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| Inland Steel from the north side with its exterior columns supporting the massive two-story cantilevered entry (JWB Photo) |
Sixty
years ago today on March 9, 1955 The
Chicago Tribune ran an article about a bold proposal for a new kind of
building intended for the heart of Chicago’s Loop. The article’s lead read, “Inland Steel
Company disclosed yesterday that its new 6 million dollar, 19 story building at
the northeast corner of Dearborn and Monroe strs. will be a steel and glass
structure, with an adjoining 23 story high shaft housing the building’s service
system.” [Chicago Tribune, March 9,
1955]
In
a news conference Joseph L. Block, Inland Steel’s president gave the public its
first glimpse of the building, the first new skyscraper in Chicago’s Loop in
over 20 years. The paper described the
model as a structure in which “Seven slender columns rising 19 stories from the
sidewalk on Dearborn st., with seven matching columns on the opposite eastern
side, will be the building’s most striking exterior feature. With the columns on the outside, all floors
will be clear of supports.”
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| Seven stainless-steel clad exterior columns on the east and west side of the building support the structure -- pretty sexy engineering (JWB Photo) |
Nathaniel
Owings of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architects of the building, said
the whole thing would occupy only 57 percent of the lot on which it would
stand. The rental agent for the
building, Fred Kramer of Draper & Kramer, Inc. said that the new structure
would give the Loop some needed “dash.”
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| Comin' in out of the shadows to hear the jazz go down . . . (JWB Photo) |
Chicagoans
walk by this building by the thousands every day, and most of us never give it
a second look. I must admit that I was
one of those until about five years ago I was leading a private architectural
tour for a group of architects from Philadelphia. After circling the building and pausing at
every side, one of them said, “Everything about this building – everything,
from the stainless steel to the clear spans to the double-glazed tinted windows – had never been
done before in one place on one project.”
From
that moment I saw the building in a different light.
The
Landmark Designation Report on Inland Steel, submitted to the Chicago Landmarks
Commission said of the building, “The Inland Steel Building came out of the
springtime of Chicago's postwar construction boom. In a steel-building city, it
retains a lightness, serenity, and polished grace that continue to make it an
influential emblem of modernism. In a city with a hundred-year history of
distinguished architecture, the Inland Steel Building is an important monument
to a particular period of that history and stands as a testament to an
important Chicago manufacturing firm and as a major early work of one of the
city’s major architectural firms.
The
springtime of Chicago’s postwar construction boom . . . I like that. As we enter the first warm weather in Chicago
in months, it might not be a bad idea to walk past this gem on Dearborn and
give it a once-over.
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| Definitely a bold leap ahead of the Bedford Shirt Company Building |
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