Trump International Hotel and Tower - Chicago - by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

[jaja3000jaja]

I can't wait till this tower is finished, I will definitely take a trip out to Chicago to see it.

[ld876]

Looking pretty good so far. That's the first time I'm used a positive adjective to describe a trump building.

[kliq6]

Yeah im kinda jealous, most he builds here in his home town has sucked

[Eugenious]

Yeah im kinda jealous, most he builds here in his home town has sucked

This is the (only?) good building Trump has ever built. Classy and modern.

[Punzie]

By gosh, Trump is finally building a classy tower!
Does anybody know the details of why he went this way in Chicago? (What was he thinking?:))

[Eugenious]

By gosh, Trump is finally building a classy tower!
Does anybody know the details of why he went this way in Chicago? (What was he thinking?:))

Shows even Trump can learn from his mistakes :)

[SolarWind]

July 3, 2007

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/9513/dscc0189zo9.jpg

[ryeler]

Has construction slowed down or am I just losing my mind?

[jaja3000jaja]

No kidding, anyone got more pics?

[SolarWind]

July 6, 2007

http://img456.imageshack.us/img456/2616/dsc0382mp2.jpg
^ Trump Tower is in the middle

http://img456.imageshack.us/img456/6947/skylinewithttcbe9.jpg
^ Trump Tower is visible in this picture too, although smaller

July 11, 2007

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1746/dsc0625copyfw7.jpg

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/3193/dsc0610copyqg6.jpg

[ablarc]

What makes the Chicago River turquoise?

[macreator]

What makes the Chicago River turquoise?

It's shallowness perhaps -- or they color it. Hey, it's not beyond the realm of possibility -- they color it green for St. Patrick's Day, right?

[Tectonic]

This is Trump's finest looking building to date, even though I like the renders better.

[Citytect]

What makes the Chicago River turquoise?

I've wondered that too.

The river's direction was reversed to take water from Lake Michigan instead dumping water into the lake. I'm sure this has something to do with it.

Hopefully someone here knows the answer because I'm very curious to know.

[SolarWind]

July 20, 2007

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/9858/cdsc0038cg6.jpg

http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/6808/dsc0105copybe6.jpg

^ The Clare at Water Tower (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=179522) is under construction on the left

[macreator]

Great photos. I'm thinking about heading up to Chicago for a 4-day weekend sometime soon, I haven't been up in a long time.

[SolarWind]

July 20, 2007
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/8189/trumptower6bc0.jpg

This was an attempt at a panoramic picture of Trump Tower. I couldn’t quite merge the two photos together, but it’s interesting nevertheless and I thought I’d post it anyway.

[SolarWind]

Great photos. I'm thinking about heading up to Chicago for a 4-day weekend sometime soon, I haven't been up in a long time.
Thanks, macreator. The weather has been great lately. Hopefully it will last by the time you visit.

[sfenn1117]

Excellent shots, it's gotten a lot bigger since the last time I checked. As for weather, I don't think we in NY could have asked for a better summer weekend. Sunny, 80, low humidity. Perfect.

[SolarWind]

July 20, 2007

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/7291/trumptower11qp9.jpg

[DominicanoNYC]

The facade looks great.

[jaja3000jaja]

Is that a panoramic view?

[SolarWind]

Is that a panoramic view?
Yes, three vertical photos merged together.

[SolarWind]

June 12, 2007

http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/4664/chicagoriverlk0.jpg

[wns808]

that glass is coming on almost as fast as the building is rising. looking great!!

[ablarc]

Chicago sure has a terrific river experience. Still don't know what makes it turquoise. Do you know, SolarWind?

[BVictor1]

From 7/31
https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/08/551815.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/08/551819.jpg

8/3
https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/08/551827.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/08/551830.jpg


And this last image was originally posted by cbotnyse in the SSP Forums


how can you forget such great shots like this.....;)
Looks like the first 8 floors of parking are ready and the ramp is almost all lit up......
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/Picture037-1.jpg

[spyguy999]

Looks like the ramp's lighting effect is almost complete



http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/Picture001.jpg

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/Picture002.jpg

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/Picture003-1.jpg

[BVictor1]

Here are a few of my shots from last night.

https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/08/552279.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/08/552281.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/08/552283.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/08/552286.jpg

[SolarWind]

August 8, 2007

http://img457.imageshack.us/img457/4634/dsc0081yu1.jpg

http://img457.imageshack.us/img457/9964/dsc0095ic4.jpg

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/1460/dsc0101ah1.jpg

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/5476/untitled1gg3.jpg

http://img457.imageshack.us/img457/4762/dsc0215nx3.jpg

[Zephyr]

I cannot believe how quickly this building and Burj Dubai are shooting up to the top.

I have to remind myself that both are designed by the same prolithic architect - Adrian D. Smith - one of the most unassuming man you could ever meet. I once met him at a luncheon and although I knew he he was, I was amazed at how few other people there, all architects and structural engineers, knew him yet they were all familiar with his work. Today, he is obviously not at a level that would make him a starchitect, largely because he is not on the cutting-edge of design, but his portfolio of buildings is impressive indeed.

[SolarWind]

August 17, 2007

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/2599/dsc0441hk2.jpg http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/5051/dsc0475c2ar0.jpg

[SolarWind]

August 17, 2007

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/474/dsc0730sc4.jpg http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2391/dsc0489as2.jpg

[SolarWind]

August 17, 2007

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/6809/dsc0269kf5.jpg

[Scraperfannyc]

Wouldn't mind seeing Trump put one of these up on the Con Ed site myself. Nice building!

[BVictor1]

A few recent shots:

8/30
https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/09/556551.jpg

8/31
https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/09/556552.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/09/556553.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/09/556555.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/09/556558.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2007/09/556560.jpg

[SolarWind]

September 11, 2007

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/381/dscc0074pf9.jpg


http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/1159/dsc0074xh2.th.jpg (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc0074xh2.jpg) <-- Click for a bigger image with more detail

[BVictor1]

Images from September 8th
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/09/558242.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/09/558238.jpg


One shot from 09/09/07
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/09/558476.jpg

[czsz]

Poor Wrigley Tower. Trump pwn3d you.

[Alonzo-ny]

Slowest build ever. or is it just me?

[SolarWind]

September 11, 2007

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/1451/dsc0101se2.jpg

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/3489/dsc0025rc0.jpg

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/271/dsc0111oz2.jpg http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/9103/dscb0111cj6.th.jpg (http://img441.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscb0111cj6.jpg)

[Fabrizio]

The glitter makes that view (shown above) less majestic.

[macreator]

Slowest build ever. or is it just me?

I'm with you. This thread starts back in 2003, and while things do take a while to get off the ground, I feel like this thing seems to grow about a floor a month :confused:

[spyguy999]

Build It Bigger: High Risk Tower

Danny Forester examines construction of Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, built entirely of reinforced concrete, making it the tallest formwork structure in the world.

DSC, Wed, Sep 19 10:00 PM
DSC Thu, Sep 20 2:00 AM
DSC Sat, Sep 22 11:00 AM

[Alonzo-ny]

that guy annoys me, his constant gimmick fear of heights. pity i have to put up with him to see these projects in detail.

[SolarWind]

The first photo is mine. Trump Tower is on the right.

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/6385/untitled1px3.jpg

The next couple aren't mine, but I wish they were. The pictures were posted two weeks ago but haven't made it here yet until now.

Posted by ambient at SSP:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1278/1361690717_9a60d21277_b.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1315/1362581408_8dc79bbe26_b.jpg

Posted by spartic8t at Flickr:

http://img451.imageshack.us/img451/6927/134436168933d07a8156bkj6.jpg

[Alonzo-ny]

Cant fault trump on this one, its gonna look great!

[lofter1]

that UNITRIN tower is unfortunate :(

And WHAT is that little black glass juke box thing at the lower left in the first photo?

[macreator]

that UNITRIN tower is unfortunate :(

And WHAT is that little black glass juke box thing at the lower left in the first photo?

Looks like a hotel from the late 70's.

[SolarWind]

that UNITRIN tower is unfortunate :(

And WHAT is that little black glass juke box thing at the lower left in the first photo?
I like the Unitrin Building. It balances the view from the Michigan Avenue Bridge.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5804/dsc0189jo2.jpg

The "little black glass juke box thing" is the Westin River North Hotel, completed in 1987.

Sure, it's not going to win any architectural awards, but I don't mind it. It fits in rather nicely along the river.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/3073/dsc0029zv7.jpg

[SolarWind]

And a picture to stay on topic...

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/6716/dsc0031wq9.jpg

[BVictor1]

Shots from 09/28/07

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/09/563135.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/09/563137.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/09/563142.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/09/563145.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/09/563149.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/09/563152.jpg

[ablarc]

that UNITRIN tower is unfortunate :(
Helicopters land on its roof?

[BVictor1]

Helicopters land on its roof?

No.

10/04/07
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/10/564282.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/10/564284.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/10/564286.jpg

[Luca]

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5804/dsc0189jo2.jpg


Heh, cool picture. From left to right (the taller buildings)
Graceful & attractive, Miesian but clean, PoMo but surprisingly inoffensive, PoMo hell

[TREPYE]

Trump spits on NYC with the garbage he builds here.

What Chicago ended up with is the antithesis of what NYC would have gotten. I guarantee you that if this was being built in NYC the second from left would have been the final design under construction.



This is from today's Chicago Tribune 03/25/05

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/graphic/2005-03/16854196.jpg

[investordude]

Whenever Trump tries to build a nice building, the city blocks him or gives him a hard time. If we want a skyline with great buildings to go up, like you see in Chicago, then we need to support that by making it realistic. What it really shows is Trump would like to build nicer stuff and New York City rules make it too hard and too expensive.

[TREPYE]

What it really shows is Trump would like to build nicer stuff and New York City rules make it too hard and too expensive.


Yeah cuz, you know, he is really struggling for profits nowadays....please:rolleyes:

If you bother to investigate the history of this developement just a tad bit you's see that he is adding these extra elements of aesthetics to this tower because the major of Chicago ordered him to do so. It should not have to come to that in NYC or Chi-town with the $$ this guy makes.

