77 West Wacker in Chicago, Illinois
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
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77 West Wacker in Chicago, Illinois
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Click here to license this image
Click here to purchase a poster or print of this image
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77 West Wacker in Chicago, Illinois
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Click here to license this image
Click here to purchase a poster or print of this image
77 West Wacker in Chicago, Illinois
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Click here to license this image
Click here to purchase a poster or print of this image
77 West Wacker in Chicago, Illinois
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Click here to license this image
Click here to purchase a poster or print of this image
77 West Wacker
Also known as:United Airlines Building
Formerly:R.R. Donnelley Building
77 West Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois, The Loop 60601 United StatesPrint this page   •   Share this page   •   Map This

77 West Wacker is a delightful melding of old and new. It takes a skeleton of traditional architecture with white granite columns, pediments, and the like and updates it by filling in the empty spaces with silver reflective glass. The result is something that is both comfortable and new. Familiar and still interesting. It makes you wonder what the Romans would have been up to by now had their empire not collapsed all those centuries ago.

Chicago Spire Condo Information
Quick Facts
Statistics
  • Floor space: 940,000 square feet
Timeline
  • April 18, 1990: Groundbreaking
  • July 26, 1991: This building tops out.
  • 1995: In a Chicago Tribune poll, this building is named one of the city's ten favorite buildings (It came in #7).
  • 2006: This building is renamed the United Airlines Building. The airline got $$6,600,000 in tax breaks to move its headquarters from the suburbs into this building.
  • 2007: United Airlines ads a large illuminated "UNITED" sign to the top of this building.
Notes
  • Architect: Ricardo Bofill
  • Developer: Prime Group
  • It is not uncommon for skyscrapers to skip a floor or two here and there. In most the 13th floor is skipped because of superstition. In this building the 49th floor is skipped so it can claim to be 50 stories tall.
  • The cladding is Portuguese Royal granite.
Did You Know?
  • This was one of the filming locations for the movie The Negotiator.
  • This was one of the filming locations for the movie A Lover For My Husband.
Look For
  • Gables over the entrances that echo the pediments at the top of the building.
Quotations

    -"Wafer-thin granite columns seemingly glued onto its silver-tinted glass, 77 W. Wacker is disturbingly two-dimensional, a kind of paste-on Parthenon."

    -Chicago Tribune, May 11, 2003
Rate This Skyscraper
method='post' action='/Building.php?ID=1062#Rate'>Current rating:50% 70%  name='Rating' id='Rating' value='Praise' class='Plain'> name='Rating' id='Rating' value='Raze' class='Plain'>
Your Thoughts

There are three comments.

  This is a wonderful building, its pattern is graceful but simple.

Sean - Friday, September 5th, 2008 @ 5:13pm  

  The only reason I can't give 5 stars is I don't know many details. But for it's beauty, it is difficult to surpass. It's combination of traditional form and modern materials give it a distinct look that mimics earlier Chicago arcitecture, and current. The way nature reflects off of extensive areas of glass makes it begin to disappear against the sky, interrupted only by it's minimalist exo-structure.

Aryn Alschuler - Friday, May 30th, 2008 @ 8:41pm  

  My girlfriend calls this the Plaid Building.

Clint - Sunday, January 20th, 2008 @ 2:21pm  

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