A view made by design
Vista Tower adds to grand gallery of ‘down-the-alley’ Chicago perspectives
In Chicago, a certain view of buildings — long, head-on and thrillingly dramatic — is as rare as a warm day in February.
This is not Washington, D.C., where the diagonal avenues of Pierre L’Enfant frame stunning views such as the one of the Capitol down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Instead, our buildings are boxed in by the street grid, hard-pressed to call attention to themselves unless they face the Chicago River, Lake Shore Drive or central Michigan Avenue — or, like Willis Tower, they break free of the grid by soaring into the sky.
Every so often, though, architects get extraordinary opportunities to liberate their buildings from the relentless regularity of the grid and fashion images that resonate in our collective mindset.
The latest (and by far the tallest) example of this phenomenon — the soon-to-open 101-story, 1,191-foot-tall Vista Tower, by Chicago architect Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang — is giving northbound drivers on Lake Shore Drive a high-octane visual jolt.
Where they used to see nothing but sky, drivers now glimpse a distinctive hotel and condominium skyscraper at 345 E. Wacker Drive that brings a dose of geometric fluidity to the city’s straitlaced skyline.
Not only do Vista’s interconnected high-rises (or “stems,” as Gang calls them), step exultantly up to the tallest, ultrathin member of the trio, the three stems appear to curve inward and outward as they rise, evoking the infinite verticality of sculptor Constantin Brancusi’s Endless Column. (Gang admires the sculpture but told me that her skyscraper consists of three parts that play off against each other, not a lone spire.)
While a full-fledged assessment of Vista Tower must wait until the skyscraper welcomes its first occupants sometime this summer, it already can be said that the long vistas of such buildings — what I call the “down-thealley” views — form an important, but overlooked, part of Chicago’s architectural glory.
Without them, the city would be a lesser, visually duller place. There are no eyesores in this bunch, as the following examples show:
Chicago Board of Trade Building, 141 W. Jackson Boulevard, Holabird & Root, 1930
This is Chicago’s ultimate down-the-alley building, fully exploiting an unusual site that makes the Art Deco skyscraper the indisputable focal point of the LaSalle Street financial district.
The tower’s carefully modulated setbacks, emphatic verticality and sculptural adornments — including its crowning statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of grain — would make it a powerful presence on any block. But its placement at the foot of LaSalle, which the Board of Trade secured in the 1880s when it won permission to close a portion of the street for its first building on the site, amplifies the visual impact of all those elements.
Such is the building’s prominence that it suggests that the real power in Chicago lies with moneyed traders, bankers and corporate titans, not the grubby politicians who toil away in the lower and less prominent City Hall a few blocks to the north on LaSalle.
Wrigley Building, 400 and 410 N. Michigan Ave., Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, 1919-24; and 333 N. Michigan Avenue, Holabird & Root, 1928
When the street grid shifts, the door opens for buildings to stand out. So it is with these two landmark office buildings. Their architects took advantage of Michigan Avenue’s diagonal path over the Chicago River and created the illusion that the skyscrapers rise in the middle of the street.
Think about it: If the street grid continued uninterrupted over the river, you’d look ahead to … nothing but air.
Instead, northbound travelers on Michigan Avenue are lured forward by the sight of the Wrigley Building’s iconic, Spanish Revival clock tower. Those heading southbound are treated to the elegant, Art Deco sliver of 333 N. Michigan. Without the diagonal jog of the DuSable (originally Michigan Avenue) Bridge, those visual theatrics would be impossible.
Trump International Hotel & Tower, 401 N. Wabash Ave., Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 2009
A bend in the Chicago River and a curve in North Wabash Avenue gave then-real estate developer Donald Trump something he seemingly can’t live without: a chance to be the center of attention. In this case, the result was an exception of Trump’s usual brand of glitz.
The architects dealt cleverly with an unusual, trapezoidshaped site that allows for a head-on view of the hotel-condominium skyscraper when it’s seen from Wabash Avenue. By curving the glassy tower’s flanks, they significantly reduced its bulk, making it appear like a modern version of an old flatiron building.
If you can ignore the hideous, oversized TRUMP sign (no easy task), the result is one of the city’s most striking down-thealley views.
Art Institute, 111 S. Michigan Ave., Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, 1893; Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Columbus Drive and Randolph Street, Frank O. Gehry & Associates, 2004
Two eras and two very different architectural styles produce same urban design result: Both the original Art Institute building at Michigan and Adams Street and the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park remind us that cultural structures, not only commercial ones, can call attention to themselves via the long vista.
The classical pediment and austere, multiarched facade of the Art Institute’s Allerton Building
arrest the eye as you look eastward from the Loop on Adams.
The exuberant, stainless steel “headdress” of the Pritzker Pavilion performs the same visual trick as you gaze eastward on Washington Street. Both say “come hither,” though in utterly divergent ways.
Field Museum,1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, 1920; Shedd Aquarium, 1200 S. Lake Shore Drive, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, 1929; Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, 1300 S. Lake Shore Drive, Ernest A. Grunsfeld Jr., 1930
The three institutions of Chicago’s Museum Campus share something more than a spectacular lakefront site east of Lake
Shore Drive.
Each uses a long view to accentuate its presence.
The marine-themed classicism of the Shedd Aquarium is designed to catch the eye of the traveler heading eastward on Roosevelt Road. The Art Deco Adler Planetarium lures you forward from its spot in the middle of Solidarity Drive.
The Field Museum’s imposing classical temple front looms directly ahead of drivers heading southbound on Lake Shore Drive. It’s a precursor by 100 years to the visual theatrics of Vista Tower — and a reminder that down-the-alley vistas happen by design, not by accident.