C.F. Murphy, Associate, in joint venture with Loebl, Schlossman, Bennett & Dart
American, 1925-75
Designed by Gene Summers with Helmut Jahn
Delineated by Wojciech Madeyski
Water Tower Place, Chicago, Illinois, Perspective
INV-9905
C.F. Murphy, Associate, in joint venture with Loebl, Schlossman, Bennett & Dart
American, 1925-75
Designed by Gene Summers with Helmut Jahn
Delineated by Wojciech Madeyski1970
Water Tower Place, Chicago, Illinois, Perspective
C.F. Murphy, Associate, in joint venture with Loebl, Schlossman, Bennett & Dart American, 1925-75 Designed by Gene Summers with Helmut Jahn Delineated by Wojciech Madeyski →20th Centuryarchitectural drawingarchitecture
Date
1970
Medium
Pencil and felt tip markers on paper
Dimensions
114.3 × 83.5 cm (45 × 32 7/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Helmut Jahn
In the 1970s, Chicago skyscrapers exploded in scale, innovation, and technological sophistication. Two seminal buildings of this period appear side by side in this rendering of North Michigan Avenue—the John Hancock Center (1970) and Water Tower Place (1976). Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Kahn of the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the muscular black frame of the John Hancock Center expresses its trussed-tube system, a new engineering concept that allowed the rise of supertall towers while advancing a distinctive structural aesthetic. Water Tower Place, shown in a preliminary two-tower version in the foreground, advanced a different kind of innovation—a new form of mixed-use skyscraper that joined a large retail mall and parking with office space and residential units, transferring formerly suburban functions to the city center.
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