77 West Wacker
Facts
Formerly |
|
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Address | 77 West Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60601 |
Neighborhood | The Loop |
Built | 1992 |
Developer | Prime Group |
Architecture firm | Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura |
Architecture firm of record | DeStefano and Goettsch |
Architect | Ricardo Bofill |
Cost | $80,000,000 |
Type |
|
Floors | 50 |
Height | 668 feet |
Rentable floor space | 959,258 square feet |
Notes
- It is not uncommon for skyscrapers to skip a floor or two here and there. In many, 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.
- This was Ricardo Bofill's first American skyscraper.
- The gables over the entrances of this building echo the pediments at the top of the building.
- 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.
Timeline
April 18, 1990 | Groundbreaking |
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July 26, 1991 | This building topped out. |
1995 | In a Chicago Tribune poll, this building was ranked seventh on a list of Chicago's top ten buildings. |
2006 | This building was 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 added a large illuminated UNITED sign to the top of this building. |
August 13, 2012 | United Airlines announced that it was moving its corporate headquarters out of this building. |
Narrative
This building 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.
Nearby
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55 West Wacker
55 West Wacker
-
200 North Dearborn Apartments
200 North Dearborn
-
OneEleven
111 West Wacker Drive
-
Leo Burnett Building
35 West Wacker Drive
-
Clark Street Bridge
North Clark Street
-
Loop Transportation Center
203 North LaSalle Street
-
Dearborn Street Bridge
Spanning the Chicago River at Dearborn Street
-
LaSalle-Wacker Building
221 North LaSalle Street
-
Eastland Disaster Monument
West Wacker Drive at North LaSalle Street
-
The Goodman Theater
170 North Dearborn Street