Marina City, Petronas Towers and Corn Cobs
One of our favorite blog reads is Mike Doyle's CHICAGO CARLESS. He has written two
posts recently (read them here and here) about living in one of Chicago's more famous, or infamous, buildings.
via flickr; Marina Towers at night, christopher sly via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
Mike lives in one of the Marina City towers which sit on the main branch of the Chicago
River. Although the towers are the most obvious features of the Marina City complex, the site consists of 5 different components; commercial (which includes the marina), a theater (now the House of Blues), an office block (now the Hotel Sax) and of course the two towers.
I was too young to remember the apartment buildings being constructed, but architect
Bertrand Goldberg's "city within a city" was revolutionary, not just for the tower design, but also for creating a live/work environment within a 3-acre site situated in a dense urban commercial district; this was 1964 afterall. In the working class Humboldt Park neighborhood I grew up in, everyone knew about Marina City, just not by that name. However, if you said, "you know, the 'corn cob' buildings downtown," then they knew exactly what you were talking about.
flickr; Fall corn cobs, amee@work via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
I have heard, and read, Cesar Pelli's Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur referred to as
"corn cob" like. The towers do have a repetitive patterned skin that bears a similarity to corn kernels, but the curving surfaces found in the Chicago towers are broken by the pointed bays of the Malaysian twins. You won't find too many pointed kernels of corn, but I guess some of those dried cobs we see in the fall may qualify.
construction completed via chicagocarless.com; The Tower of Pisa, Austin Tolin via flickr; Kernelless corn cob,
hoyasmeg via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
Mike mentions in the comments section of his post about the wind creating loud creaking
noises in his apartment, that his tower may be leaning. He qualifies that statement, after several readers wrote back, to say that the tower isn't really leaning but seems to be settling at its concrete core. I was much more excited by the prospect of Chicago not only having the world's tallest buildings posing as corn cobs, but also having the world's second most famous Leaning Tower.
Does the Tower in Pisa somewhat resemble a corn cob without it's kernels??! I think it's
time to quit; the corn analogies are getting out of control.
A special thanks to CHICAGO CARLESS for today's inspiration.
Posted by designslinger at 4/16/2009 4:00 AM 
Categories: Architecture, Ephemera
Tags: Chicago Cesar Pelli Marina City Marina City Towers Bertrand Goldberg Petronas Towers
Categories: Architecture, Ephemera
Tags: Chicago Cesar Pelli Marina City Marina City Towers Bertrand Goldberg Petronas Towers
Another good resource about Marina City that you may wish to study is my web site, www.MarinaCityOnline.com.