Current Wall Goes Up at MBC
I didn't help - but I took pictures!
Expanded ArchitectureChicago Plus posting from March 23, 2006
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Current Wall Goes Up at MBC |
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Is there anything more lazily satisfying than watching others do interesting work? River North architecture buffs had a grand show put before them as the curtain wall for Chicago's new Museum of Broadcast Communications was assembled over this past Saturday and Sunday. One by one, nine twenty-seven-foot-high, 2,000 pound panels were gingerly lifted off a very long, long trailer parked along State Street, carried up over fencing protecting the property, and eased into place and secured. As the panels twisted and turned as they hung from the hoist, reflections of Bertrand Goldberg's Marina City, Mies van der Rohe's IBM Building, the great dome of the Jewelers Building, and countless less famous but no less flavorful neighbors danced along the mirroring glass. It's to be hoped that the glow from the Museum will help enliven a corner that has long been deadened both by a huge parking garage, and a dead wall underneath the IBM. (State Street at this point is on a pronounced incline as it approaches the bridge over the Chicago River.) The Museum, itself, is a handsome retrofit of what was a crumbling parking garage. The new 70,000 square foot, $21,000,000 facility, was designed by Chicago firm Eckenhoff Saunders Architects, Inc, in partnership with sustainable design architect Helen Kessler. Got $5,000,000 in spare change? You can even get the new building named after yours truly. Earlier this month, MBC President Bruce DuMont told Chicago Sun-Times columnists Michael Sneed that the museum's board has authorized such a honor for whoever coughs up the last big hunk of dough needed to carry the project through to final competion.
Join a discussion on this story © Copyright 2006 Lynn Becker All rights reserved.
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