffolding on the 36th floor in 2006.
• Mather Tower, : 75 E Wacker Drive. 521 ft. This 1928 building is instantly recognizable for its slim octagonal tower, which houses the smallest floors in Chicago. In 2000, the terra cotta crown began to fall off and was removed and subsequently replaced by helicopter.
• Carbide and Carbon Building (Hard Rock Hotel), : 230 N Michigan Ave. 503 ft. The Carbide and Carbon building is a beautiful 1929 Art Deco tower covered in dark green terra cotta and adorned with a gold terra cotta leaf at the pinnacle. It is rumored that the architects, the Burnham Brothers, intended the building to resemble a bottle of champaigne.
• 680 N Lake Shore Drive (Lake Shore Place, The New Playboy Building). 474 ft. This 1924 building was the largest building in the world at the time of its construction and was originally known as the American Furniture Mart. Today it houses two major, incongruous clients: Northwestern University and Playboy Enterprises. If you are looking at the [[Chicago/Near North|Near North]] from Navy Pier at night, its illuminated blue roof is pretty hard to miss.
• Tribune Tower, : 435 N Michigan Avenue. 462 ft. The Chicago Tribune's home was built in 1925 following an international design competition. The neo-Gothic winner remains one of Chicago's most distinguished landmarks. The building's walls contain rocks from many famous world landmarks, including: the Taj Mahal, the Parthenon, the Great Pyramid, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, and most recently from the demolished World Trade Center. The Tribune Tower even managed to get its hands on a moon rock, but so far NASA hasn't allowed it to add the rock to the wall.
• Dirksen Federal Building. 383 ft. This building was built by Mies van der Rohe in 1964 and is named after former Illinois senator and minority leader Everett McKinley Dirksen.
• Metropolitan Correctional Center. 287 ft. While not very tall, this 1975 brutalist structure is one of the most distinctive and curious in the Chicago skyline. As its name suggests, it is a vertical prison skyscraper and its sharp triangular shape is designed to minimize the amount of time that it takes to patrol its corridors. Its prisoners have some of the prison world's best views as their exercise yard is located on top of the roof, although the narrow slits serving as windows do not allow such nice views from the cells. The prison houses male and female convicts of all security levels.

[edit] Under construction

After the events of September 11, 2001, it was proposed that the era of the super-tall skyscraper was over; people did not want to live or work in what were, essentially, big attack targets. Funding dried up for a while, and modest designs were the word of the day.

That didn't last long. Chicago is too wrapped up in the idea of the skyscraper to stop building them, and in time, the economic backing returned: Chicago's downtown is undergoing an unprecedented residential real estate boom, leading Forbes Magazine to declare the 60602 zip code the hottest in the country. Both spurring and and fueled by this boom is a new wave of crane-filled skyscraper construction that is rewriting the skyline before your eyes. Here are just nine of the tallest currently being built:

• The Chicago Spire, : 400 North Lake Shore Drive. 2000 ft. Construction has just begun on what should in 2010 become Chicago's new tallest building, which will also surpass [[New York (city)|New York's]] Freedom Tower to become the tallest building in [[North America]]. Its design by Santiago Calatrava features an upward spiral, likened by the architect to smoke swirling up from a Native American campfire on the shores of Lake Michigan. Construction has just begun, but there remains some speculation (mostly fuelled by real estate rival, Donald Trump) that the building will never be finished. If, however, it is completed, it will dramatically alter the Chicago skyline and will become the world's second tallest building (after [[Dubai]]'s Burj Dubai, which should be completed by 2009 — by the Chicago firm of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill).
• The Trump Tower, : 401 North Wabash Avenue. 1362 ft. As construction is already well underway, Donald Trump's hotel and luxury residential building is already making a mark on the riverfront skyline. (However it turns out, some residents feel the Trump Tower has made a worthwhile civic contribution by necessitating the demolition of the Sun-Times Building, which stood on the site before it.) Upon its intended completion in 2008, the tower will be Chicago's second tallest building after the Sears Tower. The design features three prominent setbacks at the height of nearby buildings: the Wrigley Building, Marina City, and 330 N Wabash.
• Waterview Tower, : 111 West Wacker Drive. 1047 ft. This building is intended to open in 2009 to house luxury condos and the Shangri-La Hotel. It will be Chicago's fifth tallest upon completion and the first building over 1,000 ft to be built since the Sears Tower.
• Aqua, : S Water Street & N Stetson. 823 ft. Jeanne Gang's new skyscraper is the biggest American project ever to be headed by a woman. It is slated to be completed by 2009 and will distinguish itself by its series of undulating balconies, which will extend as far as 12 feet from the building's walls, to give the building a "rippling" effect.
• Legacy Tower, : 21-39 S. Wabash. 822 ft. This building will bring 360 new condos onto the downtown market in 2009.
• Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower, : 300 E Randolph. 796 ft. The existing tower is being built up from 411 ft to become one of the city's taller skyscrapers. Construction should finish by 2010.
• 300 North LaSalle. 775 ft. A major sustainable design project intended to create a new "green" skyscraper on the Chicago River by the end of 2008.
• One Museum Park, : 1215 South Prairie Avenue. 734 ft. This 2008 construction will be the tallest building in Chicago south of Van Buren St.
• Elysian, : 11 E Walton St. 700 ft. A skyscraper to be finished in 2008 in Chicago's Gold Coast, which will house a hotel, luxury condos (of course), and restaurants.