The Sullivan Center is recognizable by the dark, intricate cast-iron ornamentation that wraps around its ground-floor entrance at the corner of State and Madison Streets. Designed by architect Louis Sullivan and completed in eighteen…
Loop Skyscraper Architecture
Walk through the deep canyons of Chicago's downtown to trace the birth of the modern skyscraper and the structural innovations that shaped global city skylines.
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1. Sullivan Center
2. Reliance Building
The Reliance Building is a fourteen-story tower at the corner of State and Washington Streets, defined by its luminous facade of white glazed terra cotta and vast, projecting bays of glass. Completed in eighteen ninety-five, it represents…
3. Inland Steel Building
The Inland Steel Building is defined by its gleaming, aquamarine glass facade and stainless steel cladding, which distinguish it from the surrounding stone and masonry of the Chicago Loop. Completed in nineteen fifty-eight, it was the…
4. Marquette Building
The Marquette Building, completed in eighteen ninety-five, is identifiable by its horizontally banded brown terra cotta facade and a structure that reveals its steel skeleton through broad windows and narrow piers. Designed by Holabird and…
5. Monadnock Building
The Monadnock Building is a sixteen-story tower of dark, austere brick that rises like a sheer cliff face from the sidewalk. It is famous for its lack of exterior ornament, a design choice that defied the architectural trends of eighteen…
6. Chicago Board of Trade Building
The Chicago Board of Trade Building anchors the end of LaSalle Street with a gray Indiana limestone facade that rises in dramatic, vertical tiers. Completed in nineteen thirty, the forty-four story skyscraper was designed by the firm…
7. The Rookery Building
The Rookery Building on South LaSalle Street is recognizable by its heavy, ornate facade of red brick, stone, and terracotta, which incorporates Romanesque, Venetian, and Moorish design motifs. Completed in eighteen eighty-eight by…