Come off of it. You think the 1970s were any better, with bronze-colored Mies towers and knockoffs going up everywhere? Or the 1920s with white terracotta (Burnham and knockoffs). These things move in cycles, especially for office towers.

Also don’t forget that a big portion of downtown office growth is now being provided in Fulton Market and River North midrises, and these are siphoning off a lot of the tenants who might want more interesting or quirky spaces. You can probably fold Class A adaptive reuse like March Mart and OPO into this category as well. Overwhelmingly the “blue glass boxes” are built for law and finance firms that want a sleek polished look.

And I'll take blue glass with very different designs (are we really calling a parabolic and cantilevered building the same) over a sea of beige any day

The same 1970s that brought us 2 (basically 3) of our most iconic supertalls and put us on the world map, again? Mies was also putting Chicago on the map attempting to perfect a somewhat novel style of architecture. Unfortunately, seems developers realized they could capitalize on the en vogue minimalist stylings to skimp on design quality and maximize their ROI - hence the many knockoffs and deluge of soulless towers since.

Not sure we can even compare 1920's terracotta to these. Facade ornamentation on those seem beautifully designed for people up close, and the styles were unique enough to differentiate fairly far away. Not to mention the terracotta helped buildings become fire resistant, which was important...

I don't see why you're keen on defending this track record... just because it's the way it is doesn't mean it should be like this. And my primary frustrations are around the confluence, for obvious reasons. Sprinkled throughout the city, these can be great (see One Chicago, BMO) and add to the textured cityscape we all love. But clustered and all around the same height... bleh. Grateful for all of the development we've had, but I'd gladly have it slow down a little bit if it meant increasing the quality and/or height of proposals in these iconic spots - Wolf Point, 300 N Michigan, 300 S Wacker twins, 110 N Wacker, 130 N Franklin come to mind.

I believe the parabolic shape of River Point, at least the bottom, is actually because it similarly cantilevers over a small footprint with active train tracks like 150 N Riverside. The arched top (deodorant cap) looks different from the surrounding boxes but cmon... standards a little higher here please. Different time but if Donald Trump can maximize a prime river plot and put up an iconic supertall, I don't think the bar should be too high for others (primarily Wolf Point)

The reason being the same doesn't change the fact that it looks completely different. And the towers have variation in the hues of the glass as well as their shapes. The only two that are too similar for my liking are Wolf Point East and Salesforce

Well, Sears was a vanity project for the world's largest retailer building the world's tallest building, not a developer-driven project. Cost-effectiveness didn't matter. JHC was a mixed-use tower, so it also demanded a unique design solution. Even Standard Oil/Aon was a vanity project for an obscenely wealthy corporation, hence the decadent marble cladding that was foolishly slathered on it. Chase was not a supertall, but it was similar to JHC since it was not a straight-up office tower, the First National Bank demanded a huge open banking hall for the public at the base of their tower so it also required a unique design solution.

Once you get past those four buildings, you're left with... a bunch of International Style boxes, some designed by Mies and some not. IBM Center, Equitable, all of Illinois Center, Riverside Plaza towers, CNA, Inland Steel, Mid-Continental, Kemper, etc

Nuveen is still part of the ensemble at the confluence and it is very much not a blue glass box. Wolf Point East is blue glass, but it reads very different because of the chunky white mullions. And of course the Merchandise Mart is a colossal pile of beige limestone that more than offsets all the glass.

Absolutely, and what's more, the same is probably true for most of the world's supertall towers in most cities. That's not to say that a decent number of recent examples were not developer-driven (as opposed to very corporate-determined) - but that even most of those didn't come down to straight economics/efficiency etc. Vanity, ego, national statements of status, pride, whatever clearly have a lot to do with the actual height and form of so many of these towers above and beyond what simple economics would have produced.

For Chicago, if people are looking for architectural peacocking and world renowned icons, they’re going to be disappointed on the whole. The Monadnock Building is exemplary Chicago whereas New York has the Chrysler Building.