[lofter1]

Whenever Trump tries to build a nice building, the city blocks him or gives him a hard time.


Are you saying NYC gives Trump more of a hard time than Durst, Zeckendorf or others? And why are others able to build much bettter looking buildings?

Trump has mediocre taste. Unless someone is around him to show him a better way then he seems quite content with doing buildings which look as boring as can be imagined.

Good looking can be built for similar costs as boring. But not if someone is a lazy thinker and has two left eyes.

[investordude]

Within Manhattan, Trump builds controversial stuff. Like the UN World Tower building or his current Soho project. My sense is that Durst and Zeckendorf tend to build where the city is OK with them building, which makes life easier.

Case in point, the Bofa tower got huge tax breaks and the city was proud of it. The UN Tower and Soho tower had to be snuck in before anyone knew what was being built.

If you gave Trump huge tax breaks (or at least not sick Andrew Berman on the poor man) to build in visionary places, he'd probably pretty up the building. Otherwise, I say give the man credit for extending our skyline and paving the way.

[investordude]

Here's the downside of letting the mayor decide what building designs get created - it makes people fear the mayor and allows him to amass unreasonable power. Chicago has been controlled by a single mayoral family without much change for over 40 years. As one might expect in a system with such little accountability for performance, Chicago's relative crime rate and economic situation compare unfavorably to peer cities like NY, LA, or even Atlanta.

I like visiting Chicago and touring the architecture, but I also like democracy. As of right development, coupled with the economic incentive for people to create nice looking buildings that will command a premium, is a better strategy than permitting the abuse of power.

[TREPYE]

Here's the downside of letting the mayor decide what building designs get created - it makes people fear the mayor and allows him to amass unreasonable power.

HUH!?!?!? :confused::confused: Dude I dont mean to be rude or anything but that is a strange, strange comment. Do you honestly belive that?

If anything, a mayor forcing a develper to actually build nicer buildings shows that he has enough pride in his city to notice what buildings are going to make up the fabric of it. Seems like a good political move to me, not this totalitarian strangeness that you bring up.:rolleyes:

I wish NYC had a Mayor that cares about what the city will look like to the point that he will tell a scumbag developer (ie Trump, Mackelowe, Vornado, etc.) to go to hell if he tried to deface the city with horrible/mundane architeture.

[investordude]

I could potentially stomach a design review committee that gave height bonuses to nice buildings if it was genuinely apolitical, was efficient enough not to raise costs, and wasn't in the pocket of NIMBYs either. But yes, I absolutely believe the mayor should not be involved in awarding wealth to politically connected contributors just because they build pretty buildings.

That's a recipe for crony capitalism and subverting the will of the people to stay in power even when your city is losing its economic relevance. Chicago is a good poster child for this concept, although I guess Atlanta and Dallas should send Daley a thank you card as logistics businesses and domestic finance flee a corrupt city.

[spyguy999]

Photos from ambient
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2384/1553050790_271d1eb432_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2184/1553048866_e9594a84da_b.jpg

Taken from Daley (investordude's favorite despot) Center

[Derek2k3]

What a nice looking curtain wall.

[TREPYE]

I could potentially stomach a design review committee that gave height bonuses to nice buildings if it was genuinely apolitical, was efficient enough not to raise costs, and wasn't in the pocket of NIMBYs either. But yes, I absolutely believe the mayor should not be involved in awarding wealth to politically connected contributors just because they build pretty buildings.

That's a recipe for crony capitalism and subverting the will of the people to stay in power even when your city is losing its economic relevance. Chicago is a good poster child for this concept, although I guess Atlanta and Dallas should send Daley a thank you card as logistics businesses and domestic finance flee a corrupt city.

Then how come Trump did not leave when he was ordered to produce a spire? How come currently Chicago has a myriad of new developments (a hell of alot nicer than NY may I add)??

Your position does not add up unless you can provide some actual proof that this mass corporate exodus from Chicago to Dallas and Atlanta has happened because of the major. And, is it anymore than the amount of companies that leave NYC or any other major city at lower echelons'?

[investordude]

There's a difference between leaving NY and Chicago - Chicago is reasonably cheap. Not quite as cheap as Dallas or Atlanta, but the difference isn't very large. If you look at airport traffic growth, or migration of college educated immigrants, or payroll growth, these all suggest powerful trends of Dallas and Atlanta beating out Chicago, especially on logistics. I guess what I'd like to see in Chicago is an appointed design review board that isn't under the mayors thumb, if we want a design review board.

Of course Trump would stay in Chicago. The political cronyism there is a win win for both him and Daley, and for architects and people who like pretty buildings. What's wrong with Chicago is the top cops are accussed or murder, only a little while after a nationally televised incident of a cop beating the daylights out of a bartender. And crime is too high. These kinds of things normally hurt the mayor and force management improvement, but in Chicago, people are afraid Daley can punish them economically so they don't challenge his ineptitutde. Putting design in the hands of less political people would go along way to restoring good government to Chicago, and would still let it be America's architecure capital.

[TREPYE]

There's a difference between leaving NY and Chicago - Chicago is reasonably cheap. Not quite as cheap as Dallas or Atlanta, but the difference isn't very large. If you look at airport traffic growth, or migration of college educated immigrants, or payroll growth, these all suggest powerful trends of Dallas and Atlanta beating out Chicago, especially on logistics. I guess what I'd like to see in Chicago is an appointed design review board that isn't under the mayors thumb, if we want a design review board.

Why?? cuz you think he is manipulating the citizens of Chicago by throwing pretty designs at them??


Of course Trump would stay in Chicago. The political cronyism there is a win win for both him and Daley, and for architects and people who like pretty buildings.

How is it a win for Trump?? This guy could care less about design, he's all about profits. All he could think of is how much $$ he is loosing by erecting this profiteless spire. I completely disagree; Daley wins that battle but the loss is not big enough for Trump to leave because in the end the extra 5-10% spent on a spire does not impact his BL immensly. And in most development cases I dont believe it should, the difference here between NYC and Chi is enforcement; if Bloomy gave a crap enough about NYC architectural apperance he would have done the same thing.


What's wrong with Chicago is the top cops are accussed or murder, only a little while after a nationally televised incident of a cop beating the daylights out of a bartender. And crime is too high. These kinds of things normally hurt the mayor and force management improvement, but in Chicago, people are afraid Daley can punish them economically so they don't challenge his ineptitutde.

If this situation is a dire as you put it how come I havent heard about a Federal probe about this? This seems like its a job for the FBI. I find it hard to believe the things that you mentioned above would go by unnoticed by the Federals.


Putting design in the hands of less political people would go along way to restoring good government to Chicago, and would still let it be America's architecure capital.

So you are telling me that when a political figure has input and veto power over archtiectural designs it means that he is corrupt or a less responsible politician?? It seems like you are trying to put together two mutually exclusive issue together....

If he want to use his architectectural taste/influence for political gain I see nothing wrong with that. If he is as corrupt as you suggest he is then the federal govt will not look the other way because he has good architectural taste, the citzens may be fooled (per yor suggestions), but not the FBI.

[devels]

TRUMP TOWER

[BVictor1]

A few more shots from 10/21.2007

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/10/568302.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/10/568303.jpg

[BVictor1]

Taken 10/23/07

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/8610/p1100006ajh6.jpg

[Tectonic]

Possibly the best looking tower developed by Trump in my opinion.

[SolarWind]

October 29, 2007
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/1025/dsc0077yq4.jpg

October 30, 2007
http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/4494/dsc0098ls4.jpg

[BVictor1]

11/13/07
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/11/571809.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/11/571810.jpg

[SolarWind]

November 13, 2007

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6237/dsc0100copyan2.jpg

[Bob]

It's probably too late in the process to resurrect the original Jetsons top, correct?

[lofter1]

Do you have a picture of that ^ which you'd like to share :confused:

[SolarWind]

It's probably too late in the process to resurrect the original Jetsons top, correct?
One of these?

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/8379/mid2002trumpau1.jpg http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/5372/jan2003trumpee0.jpg http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/9577/trumptower010904vr5.jpg

[SolarWind]

November 29, 2007

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/1986/dsc0120ct6.jpg

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/1025/dsc0137yb1.jpg

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/2430/dsc0035lu2.jpg

[SolarWind]

November 27, 2007

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/4596/dsc0084su7.jpg

[Jake]

Aren't the first tenants moving in THIS Monday? :p

[SolarWind]

Aren't the first tenants moving in THIS Monday? :p

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-071130trump,0,7680191.story?coll=chi_tab04_layout

Trump International Hotel & Tower opening delayed
Monday start dashed after officials say more work is needed to meet city's fire-safety codes

By Kathy Bergen

Trump International Hotel & Tower will not begin a phased opening on Monday, as planned, because work remains to be done to meet fire-safety codes, city officials said Friday.

Contractors need to complete the apron on the Wabash Avenue side of the riverfront building so fire trucks can get close enough to the building, said Larry Langford, spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department. The developer also needs to complete installation of fire-safety elements for elevator operations, test the fire alarm system and file the project's emergency plan with the city, he said late Friday afternoon.

[Jake]

So they'll have to wait a bit. Personally I don't see the appeal of living in a building that still has construction cranes on it. Seems a little dangerous to me and I'd think a prudent person would wait at least until the building was topped out.

[SolarWind]

So they'll have to wait a bit. Personally I don't see the appeal of living in a building that still has construction cranes on it. Seems a little dangerous to me and I'd think a prudent person would wait at least until the building was topped out.
It was the hotel portion that was set to open. Trump probably wants to start generating revenue ASAP. As for the guests, they may want to be one of the first to experience the new building. I certainly wouldn't mind staying there.

[SolarWind]

November 29, 2007

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/6812/dscl0121jg7.jpg

[BVictor1]

12/16/07

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/578412.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/578417.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/578421.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/578427.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/578429.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/578436.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/578441.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/578446.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/578452.jpg

[arcman210]

this seems to be progressing extremely slowly.

[BVictor1]

this seems to be progressing extremely slowly.

They've just finished working on a transfer floor to distribute the weight of the rest of the tower, and that took about 7 weeks to complete. The building does have 2.6million sq ft. of space, and that takes time.

