150 North Riverside. Image courtesy of Goettsch Partners.
Rising from a sliver of mud squeezed between a very active rail yard and the South Branch of the Chicago River is the West Loop’s newest skyscraper. Chicago Architecture Blog photographer Daniel Schell stopped by the construction site for 150 North Riverside to see how things are going, and one thing is certainly leading to another.
Bulldozers, cranes, excavators, and more are thrashing through the muddy loam with all the enthusiasm of a five-year-old taking his Christmas Tonka trucks to the sandbox the first time. When they’re done, you won’t even be able to see the ground upon which they flail. That’s because this entire half of the block will be covered by a (privately owned) public park. And over by the water, a 53-story glass tower balanced on a central utility core, but otherwise not touching the ground.
The design by friends-of-the-blog, Goettsch Partners, manages to put a building much larger than its actual footprint into a space much smaller than its footprint. For those of you who played Dungeons and Dragons instead of dating in high school, it’s the architectural equivalent of a bag of holding. (And based on the meetings I’ve had over the years, I’d wager that one epic AD&D campaign could be waged if you could get a few of Chicago’s top-name architects to let down their guards.)
