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Smurfit-Stone Building
150 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60601 United States Print this page • 
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One of Chicago's signature skyscrapers, what the Smurfit-Stone building lacks in height, it more than makes up for in style. Its gleaming white exterior is accented with dark pinstripes of windows. Its orientation embraces Lake Michigan just a few hundred yards away, while at the same time it's characteristic slanted roof mimics, mocks, or yearns to be part of the sailboat crowd in the nearby Chicago Harbor. The Citicorp Center in New York and other skyscrapers have experimented with slanted roofs. What makes the Smurfit-Stone building special is the orientation of the slant. The architects didn't merely take a square and cut a wedge out of it like a children's block. They cut it on an angle, using a simple subtractive motion to create a diamond shape in the sky. Closer examination reveals that it isn't even a simple diamond, but rather two nearly identical triangles, but that is a detail lost on most observers. What they delight in is the notion that the building is still not done inventing itself. That it is growing with a leading angle like a massive lily sprouting on the lakeshore. Others fail to see the beauty and whimsy intrinsic to this building. Instead, they see it as an affront to the other classic Chicago architecture on Michigan Avenue. But if not for those buildings that stand out, would not the Avenue's marble cliff seem that much more ordinary and under appreciated? Sponsored by: Chicago Spire Condo Information Quick Facts
Notes
> One of the bogus "facts" sometimes presented by Chicago tour guides is that this building's sloping roof was designed to keep it's shadow from falling on a beach. This is incorrect. There isn't a beach anywhere near this building. There was a controversy over a building on Lake Shore Drive casting a shadow on the Ohio Street Beach in 2006, but that building was erected anyway with no alterations to its plan. Rate This Skyscraper method='post' action='Building.php?ID=1007#Rate'>Current rating:  80% name='Rating' id='Rating' value='Praise' class='Plain'> name='Rating' id='Rating' value='Raze' class='Plain'>Your Thoughts There are eight comments.
Brent Kampert - Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 @ 8:08pm
Franz Hursker - Monday, May 19th, 2008 @ 1:56pm
JL - Friday, November 2nd, 2007 @ 2:05am
anne - Sunday, April 8th, 2007 @ 4:26am
Thomas Semesky - Monday, November 27th, 2006 @ 1:29pm
Brent Kampert - Sunday, November 5th, 2006 @ 6:12pm
Lala - Sunday, April 30th, 2006 @ 1:10am |
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I agree with Franz Hursker, because every time I go downtown, I get overwhelmed and excited!
this is the quintissential midwestern gal visiting the city with big-80's hair (and she still thinks she looks great)