[SolarWind]

December 26, 2007

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/4250/dsc0054mb3.jpg

[BVictor1]

12/26/07
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/580542.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/580548.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/580553.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/580559.jpg

[BVictor1]

Images taken 01/03/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/584014.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/584016.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/584019.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/584023.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/584025.jpg

[BrooklynRider]

Excellent progress photos. Thanks, BV!

[BVictor1]

01/18/08

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/586773.jpg

I didn't notice the plane until I edited the image.

[Tectonic]

Nice pictures, this building is turning out kinda disappointing though. I thought the skin would be smoother.

[BVictor1]

Nice pictures, this building is turning out kinda disappointing though. I thought the skin would be smoother.

It was always designed to be textured as you see. The cladding is almost identical to Burj (same architect).

01/27/07
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/589406.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/589407.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/589408.jpg

[NoyokA]

The skin on this one is very nice.

[Zephyr]

this seems to be progressing extremely slowly.
Let's look at three snapshots from 2007, courtesy SolarWind:



Trump Tower Chicago
February 2007

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/230/518992975_a45959677a_o.jpg
© flickr / SolarWind – Chicago


Trump Tower Chicago
July 2007

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1063/908169706_ef2f273dbd_o.jpg
© flickr / SolarWind – Chicago


Trump Tower Chicago
December 2007

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/2169781925_8488f3f17e_o.jpg
© flickr / SolarWind – Chicago

[BVictor1]

01/27/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/590179.jpg

01/30/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/590182.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/01/590183.jpg

[lofter1]

This tower looks more like a rendering than any other building I've ever seen in a photograph.

Does it appear that way in real life?

(btw: I think it looks fantastic)

[BVictor1]

02/10/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/02/593318.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/02/593320.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/02/593322.jpg

02/11/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/02/593325.jpg

02/13/08
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https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/02/593328.jpg

[Scraperfannyc]

Mighty nice. This one is in the 60+ floor range with about 1/3 more to go and then the spire. It's already a great looking building.

[MidtownGuy]

Trump gave Chicago a handsome building. Very nice glass.

[Tectonic]

The glass is ok but I think the building is generally bulky looking. I thought it would be smoother.

[Zephyr]

Nice pictures, this building is turning out kinda disappointing though. I thought the skin would be smoother.


The glass is ok but I think the building is generally bulky looking. I thought it would be smoother.

I guess the lack of smoothness does bother you, based on these two posts. And the bulkiness must be the major disappointment.

For me, I think it is quite elegant overall, especially given its size and location. Being in Chicago the last two months, I can attest from my point of view, TTC has many types of looks, depending on where you see it. And I have come to conclude that a smoother surface would actually work counter to the intended goal of the Architect - Adrian Smith - to fit within the context of the former IBM building on one side, and the Wrigley building on the other.

Perhaps the last several shots show, comparatively speaking, the bulkiest side. But the prowl-like view, below, is comparatively less bulky given the immensity of this building. Nothing wrong with disagreeing on what each of us sees, but that is my take.



https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2007/12/580553.jpg

[Scraperfannyc]

We have to wait until it is done to see the full impact. There is a good deal left to be built on this.

I do like how different views of this building provides different looks, and that it is not just the predictable box.

Trump out did himself with this one, but it may be all downhill for trump architecture from here. Take a look at his philly proposal and you will see tjat he he dug deep for bottom of the barrel design quality.

http://www.trumptowerpa.com/

[Zephyr]

I don't like to refer to TTC as Trump architecture, because when Trump first appeared in Chicago, he used a different Architect, and the first versions were panned by locals. He eventually brought Adrian Smith into the mix, who is widely respected here, and he created what you are seeing now. It was remarked that Trump was surprised at how critical Chicago people were of his initial renders, but he later acknowledged that it led to a better result.

The setback is common in many of Smith's buildings, including the Burj Dubai (a building I happen not to like as much), NBC Tower Chicago, etc.

I do understand, based on several of the Trump Towers that I have become familiar, why they are seen as less than extraordinary.

[ld876]

I'm still shocked that Trump could build something that didn't look like new jersey just threw it up (ie clad in fake-looking gold).

Well done. Bring that class to NYC.

[Tectonic]

The 'Trump' buildings are looking better. From Trump World in NYC to Trump Chicago to Trump SoHo and now Trump PA. Trump Ft Lauderdale and Las Vegas fit their locations.

[Scraperfannyc]

I have a 180 degree view from the last statement. Trump buildings are not looking better than trump Chicago in my view. I think Trump in philly is one of his worst buildings. Complete blah. Trump Soho is nice, but not nicer than the last Trump Place building that was built at the North end of Trump Place. Trump World was built a long time ago and I consider it one of his previous works. Trump NJ is looking as awful as any other complete blah building being built these days.

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5712&stc=1&d=1204099712

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5713&stc=1&d=1204100964

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5715&stc=1&d=1204179304

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5716&stc=1&d=1204179800

[Jasonik]

Now I understand Adrian Smith's finned curtainwall.

http://www.rachelleb.com/images/2004_03_19/chicago_sun_times.jpg
(http://www.chicagoarchitecture.info/Building/1067/Chicago_Sun-Times_Building.php)

[Zephyr]

http://www.chicagomag.com/images/logo.gif

A New Order

Though he was one of its chief architects, rainmakers, and partners, Adrian Smith was recently ushered out the door here at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Is the celebrated 70-year-old architectural firm shrewdly remaking itself for the 21st century—or suffering through an intercity power play?

By Jay Pridmore
February 2007 issue
Chicago Magazine



Photography by Jeff Sciortino (left) and Anna Knott (right)
http://www.chicagomag.com/images/2007/February%202007/features_som_art2.jpg

>> A fresh façade: at SOM in Chicago,
the design partner Ross Wimer, left, and Tom Kerwin, a managing partner, have moved to center stage
following the unceremonious departure of Adrian Smith, right, arguably the firm's architectural star.


Six years ago, Donald Trump set his sights on a stretch of the Chicago River where, he boasted, he would build the tallest building in the world. Realities such as terrorism and timid bankers forced him to scale down his plans, but as the project moved forward, it was hardly surprising that Trump chose Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill as his architect. No architect has a thicker portfolio of well-loved skyscrapers; no firm has its feet set more firmly in the real world.

Trump and Smith made an odd match. Whereas Trump the tycoon is brash, Smith the architect is reserved. But any fears that Chicago would get a monstrosity were eased by Smith's-and Skidmore's-participation. And though the early plans for Trump Tower were predictably gargantuan, the final design was ultimately modified-to please the mayor, to suit the neighbors, even to stroke the critics.

Trump was frequently on the phone from New York through these phases, talking about curtain walls and spires. But as progressively more palatable renderings were made public, the skyscraper became closely identified with Smith, who was born in Chicago and graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

So this past fall, just as Trump Tower was going up, it came as a shock to hear that Adrian Smith was leaving Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-and that the parting had been unpleasant. Life, as it turned out, had been rocky for a while at SOM, the most famous acronym in architecture. Smith had been with the firm for 39 years, and a partner since 1980. His position as senior design partner in the Chicago office for 15 years had coincided with some very prosperous times at the firm-and those good times continue to this day.

Tensions, however, rose to a boil about four years ago when Gordon Gill, Smith's closest protégé in Chicago, was passed over for a promotion to partnership. Some months later, a move by partners primarily in SOM's New York office effectively forced Smith into the role of "consulting partner," a position, he says, that gave him little say in the governing of the firm. Then, last October, a majority of SOM's 30 partners-who are spread out among the principal offices in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco-agreed to show him the door when he declined to accept a new contract.

Sitting in the large and sun-filled living room of his Mount Vernon–like home in Lake Forest, Smith recounts these events. He takes pains to explain it all in conciliatory terms, saying that giving older partners the boot and getting young architects into the game is not all that uncommon at his former firm. "One of the primary reasons that SOM has lasted for 70 years is that it has had a policy of renewing itself at the partnership level," is how he puts it. Yet Smith doesn't mind adding that he was hurt and baffled by how it happened. "I have a history of being a big rainmaker for this firm," he says. Now, replacing him in the office have come designers who, he says, "have no connection with Chicago-and never have had any connection with Chicago."

Smith discusses all this with some sadness, but also with clarity and even detachment, almost as if it had happened to someone else. But after nearly two hours, he abruptly ends the interview. He would be happy to talk about the old firm again, he says, but just now he has another meeting. He hops into his German sports car and races downtown, where he has opened a new architectural firm-and a new chapter in his life.


--

Based in an old SOM building at the corner of Clark and Monroe streets, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture will concentrate on "sustainable" or energy-efficient structures, which Smith and others regard as the next big thing in architecture. There is little doubt that they will be competing against SOM for clients, and Smith confesses that he is unsure how it will play out. For his part, Trump, in an October article in the Chicago Sun-Times, suggested that his future loyalty as a client might be "torn" between Smith and SOM. And the Trump Tower? It remains an SOM project.

Seated stiffly in a conference room overlooking Michigan Avenue, Jeffrey McCarthy, SOM's managing partner in charge of the Chicago office, shows impatience with the question of Adrian Smith even before it's asked. He wants to hear nothing of "the changing of the guard at SOM," and though it has been just a week since the Skidmore-Smith divorce went public, McCarthy dismisses it as old news. "We have ten partners here in Chicago," he says. "There are extraordinary stories about each one of the ten."

McCarthy is right-and not just about Chicago. SOM has big things on the drawing boards in all of its studios-its principal offices in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, and its smaller ones in Washington and London. Its revolutionary "zero-energy" Pearl River Tower in Guangzhou, China-designed by Smith and Gill before their departure and scheduled to be finished in 2009-will aim to generate as much energy, through solar, wind, and geothermal power, as it consumes. SOM won an international competition to design the new NATO headquarters in Brussels (due for completion in 2011), and, in the relentless glare of the media spotlight, SOM's New York office is refining its design for Freedom Tower on the site of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, a project of stratospheric symbolism.

As far as Smith's departure is concerned, his former colleagues insist that it is inside-boardroom stuff and no one's business outside the partnership. But as the folks at SOM like to point out, it is one of the largest, one of the oldest, and one of the most powerful architecture firms in the United States. The firm helped shape modern architecture in the 20th century, and the current partners are determined to do the same in the 21st. So as SOM travels the world exporting American architecture, the things that its architects do, and the way they behave, are no more a private matter than Millennium Park-for which SOM served as master planner-is the exclusive pleasure garden of the donors who funded its construction.


--

So what exactly is behind the recent shakeup at SOM? At the simplest level, it might be attributed to a power play by the firm's New York partners. In candid moments, some partners admit that it was an attempt to open doors for younger designers. On a loftier but related plane, it was driven by a sense that a new modernism was fast evolving in architecture-which the firm needs to embrace if it is to remain at center stage.

Whatever the motives behind the move, it certainly wasn't executed rashly. Few architectural firms today have such a long history-and none have moved forward so deliberately-as SOM. Since its founding in 1936, the firm has amassed a wide-ranging portfolio that includes Lever House in New York, the John Hancock Center and Sears Tower in Chicago, and the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai. No other firm has mediated so well between the pressures of economics and design, not to mention raging egos and clueless clients. Few are currently so successful as SOM, with record income in 2005-$160 million, according to an educated guess by one person close to the firm-which was (again a guess) a 10 percent jump over 2004. The firm's 30 partners frequently expect six-figure bonuses-and probably will for the foreseeable future.

From the outside looking in, Skidmore, Ownings & Merrill seems to have it all, and not just money. "It's a place of prodigious design talent," says Donna Robertson, dean of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. "But it's also a firm that is so good at execution. You can't really execute great projects without great business skills"-a lesson she hammers into IIT's students, not least by having SOM partners lecture and teach there.

At the same time, "there has been a longtime commitment to design excellence," says Stuart Cohen, an Evanston architect and author, and a leading observer-historian of Chicago's 19th- and early 20th-century architecture. Cohen is addressing the firm's role as America's heir to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and avatar of 20th-century modernism. SOM's biggest projects are most often for business clients, "but it's never just commercial work," he says. "There's always a major concern for the quality of the product."



Some notable buildings from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Photography courtesy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Esto Photographics
http://www.chicagomag.com/images/2007/February%202007/features_som_buildings1.jpg

1 Lever House, New York City (1952): The strikingly modern aristocrat of postwar corporate headquarters
2 Inland Steel Building, Chicago (1958): Stainless-steel playfulness, rather than the stark solemnity of a Mies edifice
3 John Hancock Center, Chicago (1970): With its structurally expressive X-bracing and tapered profile, a classic among supertall buildings
4 Kitt Peak National Observatory, near Tucson, Arizona (1962): Could have been created only by a designer-Myron Goldsmith-who was an architect, engineer, and artist
5 Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven (1963): Elegant form follows function as translucent panels admit indirect light.


These characteristics run deep in the culture of SOM, as does a belief in the power of collaboration among many professionals. Says the architect Dan Wheeler: "It's an umbrella-like firm that embraces all different disciplines," from planning to design to structural engineering and MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing). Wheeler worked at SOM before opening his own small firm in 1987, and he speaks in mostly positive terms about what must feel like architecture's 900-pound gorilla. He does acknowledge that design by committee might make the firm "more or less resistant to the startling idea."

SOM is likewise resistant to "star-chitects," designers whose personal prestige exceeds that of the buildings they design. Smith had come close to achieving that status; indeed, there were rumblings that he could be a less than democratic patriarch, which made him a target for ambitious partners eager to move up.

This would square with the view of Joseph Rosa-the John H. Bryan Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago-who thinks that SOM's longevity has depended upon its ability to move people around, up, and (in the fullness of time) out. "Whenever you get a big studio system, getting young talent to the top is always difficult," he says. At SOM, upward mobility is part of the culture. "If there's bad blood or stress under the umbrella," Rosa adds, "perhaps that brings out the best in all of them."


--

"I think there's always been as much competition within SOM as there is between SOM and the outside world," says Nicholas Adams, author of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill: The Experiment Since 1936 (Electa, 2006). As Adams writes, intramural rivalries go back to the very founding of the firm in Chicago 70 years ago. Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings met after Skidmore became engaged to Owings's sister. Eventually, they opened a new firm designed to serve business clients. "But they didn't get along," Adams says bluntly. "It was a very dysfunctional relationship."

The partners coped by putting 800 miles between them, with Owings remaining in Chicago and Skidmore opening an office in New York. There were good business reasons for the New York–Chicago divide, of course, as the firm found plenty of work in both places. But it was definitely easier for the meticulous Skidmore to bear the aggressive and explosive Owings from a distance. (John Merrill, a mild-mannered engineer, figured little in the politics of the firm.)

Many organizations would wilt under such conflicting personalities, not to mention the "martini fog" that Adams says hung over both offices in the early days. But this one flourished, despite, or maybe because of, simmering distrust. Both offices were also fortunate to hire future partners of talent who assumed-and competed for-responsibility.

Hired by the New York office in 1937, Gordon Bunshaft quickly became the firm's most important designer, a position that was based on his command of modern architecture and not his tact with colleagues, whose work he could critique viciously. "There was no question that he [Bunshaft] was the star," said the late Chicago-based partner Ambrose Richardson in an oral history. "And there was a great deal of jealousy between Nat [Owings] and Gordon." Owings continued as a supersalesman of Bunshaft's work, but antipathy persisted until the end. Owings died in 1984 and Bunshaft in 1990, two years after he won the Pritzker Prize, architecture's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Bunshaft called most of the shots on design in the early years, but Chicago became coequal in the hands of William Hartmann, who took over the office when Owings went to San Francisco in 1951. Under Hartmann, the Chicago office became noted for cool efficiency, superior engineering, and deft political connections. Hartmann brokered, for example, the artistic marriage between Mayor Richard J. Daley and Pablo Picasso, which brought the signature sculpture to what is now Daley Plaza.

With many hearts, many hands, and many egos, SOM grew. The firm's modern style echoed that of Mies van der Rohe, but without Mies's brooding and his potential for client conflict. SOM's public image lined up with The Organization Man, the classic 1956 book that explained how getting ahead meant conforming to the corporate goal. "They [SOM] spoke the postwar language of efficiency," says Adams. Much of its work was faceless as a line of Sears stores on Long Island. But SOM also became synonymous with corporate America at its best with masterpieces such as Lever House (1952) and the Inland Steel Building in the Loop (1958).

In Chicago in the 1960s, two more icons got under way, the John Hancock Center (completed 1970) and Sears Tower (1974), showing that SOM and Chicago were a very good match. The firm equaled Mayor Daley for power and ambition, and its Chicago office was blessed with great talent. It had the designers Walter Netsch and Bruce Graham-both of whom worked on the Inland Steel Building-and the engineers Fazlur Khan and Myron Goldsmith (who was also an architect, and Mies's most important protégé). All the synergies were working-and there was the ineffable benefit of the relationship between Netsch and Graham, who hated each other.

"Hate" may be too strong a word. Yet stories of their simmering competition are legion. They were working on different ends of the practice, Graham on skyscrapers and Netsch on educational buildings. But there was still the small issue of credit for Inland Steel, for example. There was also the fact that Graham's skyscraper designs were a big profit center for the firm, and Netsch's complex and detailed school buildings much less so. In any case, in the 1970s, everyone in the office knew when a partner meeting had adjourned: they heard a door slam. Usually it was Netsch storming out. (Heart problems-and office politics-forced Netsch into retirement in 1979, though he remained active as a consultant and also served as president of the Chicago Park District; Graham retired as an SOM partner in 1989, when he moved to Florida and started a new firm with his wife.)


--

These memories were naturally revived as the separation of Adrian Smith from the firm approached its dénouement last year. One could say that Smith deserved better. It was he, for example, who got the firm over its roughest patch ever in the 1980s, when minimalist modern architecture-SOM's stock-in-trade-was falling out of favor. While other firms were turning to postmodernism, SOM was creating Chicago's graceless Apparel Center (1977) and unloved One Magnificent Mile (1983). Even before that, in 1973, the critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote in The New York Times that attacking SOM was "a little like attacking the Pope. But . . . there has been an evolution of design needs and philosophy that has somehow passed the firm right by."

By the late 1980s, SOM was the great shrinking monolith, and there were questions as to whether it would survive. Whereupon Smith saved the day with buildings that some called postmodernist, after the current fashion, but which he called "contextualist," responding to their sense of place. Though he had many commissions, in Chicago Smith is best known for NBC Tower (1989), much praised for its subtle references to the city's Jazz Age skyscrapers. In Boston he did Rowes Wharf with its Georgian influences, and in Shanghai, his Jin Mao Tower has a pagoda-like profile on an otherwise Jetsons-like skyline. And now there is Trump Tower, with its setbacks and "flatiron"-like profile evoking a romanticized past as it takes shape along the Chicago River.



Photography courtesy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Timothy Hursley and Gartner Photography
http://www.chicagomag.com/images/2007/February%202007/features_som_buildings2.jpg

6 Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai (1999): A soft, pagoda-like silhouette on the planet's most aggressively modern skyline
7 Sears Tower, Chicago (1974): SOM architect Bruce Graham said the building's form was inspired by the way the first few cigarettes popped out when he tapped a new pack of Luckies.
8 Trump Tower, Chicago (ongoing): This glassy high-rise evokes the early skyscraper era-and Trump has promised a curtain wall to die for.
9 World Trade Center, New York City (ongoing): This replacement for a building destroyed as collateral damage on 9/11 showcases David Childs's skill as both a designer and an urban planner.
10 Burj Dubai, Dubai City (ongoing): Designed by Adrian Smith, this building in the United Arab Emirates is due to top out as the world's tallest.


But architectural fashion is changing again, moving toward a preference for skyscrapers that cast sculptural forms against the sky. SOM did not pioneer this new style, but it hopes to define it-and in a big way-with Manhattan's Freedom Tower, designed by David Childs, a consulting partner with SOM in New York. Battles over that design have been ferocious and public, and Childs became known as an architectural warrior, promoting his ideas and design over those of Daniel Libeskind, who had originally been chosen to create the master plan for the World Trade Center site.

