Review: Marina City: Bertrand Goldberg's Urban Vision

"The Corncob Towers." "The Pie Spires." "Aunt Flo's Curlers." People may not always know what the twin towers on State Street at the Chicago River are called, but they at least know them.  Bertrand Goldberg's penultimate architectural creation, Marina City (300 North State Street), has inspired and amazed a generation of tourists and locals.  Now a new book chronicles how the buildings we see today were shaped, and what went on behind the scenes.

The book is called Marina City: Bertrand Goldberg's Urban Vision (published by Princeton Architectural Press) and its 176 pages are packed with great information about the development of the buildings, starting from inspiration through construction and on to occupation.

Many people don't realize it, but Marina City was Chicago, and America's first downtown revitalization project.  It proved that if you built a city-within-a-city, you could attract people to the urban core where they would live, work, and thrive.  Since then the idea has been copied and expanded in Chicago and around the world.  Today a responsible developer wouldn't think of embarking on a huge project without considering the live+work+play model.  But in the 1960's, a time when suburban cul-de-sac developers and auto dealers were demonizing America's urban cores, this was considered revolutionary.

More than just the story of a building, this book tells the tale of the people behind Marina City -- the deals that had to be brokered, the challenges faced, the hurdles surmounted; with enough politics and intrigue to make this a truly Chicago story.

As someone who travels around the world frequently, whenever I mention Chicago to someone, I cringe in anticipation of the inevitable reference to Al Capone.  But did you know that Marina City was celebrated around the world as a new symbol of Chicago's renaissance?  It was influential enough to supplant Capone as the first notion people had of Chicago.  American Airlines published a guide to Chicago that featured Marina City on its cover.   Even in Cold War-era Moscow, Marina City was known and considered a symbol of the city.

As interesting as all the facts and background material are, it's the photos that really make this book.  Historic pictures and diagrams of Marina City that show it with the old TV tower still on top.  There are pictures of the skyscrapers when they were new and clean, and not festooned with twinkle lights and blow-up dolls as they frequently are now.  Perhaps if today's residents of Marina City read this book, they might treat their home with a little more respect and pride.

If you have even a passing interest in Chicago's history or architecture, I recommend picking this book up.  It's a quick and easy read and contains a lot of good information.

---

Details:
Marina City: Bertrand Goldberg's Urban Vision
By Igor Marjanovic and Katerina Rüedi Ray
Published May 26, 2010 by Princeton Architectural Press
176 pages - Paperback
US $35.00, UK £25.00

---

Note:
This book was sent to me unsolicited by Princeton Architectural Press.  I have received no monetary or other compensation for this review.  If you would like to send a book for review, contact me at editor@chicagoarchitecture.info and I'll send you the mailing address.

---

If you're interested in the book, here's an Amazon.com link allowing you to buy it at a discount. By using this link, you help financially support this web site.

New Book About Historic Chicago Architect Irving K. Pond

I got an e-mail flyer today from the good people down at the Glessner House Museum (1800 South Prairie Avenue) in the Prairie Avenue District.  They're having a presentation February 24, 2010 at 7:00pm about a new book about Irving K. Pond, a prominent architect during the one of Chicago's architectural heydays -- the late 1800's.

Here's the info they sent over:

The Autobiography of Irving K. Pond provides an important addition to our understanding of the field of architecture in Chicago during its zenith in the late 19th century, by exploring an important but often overlooked figure. Irving K. Pond was a distinguished architect, gifted storyteller, and national president of the American Institute of Architects. His richly anecdotal autobiography, published in 2009 for the first time, gives us an irreverent account of Chicago architecture and its architects at the turn of the last century. It should be read alongside the autobiographies of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, to remind us that seminal developments in architecture, like those of the Italian Renaissance, emerge from a collaborative environment, and are not the product of an individual genius working alone. 

The program is presented by architect David Swan, who, along with Terry Tatum (Supervising Historian and Director of Research for the Landmarks Division, City of Chicago) edited the text of the autobiography and gathered the several hundred photos and line drawings that accompany it. 

Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.

Admission is $10 per person, $8 for members of the Museum. Please call 312.326.1480 to make reservations or for further information.

If you have an upcoming event, be sure to let me know and I'll pass it along to the thousands (yes, hard to believe -- thousands) of people who read this blog.  Just e-mail it to editor@ChicagoArchitecture.info.

Video: New Book About Soldier Field

There always seems to be a new book coming out about Chicago and its buildings.  The latest one focuses on Soldier Field.  It's called Soldier Field: A Stadium and its History. Its author, Liam Ford, was interviewed about it on WTTW's Chicago Tonight program: