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SANTIAGO CALATRAVA (ESP)
The city where the skyscraper was born just can't get enough of these supertowers. The Chicago Spire is the latest in a series of super-tall projects proposed since the mid 1990's. Some, like the Trump International Hotel and Tower, come to fruition. Others, like 7 South Dearborn, do not. Just how far this project will get remains to be seen. But the real estate and political climate in which it is proposed put the odds in its favor.
This is the first Chicago project for Spanish architectural superstar Santiago Calatrava, though he has graced the shores of Lake Michigan before with the Milwaukee Art Museum's Quadracci Pavilion. Its position at the point where the Chicago River drains Lake Michigan puts it in the center of the city's skyline, and out in front of any of the thousands of photographs taken by tourists cruising the lake each day.
In form, this building lives up to its name. It truly is a spire with a tapering form topped by a needle. In a New York Times article about the building, it was compared to a drill bit, a blade of grass, and a tall twisting tree. Others have compared it to a lighthouse, which could end up being its nickname because of its location. The inability to quickly categorize the construction is what you come to expect from a Calatrava design -- something both geometric and organic. Something that take a simple form and twists it in the wind like so many of his other bridges and buildings. In this case, each of the building's floors are anchored to a central column, but slightly off-set. Then each floor is rotated slightly as the tower rises higher. The result is, indeed, something very much like a drill bit. Initial plans call for the bottom 20 floors to be occupied by a hotel, while the rest of the building is filled with luxury condominiums. (...) Chicagoarchitecture.info