Smith's dismissal from SOM may have been directly related to Childs's ambition. "It may be that they [his partners] saw my architecture as something of the past and not of the future at SOM," says Smith. And as Smith was put out to pasture, essentially by Childs's allies in New York, it is worthwhile recalling a remark made in 1991 by Walter Netsch in Chicago. David Childs, he said, was "more suave than Bruce Graham and twice as vicious."


--

Today, observers of SOM are watching Ross Wimer's career with interest. Wimer, along with another young architect, Peter Ruggiero, came from New York in 2003 to support the Chicago office in design-leadership roles. Featured recently on the cover of Architect mag-azine, Wimer has big projects on the boards just now, including Infinity Tower in Dubai, which will spiral skyward within sight of Smith's Burj Dubai (another SOM building under construction and due to top out as the world's tallest). Though there is definitely pressure on Wimer to perform, he remains relaxed and winning, seemingly unfazed by the expectations of other people.

Only 45, Wimer has worked at a high level all his career. He is a graduate of Yale University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and, before Skidmore, he worked in Korea on large commercial projects and in New York for the firm of Gwathmey Siegel, where he helped design the addition to the Guggenheim Museum.

Entering SOM's New York office in 1995, Wimer began as a senior designer. "The touchstone for me goes back to what are the classic projects," says Wimer. "Can a building have a presence like Inland Steel or the Hancock building?"

Another SOM touchstone is design by collaboration, and Wimer has performed at a high level in this aspect as well. His star at the firm rose swiftly as he worked with Childs and Roger Duffy, another powerful partner in New York. Now a partner himself and based in Chicago, Wimer and his prospects for future success are tied to his relations with his colleagues here, not least the managing partner handling the business end of his projects (each SOM project is led by a design partner and a managing partner). For Wimer, that person is usually Tom Kerwin, 43, who is as serious and tightly wound as Wimer is relaxed.

Kerwin joined the firm in Chicago in 1986. He was trained as an architect, but his superiors recognized instantly a deft hand in administration. Kerwin's specialty is the Asian market, where, in one example of how things work, he knew for some years of land in Shanghai that has since become the site for a multiuse project called North Bund Plaza. Kerwin stayed in touch with city officials and financiers. When a developer for the site surfaced, a design competition was organized-competitions are usually mandatory in China-and SOM predictably won.

North Bund is a prime example of SOM's "collective competence," as the collaborative approach is sometimes called. Beginning last year, a team of as many as 60 SOM employees in Chicago have been working on the project, including architects, engineers, and other professionals, each contributing to what they all hope will be the soundest and most innovative design possible. The process isn't unique to SOM, but it would be hard to find another firm where so many different people were involved so early in the process of deciding what a building was going to look like.

SOM talks collaboration constantly, "but this is where it [the process of design] kind of happens," says Bill Baker, the partner in charge of structural engineering, referring to the many tables occupying open spaces around the office. There people sit and brainstorm, working out projects to the smallest details. "Everybody chimes in," explains Baker.

As an example, Baker describes how the North Bund design began when a young architect working for Wimer built a model of a tower with roundish undulating edges. "It sort of morphs as it rises, in that what was the side becomes the corners, and what was the corners becomes the sides," says Baker.

From that original model, the design will continue to evolve through many iterations, reflecting the input of all who worked on it. It's the SOM way to collaborate intensely, says Baker. Both the Sears and Hancock buildings, for example, resulted from the acknowledged collaborations between the architect Bruce Graham and the engineer Fazlur Khan. Credit for some of the firm's other buildings is more up in the air. "We still argue about who did Inland Steel," Baker says. "If it's a good building, everybody claims it."


--

Ask Jeff McCarthy, SOM's managing partner for Chicago, to define the firm, and he replies in corporate-speak. "We are global," he observes. "We are accountable." But then comes a remark that cuts to the core: "In many ways," he says, "we embodied the ethos of corporate America."

Different architects embody different things. Mies tried and largely succeeded in capturing the spirit of the industrial age; Frank Gehry shows the abstract (perhaps unfathomable) potential of the computer. But as McCarthy noted, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill embodies the ethos of the corporation. What's that? It depends.

Look at Lever House: it's handsome and well proportioned. Look at the Sears Tower: it's muscular and "big shouldered." Look at NBC Tower: it's a touch romantic.

But looking deeper into the soul of this organization, another word keeps coming up: "efficiency." Beneath the surface you will definitely find steroidal egos and internecine struggles (not unlike boardrooms everywhere). But when SOM presents itself to the outside world, the message is efficiency, streamlined operations, buildings signed not by prima donnas but by three safely dead partners, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

SOM's brand identity gives the customer what he or she wants. Among the long and current list of happy clients is Patrick G. Ryan, chairman and CEO of Chicago 2016, the committee preparing the bid for Chicago to host the Summer Olympics in nine years. It has been one-stop shopping for the committee so far, as it works with Ross Wimer, Tom Kerwin, and Phil Enquist, SOM's esteemed partner in charge of planning.

Ryan, the founder and executive chairman of the insurance giant Aon, has been pleased by SOM's unselfishness. "They have been instrumental in bringing other great architectural minds into the process," Ryan says. (Ben Wood, whose firm revamped Soldier Field, and Stanley Tigerman, who worked unhappily at SOM early in his illustrious career, have been mentioned as collaborators.) "SOM's architects have a healthy respect for the rest of the architectural fraternity," Ryan says.

And out in New York, knowing what the client wants got David Childs this far on Freedom Center. Childs knew that New York City craved a symbol for Ground Zero; he also knew that the client, the developer Larry Silverstein, needed a design that would pay back the billions he had invested in the World Trade Center before September 11th. No surprise, then, that Childs prevailed over the starchitect Libes-kind, who won the public competition for the project but has been overshadowed by SOM ever since.

In a recent interview, Silverstein spoke respectfully of Libeskind but couldn't praise Childs highly enough. Among other things, he found the SOM architect "a talented and delightful person." The irony is that while most of his colleagues respect Childs and recognize his talent, hardly anyone else would call him delightful.

This is not a dig at Childs-or anyone else. Rather, it recognizes that architecture is a complex arena, and its best practitioners are many-layered personalities. It's these layers that emerge when you dig around Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-a complex and even byzantine organization that with some regularity designs buildings that define our place and time.

Copyright 2008 Chicago Magazine (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.chicagomag.com/images/2007/February%25202007/features_som_art2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/February-2007/A-New-Order/&h=341&w=500&sz=55&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=LBtwTujQll4j2M:&tbnh=89&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAdrian%2BSmith%2Bon%2BSun-Times%2Bbuilding%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%2 6client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den-us%26sa%3DN)

[SolarWind]

February 28, 2008

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/9697/dsc0039xf6.jpg

[BVictor1]

03/01/08

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/03/597307.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/03/597308.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/03/597310.jpg

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5775&stc=1&d=1205623347

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5776&stc=1&d=1205623846

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5777&stc=1&d=1205646210

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5778&stc=1&d=1205646436

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5779&stc=1&d=1205646832

[SolarWind]

March 14, 2008

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/9756/dsc0089qv6.jpg

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/9562/dsc0062ev0.jpg

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/5756/dsc0065qv6.jpg

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/5108/dsc0031rp3.jpg

[Zephyr]

Thanks devels, BVictor1, and SolarWind. The money shot for me would be this:



http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/9756/dsc0089qv6.jpg
Courtesy SolarWind

[Zephyr]

Exterior Views

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/480/233621744658f9391cb5bnr8.jpg
SSP / spyguy

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/Picture114.jpg
SSP and SSC / cbotnyse

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/03/597327.jpg
SSP/ Chicago Shawn

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y150/wjcordier/ChiTrumpPano20080210-1_2.jpg
SSC / wrabbit

[Zephyr]

Although only two-thirds complete, Trump Tower Chicago is already occupied on the lower floors (i.e. the hotel/restaurant/bar sections):




Interior View - Lift/Elevator

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/DSC_0014.jpg
SSC / cbotnyse


Interior Views - Restaurant

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/DSC_0069.jpg
SSC / cbotnyse

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/DSC_0019-2.jpg
SSC / cbotnyse

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/DSC_0029.jpg
SSC / cbotnyse

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/DSC_0080.jpg
SSC / cbotnyse

[Zephyr]

View to the East and Southeast - Wrigley building (left), Chicago River, and Lake (unseen in distance)

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/DSC_0051.jpg
SSC / cbotnyse


View to the Southwest - Chicago River and former IBM building (right)

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/DSC_0084.jpg
SSC / cbotnyse

[BVictor1]

03/18/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/03/601889.jpg

03/20/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/03/601872.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/03/601874.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/03/601878.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/03/601883.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/03/601885.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/03/601887.jpg

[Tectonic]

I must say the building's starting to grow on me...from some angles at least.

[Zephyr]

… [Adrian] Smith? Anyone capable of making a building as hideous as the Trump Tower Chicago does not deserve my respect. …






More of that "hideous"
Trump Tower Chicago (U/C)
Exterior Views



http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y150/wjcordier/L1040590.jpg
SSC / wrabbit


A. Smith's "supertall" TTC
vis-à-vis
L. M. van der Rohe's IBM

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2326/2327921659_bc6dbb42da_b.jpg
SSC / EnDleSsWaLtZ


http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/DSCmarch19.jpg
SSC / cbotnyse


By Twilight

http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/7947/dsc09530xy6.jpg http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/4953/dsc09536nl0.jpg
SSC / Chi649


http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/9094/dsc09532xp6.jpg
SSC / Chi649

[SolarWind]

March 28, 2008

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/6193/dsc0028oq1.jpg

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/4572/dsc0021rs1.jpg

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/8007/dsc0037rk2.jpg

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/4527/dsc0025sw1.jpg

[lbjefferies]

Hideous is obviously too strong a word. From specific angles the tower can be quite attractive. But most views of Trump leave me completely uninspired. From across the river it is just plain ugly, which is a shame considering the potential. And of course the massive parking garage on which the tower sits doesn't help, unless all you care about is height.

