The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Changing skyline and skyscrapers celebrated
Chicago’s changing skyline and skyscrapers celebrated at city’s new Architecture Center
Chicago is a city of skyscrapers, a building style that originated in a rebuilding spree after the famous Chicago fire of 1871 leveled the town.
A Chicago River cruise winding among many of those skyscrapers probably is the ideal way to see and learn about them. So bundle up and book a cruise aboard the First Lady, operated by the Chicago Architecture Foundation, if, by chance, you’ll be in the Windy City before Nov. 18 when those cruises end for the season.
The newly opened Chicago Architectural Center, where Michigan Avenue crosses the Chicago River, now lets visitors wander among and closely examine large-scale models of the skyscrapers. The actual 90-floor Trump Tower, for instance, can be seen through the 40-foottall curtain of glass in the 20,000-square-foot CAC, which debuted in October.
In 1900, after severe winter weather and city sewage flowing into the Chicago River threatened the city’s Lake Michigan water supply, the flow of the Chicago River was reversed. That project, which was considered an engineering wonder of the world, diverted the water away from Lake Michigan to a sewage canal for cleaning.
Now a mile-and-a-halflong Riverwalk follows the much-cleaner river below the level of busy city streets. Lined with bars, restaurants, boat rentals and pocket parks, it’s now a leafy pedestrian oasis of relative tranquility enhanced after dark by Art on the Mart, which opened in October. The large-scale permanent lighting installation is projected on three acres of the southern facade of the former Merchandise Mart, now called theMART. The installation, best viewed from the Riverwalk between Wells and Lake streets, will be up until mid-December this year.
The former Art Deco Merchandise Mart was built in 1930 as a distribution
center for Marshall Field & Co. Your docent on your First Lady river cruise will point out the busts of famous Chicago merchants on pedestals along the riverfront esplanade.
Your guide also will explain the bundled tube construction that made possible the building in 1974 of the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower — and for 24 years the world’s tallest building at 1,451 feet.
Aqua at Lakeshore East, built in 2009 and among the newer buildings with many green features, is designed with wave-like balconies to provide its residents and hotel guests with views in a variety of directions.
Cruise docents say the 2017 building at 150 R. Riverside occasions many comments by passengers when they notice that the 54-story building is 20 times taller than its base is wide. Architects seemed to defy the laws of physics by using super-high-strength steel and caissons going into the bedrock to wedge the tower into a narrow site restricted on one side by the river and rail tracks on the other.
Well-traveled and sharpeyed visitors might recognize that the clock tower in the 1924 Wrigley Building, just opposite the new Chicago Architecture Center, was inspired by the clock tower on Giralda bell tower in Seville, Spain.
Changing the face of the river are new developments such as the glass-walled pavilion of the Apple Store across the river and almost opposite the new Architecture Center.
The Center offers dozens of walking, bus and trolley tours to discover Chicago’s architecture while staying warm. Consider one of the CAF’s 20 building tours of some of the world’s earliest skyscrapers or consider the vantage point of the elevated trains, aka L trains. Tours last from 45 minutes to two hours, with tickets costing between $15 and $45.
The newly opened Chicago Architectural Center, where Michigan Avenue crosses the Chicago River, now lets visitors wander among and closely examine large-scale models of the skyscrapers.