What Chicago gets instead is buildings that are representative of their time period. When there’s a substantive change in technology or society’s habits, economy or ideology, Chicago architecture is better able to highlight that shift than other cities that are focused more on eye-catching style.

For instance, a dominant (perhaps primary) theme of the current architectural era is demarcating public-private space. It’s the whole point of Hudson Yards, but they whiffed because of that project’s preoccupation with ‘iconic shapes’ and public art.

Personally I don’t think sticking with basic designs is a bad thing at all since the constant pursuit of novelty for its own sake and instagrams-for-foreign-investors can make cities and people lose the plot and lose sight of other goals for their architecture.

I think even the most basic Chicago blue boxes have grappled more honestly with the question of space and public interaction. Visibility vs privacy. Plaza vs Terrace vs Roof Deck. Signage. How to include balconies while avoiding the pockmarked condo look.

Even Chicago’s most iconic and unusual buildings have very straightforward design philosophies behind them.

Tribune Tower: The press and corporation as church and civic power

Marina City: Car is King, Freedom from the straight line and right angle because of concrete

Hancock Tower: Skyscraper as mixed use residential and commercial, tube structure and exterior bracing for open floor plans

Vista (St. Regis): Undulating glass, how to make a sleek sculptural condo building with exterior spaces

So i guess your saying NYC is really the capital of modern architecture and Chicago is just a nice collections of buildings but nowhere near as daring with its designs?

If modern architecture means oddly shaped buildings with unusual aesthetics, then yes, NYC IS the American capital of modern architecture.

If modern architecture means using new materials and technology to attempt cheaper, more efficient construction with an interest in social engineering, then it’s Chicago.

That’s the point.

If a region gets too stuck on aesthetics and novelty, it misses the boat on the deeper underlying societal trends. At almost every point of the past decade, NYC has the most flashy or iconic example of particular building design styles, but it’s very slow to respond to changing lifestyle preferences.

—
The Hancock Building didn’t start out with a developer saying, “I want a black trapezoidal building with giant X’s! It’ll be iconic!”

At first the developer wanted separate regular office and residential towers, but there wasn’t enough space on the lot. So the architects decided on a tapered tower with offices that needed large floor plans on the bottom, and condos that needed more light on the top. Exterior trusses made for flexible floor plans and cheaper construction.
—
860-880 Lake Shore Apartments sparks the use of steel and glass for residential towers. Viable because of WWII concrete and steel production surplus.
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Marina City was the tallest (and I think first) post-war urban residential high rise. That’s what was so sensational about it; it was a conscious attempt to use the fantasy of a high-rise “City within a city” lifestyle to reverse urban flight. But it’s the forerunner of residential skyscrapers with parking podiums.
—
Perhaps Chicago modernism today is best demonstrated by having built Rush University Medical Center to ensure the city had the ICU capacity to respond to pandemics and not be forced to put patients in hallways and gift shops as seen in other large cities.

When do you guys think this will top off.

Hmmmm, March 1 for the core?

I'd guess late Q1 or early Q2 (2021 obviously)

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJqxnHgF...=1t7q3bx8aalul

You can see BMO peeking out in the far left
This is so exciting!

Based on the construction cam from yesterday, it appears that the core has now reached the top of the mid rise elevator bank (floor 35), is about to be reduced down to 2 cells for the remaining core, and is now 1 or 2 floors above where the 2nd setback will be.

@cdats on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ7jZnQlBXY/

https://scontent-ort2-1.cdninstagram...31&oe=60282F2C

Damn that's gorgeous.

What's crazier is that if NEMA II and 1000M are ever built (and eventually the 78 & more south loop infill), this section of our skyline would rival Los Angeles and Seattle, without hosting arguably any of our top 10 most iconic buildings

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw...-no?authuser=0

(also, this stretch of bike path is in dire condition...)

https://scontent-ort2-1.cdninstagram...ec&oe=60299138

@gianlorenzo_photography on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ9_4YwF18E/