[Derek2k3]

You can't be serious. I don't consider it amazing but still...

[Alonzo-ny]

It doesnt look good from some angles. Plus I really loath that every chicago building has the ridiculous spiral ramp. Even the Hancock has one!

[BVictor1]

It doesnt look good from some angles. Plus I really loath that every chicago building has the ridiculous spiral ramp. Even the Hancock has one!

Besides those 2, please name more...

[Alonzo-ny]

If I answer that then another massive New York - Chicago brawl will no doubt ensue so I will refrain. Also note 'every' building is a very obvious exaggeration implying 'many'

[Zephyr]

The topic is TTC, but we shouldn't be surprised at this point if you throw a bit of kindling into a smouldering fire, you will likely get a great deal more smoke, and perhaps a bigger fire.

I am originally from neither city, but have lived in or near Chicago for several years of late, and before that, New York and Toronto. In just the past two years I have logged most of my SE, project time, in Chicago and New York, with Toronto coming in a distant third. While I am not neutral on these Chicago buildings, including this one, generally I don't pander to a building just because it is in Chicago, or hate a building just because it is in New York. I am sure that is the case with most of you, however you choose to phrase it.

I can assure you that among professionals in the built environment, and historians of modern Architecture, Chicago and New York are known to be critical to the development of the "skyscraper" - a term borrowed from tall ships, to separate these type of tall structures from what went before. Whether you like it or not, you cannot intelligently discuss modern skyscrapers without understanding the contribution of Chicago and New York to this Architectural form.

But what you get on WNY and SSP when these two cities square off, is something akin to a sporting match. I suspect the source is not really the Architecture, but something else, and in some cases, something deeper.

I find myself getting emotional with a dismissive statement made about a building thrown out there without consideration, but rather to be provocative. But I'll get over it. The point is not to gain a consensus, but to discuss the Architecture. We have to remind ourselves, myself included, that every building can be criticised, even what we view as being worthy of consideration among the better buildings.

[BVictor1]

If I answer that then another massive New York - Chicago brawl will no doubt ensue so I will refrain. Also note 'every' building is a very obvious exaggeration implying 'many'

Well then, please name 'many' buildings...

[Alonzo-ny]

Like i just said and for the same reasons, no. I forgot you cant say anything on the CHicago threads without it turning into a massive tit for tat.

[BVictor1]

Like i just said and for the same reasons, no. I forgot you cant say anything on the CHicago threads without it turning into a massive tit for tat.

No, I just wanted you to be specific about your statement, sarcasm withstanding.

04/02/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/605448.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/605452.jpg

[Alonzo-ny]

I would but it would descend it to the same old routine so it wouldnt have been worth it, idealy Id have remember that before i posted and subsequently couldnt elaborate.

[Tectonic]

You gotta watch yah mouth, :). I personally seem to like Chicago's buildings more than ours here in NYC, especially post Y2K. Trump is one of my least favorites...I like the renderings more.

[TREPYE]

View to the East and Southeast - Wrigley building (left), Chicago River, and Lake (unseen in distance)



http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/trump/DSC_0051.jpg
SSC / cbotnyse


Yo, that is one kick-a-- enviable view. ;)

[BVictor1]

04/05/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/606444.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/606450.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/606453.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/606454.jpg

[BVictor1]

04/07/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/606952.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/606960.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/606962.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/606965.jpg

[BVictor1]

Photoshopped by Ghost on SSP



http://i26.tinypic.com/2ni9sm0.jpg


http://i31.tinypic.com/21o6ngm.jpg

[Tectonic]

Great photos as always! I like the second angle above. That's the angle that made me think it would be smooth all the way around.

[SolarWind]

April 11, 2008

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/2889/36213586np2.jpg

[Tectonic]

Another great angle

[SolarWind]

April 11, 2008

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/2528/dsc0002wb5.jpg

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/2729/dsc0101mc1.jpg

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6558/dsc0122dk1.jpg

[SolarWind]

April 14, 2008

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/2620/dsc0102la6.jpg

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/9959/dscc0087ww6.jpg

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/1226/dsc0092xr9.jpg

[Ed007Toronto]

I'm not liking how the curtains/blinds are impacting the clean look of the cladding.

[Zephyr]

^^^
Welcome to residents, and office workers, making their "digs," or place of work, more homey and/or tolerable. (Whew! ... difficult to state that either efficiently or effectively.)

There have been discussions and experimentations with engineeered glass in order to mask the interior from the outside to address the need for curtains and/or blinds building wide. This is meant to solve several issues in one package: including, privacy, “aesthetic consistency” (exterior appearance) and sun glare. But with these ideas come inevitable costs, and therein lays the rub.

For those that live in glass houses … wrong line … for those that create glass houses … refinement goes forward, inches at a time.

[Alonzo-ny]

Seeing the blinds give buildings a sense of life, something all reflective glass buildings dont have.

[BVictor1]

A few recent shots

04/12/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/608991.jpg

04/13/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/608992.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/608995.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/608997.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/608999.jpg

04/14/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/04/609000.jpg

[BrooklynRider]

Just got back from Chicago and stayed on the 22nd Floor at the Renaissance Hotel across the river. I had a perfect view of this building and the best pictures in this thread can't convey how great this looks from every angle. It's a beautiful building and is a stellar addition to the city center.

[Fabrizio]

Not to take the thread off course but give us your impression of Chicago vs. NYC.

[BVictor1]

Not to take the thread off course but give us your impression of Chicago vs. NYC.

Don't start that 'VS' crap.

Just ask for his impression of Chicago, period.

[futurecity]

Fabrizio, what are you, pazzo? Please don't start this:( If you like City V. City, why don't you compare your city ( i assume Florence, or Pisa, or somwhere) to NY. Extoll the virtues of fine wine, green rolling hills, cyprus trees, and grumpy waiters. Don't forget to mention hunting season, and how it enhances the bueatiful tuscan experience for its guests -- mmm, i love the sound of gunshots with my breakfast.

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
Was it your intention to abate what you perceived to be the start of an argument, or expand it.

Your post is off-topic, hostile, and insulting.

[futurecity]

An attempt to stop this going any further into NY V Chicago warfare -- thats all :)

[Fabrizio]

LOL. Oooops, the can of worms thing.

Yes, I guess I really didn't think my question through. Sorry about that.

[lbjefferies]

Fabrizio, what are you, pazzo? Please don't start this:( If you like City V. City, why don't you compare your city ( i assume Florence, or Pisa, or somwhere) to NY. Extoll the virtues of fine wine, green rolling hills, cyprus trees, and grumpy waiters. Don't forget to mention hunting season, and how it enhances the bueatiful tuscan experience for its guests -- mmm, i love the sound of gunshots with my breakfast.


My wife and I just returned from a wonderful vacation through Tuscany and we heard no gunshots and came across no grumpy waiters, but most thankfully we saw no buildings as unattractive as the Trump Tower. We did drink some very fine wine, see many rolling hills, and more than a few cypress trees.

[Alonzo-ny]

One sounds much nicer than the other but they are completely different lifestyle choices.

[Zephyr]

.. thankfully we saw no buildings as unattractive as the Trump Tower.

There are far too many unattractive buildings in this world. Wouldn't you agree?

And in the coterie of Trump Towers this is viewed as one of the better examples, which you could say is damning with faint praise.

For you, based on this post and a couple of others, this is a prime example of unattractiveness. The fact that many may disagree with you, shouldn't be cause for concern. But in any case, whether it is attractive to some and not to others, I think it is safe to say that this does not stand out in such a way that it will land on a list of the least attractive in the world, or this nation, or this city.

My criticism of this structure is not its appearance, but rather its lack of cutting-edge exploration. That is a problem I happen to have with many new buildings, regardless of locale or Architect or developer. That too places me in a minority based on my sensibilities.

But as I said, this shouldn't be a cause for concern.

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5871&stc=1&d=1209941176

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5874&stc=1&d=1209957402

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5876&stc=1&d=1209958767

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5877&stc=1&d=1209959134

[Zephyr]

Excellent photos. Thank you devels!

[Zephyr]

On duckling, whine and cheese



Dining area, this time during the day,
within Trump Chicago's hotel section

(Sorry but rear windows are not available)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2382/2333431264_32e04c14d4_b.jpg
flickr / dane brian


Foreground Mather Tower (completed 1928),
background Trump Chicago (projected 2009)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3082/2453724934_99cde174b9.jpg
flickr / spudart


Wrigley / Trump Chicago / IBM

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1065/576535606_53048ceb1d_b.jpg
flickr / swisscan (on vacation)

Growing Trump Chicago vis-à-vis Hotel 71
the latter formerly known as
Executive House (completed 1960)

(Next Two Photos)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2283/2049898231_2c0b33bdde_b.jpg
flickr / gracious tiger

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y150/wjcordier/chipan4-26-088.jpg
SSC / wrabbit


"Finding your place is not as difficult as you believed ..."

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1411/756720156_1cbac9dd26_o.jpg
flickr / blue(skied)

[BVictor1]

5/3/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/614237.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/614239.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/614241.jpg

05/04/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/614242.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/614243.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/614245.jpg

[stache]

I lurked around image google this morning looking for a long distance shot of the Chicago skyline now that this tower looks topped out, to no avail. Has anyone seen anything like that recently?

[Zephyr]

^ This was passed to me. It is from flickr, but I couldn't find it on flickr. However, an evening shot, from this angle, with so much of the building unseen, may not be what you want.



http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2197/2444223465_7a2964d850_b.jpg

[Citytect]

I lurked around image google this morning looking for a long distance shot of the Chicago skyline now that this tower looks topped out, to no avail.

I believe there are several more floors to go before topping out.

[stache]

I did not realize there's more to come!

[BVictor1]

I believe there are several more floors to go before topping out.

There are still 15-20 floors to go

[SolarWind]

May 12, 2008

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/1496/dsc0130ah2.jpg

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/7169/dsc0255jt2.jpg

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/4425/dsc0105ij8.jpg

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/1545/dsc0302lp3.jpg

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/8123/chicagorivertj3.jpg

[Tectonic]

Looking good Chicago...

