10 South Canal in Chicago, Illinois
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Eye of the Needle

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10 South Canal
Also known as:AT&T 10 South Canal
Formerly:Illinois Bell Building
10 South Canal, Chicago, Illinois, West Town 60606 United StatesPrint this page   •   Share this page   •   Map This

Don’t ridicule this building simply because it is another bland brown block in a neighborhood of glitzy glass and steel skyscrapers. 10 South Canal looks utilitarian because it is. The primary purpose of this building is to house telephone equipment. Computers don’t need windows. They don’t need doors. And they don’t need their building to look pretty. In buildings of this type, ornamentation is a bad thing because it calls unnecessary attention to a piece of vital infrastructure. Moreover, unnecessary doors and windows are nothing more than passages for dust and other contaminants to follow to foul up the works. What you end up with is a building that looks like it was designed by a computer for a computer. And that’s the way they like it.

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There are two comments.

  It is my understanding that this building was designed to be not only fire-proof and earthquake-proof but nuclear bomb proof, all to protect vital communications links. But I agree that it did not have to look this brutalist.

Michael M. Modern - Monday, March 19th, 2007 @ 2:52pm  

  While ornamentation may well be a bad thing in a building of this type but a structure that resembles something out of a post-apocalyptic nightmare is something else altogether. Let me say, that is just what this building is reminiscent of. I would truly hate to be greeted by this image upon arriving at a nearby office every morning for work. Leave it to AT&T to come up with something as atrocious as this.

Mike Heck - Friday, January 12th, 2007 @ 8:38pm  

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