[BVictor1]

05/15/08

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/617660.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/617666.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/617670.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/617672.jpg

[Zephyr]

17 May 2008:


Views from Southside looking North

http://lh3.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmichael/SDInwbY7GRI/AAAAAAAAmqQ/hHGayGCbxVw/P1350843.JPG?imgmax=800


http://lh5.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmichael/SDInu7Y7GQI/AAAAAAAAmqE/SRXqJbSkeQU/P1350735.JPG?imgmax=800


http://lh3.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmichael/SDInxbY7GSI/AAAAAAAAmqc/Fyo_qA_HfZ4/P1350852.JPG?imgmax=720


http://lh6.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmichael/SDIntLY7GPI/AAAAAAAAmp4/udy4i6mr6eY/P1350675.JPG?imgmax=800

All above are courtesy SSP / harryc


View from Near Northside looking South

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/3134/dsc09673xo2.jpg
Courtesy SSP / Chi649


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2301/2503294695_815cb6d7e3_b.jpg
Courtesy flickr / jchalmer


In the hotel portion of Trump Chicago

"... Grand Ballroom on the 16th floor of the Trump Tower":

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2209/2503189135_f98a46ca18_b.jpg


"This is a 'basic' hotel room at the Trump.
Even their 'basic' room has a kitchen, 42" plasma and
is over 600sq ft."

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2053/2504042478_d5334f25df_b.jpg


"The place settings for dinner at (level) 16.
There's a month wait for dinner reservations."

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2252/2503254919_54d3db021a_b.jpg

All above hotel images, and commentary, are courtesy flickr / jchalmer



18 May 2008:


View from Near North to West by Southwest

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f21/cbotnyse/my%20photos/DSC_0053.jpg
Courtesy SSC / cbotnyse

[stache]

It looks very important in the skyline - :)

[Zephyr]

21 May 2008:


Wrigley Building on left; IBM Building on right

http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/8539/dsc05266dq6.jpg
Courtesy SSC / Jibba


View Near North looking Southeast

http://lh5.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmichael/SDTZiwhFaxI/AAAAAAAAnTk/Jaaf0j45mSI/P1360441.JPG?imgmax=720
Courtesy SSP-SSC / harryc



22 May 2008:


Views from Southside looking North

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/jstush04/trump01.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/jstush04/trump02.jpg

Above are courtesy SSP / jstush04

[BVictor1]

05/22/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/620038.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/620048.jpg

[BVictor1]

A few more from 05/21/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/619521.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/619527.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/619533.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/619535.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/05/619542.jpg

[stache]

I'm old enough to remember when the Wrigley building looked really tall! :p Does anybody else remember the opening credits to the Bob Newhart show?

[SolarWind]

May 22, 2008

http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/1626/dsc0221copybm7.jpg

[BVictor1]

05/29/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/622239.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/622240.jpg



05/31/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/622336.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/622342.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/622344.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/622345.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/622349.jpg

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5923&stc=1&d=1212370660

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5925&stc=1&d=1212371796

[devels]

;)http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5934&stc=1&d=1212382619

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5935&stc=1&d=1212382862:D

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5938&stc=1&d=1212383561

[Jasonik]

This May 26 shot (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellyhafermann/2526129773/) is a cool perspective by kellyhafermann on flickr.


A similar shot from Feb 23 (http://templecourt.org/photo/080223/in080223.htm):

http://templecourt.org/photo/080223/DSC02213.JPG

This is the 'money' view in my opinion; gap, skybridge, wedding cake, spires...
I can't wait to see how it turns out.

[BVictor1]

06/08/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/624310.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/624314.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/624319.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/624324.jpg

Contextual shot as seen from Washington Park 06/08/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/624376.jpg

[stache]

BVictor, is that first shot looking down Clark St.?

[BVictor1]

BVictor, is that first shot looking down Clark St.?

1st 2 shots are looking south down Wabash Avenue.

[Zephyr]

10 June 2008:


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3136/2569179507_5917c87d39_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3180/2569181179_dff6e9b083_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3093/2570008302_fc353ecac5_b.jpg

flickr courtesy of SSP / jstush04

[kliq6]

I have to say I think this is Trumps best work yet

[Scraperfannyc]

Without a doubt, this is my favorite trump building. That said, there are finally now some really great residential projects being built in NYC, such as the Beekman, and potentially, the Moma Spire.

I heard the people of chicago protested Trump's initial design and made hime come up with better one. With the right attituede, you get the right buldings.

[Zephyr]

You are totally correct Scraperfannyc.

If you looked at the designs before Adrian Smith entered the picture, they were beyond horrid. What people saw in the initial renderings released back then, were poor massing of stacked boxes, followed by increasingly bland cladding choices.

The newspapers chirped, key Architecture critics in that city threw stones, and then there were the reactions from several respected organisations that act as city watchdogs on new buildings. I think the brashness of Donald Trump himself, along with past efforts, made many hyper-sensitive to what might happen in their city, long before anything was actually seen. The earlier renderings only confirmed those fears.

Mr. Smith was a good choice to rescue the project, because he was from Chicago, and was a safe bet to appease a great many people who were familar with his work. Even though I did not personally warm up to his first renderings - a bit of rehash as I saw it - these renderings got better, and sleeker, over time. And while the building, even on its own terms, is not letter perfect, it is a marked step forward as plans unfold for the next generation of buildings.

I still complain that this is not cutting-edge Architecture, but it is a compelling building, that demands attention the moment you see it within the cityscape. The Chicago River will eventually offer stiff competition to the more photographed Lake Michigan view of Chicago's skyline, and this building will likely be seen as leading the way.


.

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5962&stc=1&d=1213579842

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5964&stc=1&d=1213580215

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5965&stc=1&d=1213580589

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5966&stc=1&d=1213580800

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5967&stc=1&d=1213581130

[devels]

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5969&stc=1&d=1213581637

[Zephyr]

Before versus After are derived from different photographers and are not framed identically. Nevertheless, you will still notice a dramatic difference in the River skyline.

As for the third photograph, the image is distorted by the lens, making the white Wrigley Building appear to be further away than it is in reality.


Before Trump Chicago
November 2007:


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2264/2061157889_663cadeef5_b.jpg
flickr / BostonCityWalk © All rights reserved,
uploaded by photographer on 24/11/2007

After Trump Chicago
June 2008:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3274/2579633346_36f79dcd2b_b.jpg

Both photographs are courtesy SSC / thecitywalker,
AFTER Trump Chicago was photographed 07/06/2008



Below is deliberately photographed with a
wide-angle lens distortion (a.k.a."warp")
14 June 2008:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y150/wjcordier/061408pano1crop1.jpg
Courtesy SSC / wrabbit photographed 14/06/2008

[Optimus Prime]

Has anyone stayed in this hotel yet? I am considering it for a trip in a couple of months.

[stache]

I have always hated that IBM building.

[Zephyr]

Photographer’s eye
capturing
the moment


'Elevated'

http://lh3.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmichael/SFD55vTUH1I/AAAAAAAApB8/D_L0CVINAhk/P1390462.JPG?imgmax=800

http://lh4.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmichael/SFMVjJWYCPI/AAAAAAAApIo/AG37Tvi31B4/P1390646.JPG?imgmax=800


Claustrophobia

http://lh4.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmichael/SFFf8x4LIyI/AAAAAAAApGE/qikdvTzslxE/P1390404_5_6.jpg?imgmax=720

Above three courtesy SSP / harry c



“How things change.... [in] 36 hours”
hawkeye view:

http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/9874/img1286kw1.jpg

http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/7889/img12951ko8.jpg

Last two courtesy SSP / hawkeye view

[SolarWind]

June 17, 2008
http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/2348/dsc0117gp1.jpg

June 19, 2008
http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/8180/chicagottcg0.jpg

[Zephyr]

That last peek-a-boo shot is quite stunning.

[devels]

How Many More Floors Is Trump Got To Go Before Completion ?

[Zephyr]

How many more floors is Trump got to go before completion?


There are 96 floors to be constructed. A public indicator was last updated on the 10th of June, and that placed Trump Chicago on the 83rd floor.

I will try to get you a more accurate update as soon as I can, but I suspect that its easier to just check the Chicago threads at SSC and SSP, since there are some insiders there that work at Emporis or CASE and have access to the official information before it is released.

[devels]

THANK YOU ZEPHYR !!:)

[stache]

Zephyr is our good buddy. :cool:

[Zephyr]

If I were in Chicago at this moment, I would count them myself.

But the latest as of yesterday is that construction is currently on the 91st floor of Trump Chicago, meaning there are only five more floors left.

[BVictor1]

6-22-08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/627988.jpg

6-23-08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/627989.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/06/628027.jpg

[stache]

BVictor, is that the Palmolive building in the first photo?

[Zephyr]

I think it will be awhile before you get that answer from Bvic, stache, so I'll jump into the lurch.

You are correct in calling this the Palmolive building; that is its latest name since about five or six years ago. Before that it was called the Playboy building, for almost twenty-five years. And before that, it was called the Palmolive building all the way back to its inception.

When I arrived in Chicago, from New York of all places, it was still called the Playboy building, when in fact it had no name at all. Playboy the company had officially moved its headquarters from its hometown of Chicago to a new location out west, but this still was the Playboy building to most locals.

At some point this building was converted into a condominium and away from its strictly office function. It had to be rebranded with something, and what would be better than its original name. (Imagine a Midwesterm family moving into the "Playboy" building ...)

That spire was once a working beacon, that rotated 360 degrees, and could be seen for many miles by aircraft and boats on the lake. But that once practical function was shut down as buildings rose around it, and made its powerful light into a constant nuisance.

It is still one of the great examples of classicism, with Art-Deco stylisation, to be found in America. And it shouldn't surprise you that it was created by the same people that created the Chicago Board of Trade building that currently stands as an icon at the foot of LaSalle Street (Chicago's version of Wall Street).

[stache]

It's been such a long time since I lived there (over 30 years now) that I can get a little mixed up on which building is where. I can remember even when it was the Playboy building, some people still called it the Palmolive.

[BVictor1]

I think it will be awhile before you get that answer from Bvic, stache, so I'll jump into the lurch.

You are correct in calling this the Palmolive building; that is its latest name since about five or six years ago. Before that it was called the Playboy building, for almost twenty-five years. And before that, it was called the Palmolive building all the way back to its inception.

When I arrived in Chicago, from New York of all places, it was still called the Playboy building, when in fact it had no name at all. Playboy the company had officially moved its headquarters from its hometown of Chicago to a new location out west, but this still was the Playboy building to most locals.

At some point this building was converted into a condominium and away from its strictly office function. It had to be rebranded with something, and what would be better than its original name. (Imagine a Midwesterm family moving into the "Playboy" building ...)

That spire was once a working beacon, that rotated 360 degrees, and could be seen for many miles by aircraft and boats on the lake. But that once practical function was shut down as buildings rose around it, and made its powerful light into a constant nuisance.

It is still one of the great examples of classicism, with Art-Deco stylisation, to be found in America. And it shouldn't surprise you that it was created by the same people that created the Chicago Board of Trade building that currently stands as an icon at the foot of LaSalle Street (Chicago's version of Wall Street).

Zephyr,

You are parially correct. The building was originally named the Palmolive Building. It was headquaters to the Palmolive-Collgate Company. It became the Playboy Building I believe back in the 50's or 60's. It's once again called the Palmolive Building or just by its address.

The beacon has been restored and is used on special occasions, but it only does a 90 degree swoop (I believe) as not to disturbe the residents in the surrounding buildings.

[TREPYE]

It has been very exciting watching this tower go up. Just an instant classic.

I still cant get over the anomaly that it is actually Trump and SOM financing designing such a kick ass beautiful tower. Again, when you have a major that cares about a city's aesthetic appeal good things, like this tower happen like in this case. I mean, look at us and our major Bloomy, he didnt even get his Bloomy tower to bloom anything but an indignant little alphalpha sprout up top.....

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/7987/bloomlarge8lg.jpg

Depressing :-/

[devels]

TREPYE, WHAT BUILDING IS THAT ? IS IT IN CHICAGO ? THATS NOT THE BUILDING GOING UP ON WACKER & WELLS IS IT ?

[TREPYE]

Bloomberg tower, in NYC....unfortunately it saves the worst for the top.

[Jake]

It's not all that bad. I like the colored lights they have on each floor and the stupid antenna isn't much of a problem on a building of this size. Bloomberg looks quite good when viewed from the north and Lexington I think.

But still...Trump's is a nicer building.

[Zephyr]

I am only partially right? :) I guess with one exception - I'll get to this below - that is technically true, but I can also counter that you are only partially right as well. And you may also be guilty of not reading what I posted, before responding. That is the only way I could understand why you have reinforced the same points, but only in a different compositional style.

Here is how you began:


The building was originally named the Palmolive Building. It was headquaters to the Palmolive-Collgate Company. It became the Playboy Building I believe back in the 50's or 60's. It's once again called the Palmolive Building or just by its address.

Please explain how what you posted, differs substantially from what I actually stated:


You (stache) are correct in calling this the Palmolive building; that is its latest name since about five or six years ago. Before that it was called the Playboy building, for almost twenty-five years. And before that, it was called the Palmolive building all the way back to its inception.

The Colgate part of it is an add, not a correction, and you could have also added Peet to this corporate configuration, which usually but not always placed Colgate first. The building then was called more simply "Palmolive," and there was even a term coined about the "Palmolive look," referring to buildings that resembled it in their detailing among other things.

Admittedly, at the time I was posting, what I said was strictly from memory. Because of your post, I have since investigated this matter with more relish. When I wrote five or six years ago, the actual date was 2002, or six years ago – so that was correct. And as to your "50’s or 60’s" when the Palmolive was renamed Playboy, I can now tell you that it was the late 1960s. What I found most often, because sources differ, is that the Playboy period was from 1967 through 1990. Now I stated in my post above, it was Playboy for “almost twenty-five years,” and this comes out to be about twenty-three years – so there is no apparent contradiction here, either.

Next there is this:


The beacon has been restored and is used on special occasions, but it only does a 90 degree swoop (I believe) as not to disturbe the residents in the surrounding buildings.

The only point that I have to concede is that they restored the beacon, and I didn’t know that. Here is what I actually wrote, however:


That spire was once a working beacon, that rotated 360 degrees, and could be seen for many miles by aircraft and boats on the lake. But that once practical function was shut down as buildings rose around it, and made its powerful light into a constant nuisance.

Clearly, we disagree on 360 versus 90, but I think it is because you are talking about the replacement beacon, and I was referring back to the original beacon - the only beacon that I knew about.

David Roeder wrote this a few years back: “With interruptions because of war or energy crises, the beacon rotated 360 degrees atop the building from 1930 to 1981. It was darkened when it finally became too much for people in later-arriving high-rises.” (David Roeder, “Palmolive beacon set to shine again” Chicago Sun-Times, 4 April 2002 now archived). This is corroborated by other historical accounts, which mention that the beacon turned completely around, and that there was also a second light installed that pointed to the main airfield for Chicago at that time.

Now why does this make sense? Because the beacon was developed before Radar was used for aircraft in America, and deliberately pushed onto the Palmolive, because it was to be the tallest building in Chicago for some time. The actual idea is credited to Early N. Hurley, who was also a key figure in the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. That so-called "Lindbergh Beacon" (so titled for one year before becoming the "Palmolive Beacon"), was financed by native Chicagoan, Elmer A. Sperry, who later help found Sperry Rand, but who at this time, was the proud owner of a successful gyroscope business in Brooklyn - see Palmolive Building Landmark Residences (http://www.palmolivebuilding.com/displaystory.php?id=9).

And btw, that last link is to the developer, Draper and Kramer, who are responsible for renaming the building back to Palmolive from its temporary address rename after Playboy left - that is probable where you got confused about address, because that street was not called Palmolive. They specifically did it out of respect for the history of the building.

As to that replacement beacon's sweep, I get different numbers everywhere I look, but the one I will quote is from the same Draper and Kramer that converted this property to condominiums. Using David Roeder's article again, he states that the Assistant Vice President, Peter Bazeli, had indicated that the replacement beacon arcs 120 degrees.

All of this is off-topic, of course, but that happens all the time, this being prompted by a photograph. If any of what I have now stated in defence of my post is in error, however, please feel free to correct me. I warn you that this time I have multiple sources to back up this particular effort, if you are so disposed - so it might have to be carried on in another thread - either existing or created.

[Alonzo-ny]

Zephr, why do your posts always seem to become unread more than once? Do delete posts and repost an edited version? It only happens with you, i read a post then there will be a new post but its the same one i just read?

[Zephyr]

23 June 2008:


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3133/2607010914_726398dd22_b.jpg
Courtesy SSC / CULWULLA (Moderator)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3133/2606731174_ab9ca4f723_b.jpg
Courtesy SSC / CULWULLA (Moderator)


24 June 2008:


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3043/2610788453_8e821aa47b_o.jpg
flickr / planckstudios © All rights reserved.

[devels]

great picture zephyr !! is that taken from the sears tower ??

[Zephyr]

(Clearing his throat ...) I wouldn't know, but your guess seems as good as mine. :)

[stache]

It reminds me of the movie 'Metropolis'.

[Zephyr]

I can see the 'Metroplis' connexion ...

[Zephyr]

26 June 2008:


Twilight to Midnight

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3049/2613368830_1f66bd2e38_b.jpg
Courtesy SSC / Densetsu; from flickr / aeoleinik

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3005/2612543081_635dfcec21_b.jpg
Courtesy SSC / Densetsu; from flickr / aeoleinik

[stache]

What is the building in the foreground with the mansard roof? And the monster going up to the left of it in the background?

[BVictor1]

That's Park Tower

67 floors
844'
2001 Completed

[stache]

Thanks, B!

[Tectonic]

Does it if get smoggy in Chicago, seems like it never does.

[devels]

NO, NOT REALLY THEY DONT CALL IT THE WINDY CITY FOR NOTHING. THE SMOG DOESNT HAVE A CHANCE TO HANG AROUND.:cool:

[NYC4Life]

Trump Tower really adds to that Chicago skyline "Bridge" effect. I only hope the Chicago Spire doesn't ruin what already is an impessive skyline :(

[BVictor1]

Does it if get smoggy in Chicago, seems like it never does.

we have the occasional hazy day, but there haven't really been any this year. we've had some foggy days.

it hasn't been that hot this summer so there's been no ozone action days.

[BVictor1]

Trump Tower really adds to that Chicago skyline "Bridge" effect. I only hope the Chicago Spire doesn't ruin what already is an impessive skyline :(

it won't

it'll enhance the skyline

[devels]

HOW TALL IS THE CHICAGO SPIRAL SUPPOSED TO BE ?
ANYONE KNOW ?

[Zephyr]

Spiral? You mean Spire. This is also the wrong thread for this question. But since it's on the table CS will be 2000 ft.

[Tectonic]

we have the occasional hazy day, but there haven't really been any this year. we've had some foggy days.

it hasn't been that hot this summer so there's been no ozone action days.

Seems like the opposite in NYC.

[spyguy999]

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/2318/26186467710f26ab715ebxn0.jpg
From Carl Carl on flickr

[BVictor1]

07/02/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/07/630190.jpg

07/03/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/07/630181.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/07/630183.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/07/630186.jpg

07/04/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/07/630198.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/07/630200.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/07/630202.jpg

[BVictor1]

A few recent shots...

07/08/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/07/631235.jpg

07/09/08
https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/07/631236.jpg

https://community.emporis.com/images/6/2008/07/631239.jpg

[Zephyr]

Let the Countdown Begin ...


9 July 2008:


http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/737/trump79gm7.jpg
Courtesy SSP / i_am_hydrogen



Comparing Actual with a Rendering


http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/1886/trump79gm71nb5.jpg
Left picture in frame - Courtesy SSP / I_am_hydrogen
Entire Frame with Rendering - Courtesy SSP / Ryan81




A Different Count


http://www.richardnhill.com/trump.jpg
Courtesy SSP / RickBass