Marina City: Designing in the Round
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- Bertrand Goldberg took his cues from nature when designing the mid-century modern Marina City towers in the 1960s. Characterized by clean simplicity, sculptural balconies represent petals on a flower creating radiating wedge-shaped apartments. Visit architecture.or... to learn more about Chicago’s most iconic buildings and discover how Chicago’s rich architectural legacy was built.
!["This is Marina City" (1965) [Enhanced 4K, 60fps]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3bv3nFFZHh4/mqdefault.jpg)
Something that I've noticed about these towers during my binge watching of anything to do with Marina City, is that the hallways make me feel unnerved, and possibly even the apartments when unfurnished, because a perfect circle is so unnatural in the natural world that such curves come off alien to the senses. Not sure anyone else gets that feeling.
I agree. When interiors lack 90 degree angles, a space feels disorienting. As humans, we like to know where we are in relation to our surroundings, and we lose that. (Think of residential subdivisions with twisty turning streets-you never really know where you are.)
The hallways are particularly unnerving because there’s no sunlight or exterior views so you really have no clue.
Picture a shopping mall with oddly-angled corridors. Now remove the anchor points-the big anchor stores or other landmarks like the food court or the big fountain in the centre. It’s unsettling to never know where you are.
@@jpp7783 I'm so glad you commented because you explained it perfectly!
I like the vibes. Grocery store at the bottom, movie nights at the top of the tower
The balcony edges (concrete) look to be in pretty clean shape! Pretty good for concrete 60 years old! WRT "built with no right angles": each window has four right angles. :D
I think Marina City towers are a work of genius. Right on the river, I always stop and admire them while walking past on the river walk. I’d love to visit one of the apartments. The cost of even a studio there would be beyond my means, but it’s fun to dream.
Marina Towers has a reputation here in Chicago as being hideously ugly, but also oddly charming. They're awful looking but they're unique, and they were an experiment to try something new and interesting. The units aren't terribly comfortable to live in, but they're by no means bad. That said, paying several thousand a month in rent for one of these units makes them not even close to worth it for living space. The views are incredible though, and the rooftop is amazing.
Best place vie ever lived... Never leaving!
Hey I've always wanted a friend with a downtown high rise apartment! Wanna be my best friend?
How much did it cost you?
I saw you type about fire works you can watch from your balcony, but I guess they deleted it before I could read the whole thing. I know your itching to tell me how much it cost you.
@@iwouldliketoorderanumber1b79 hey! I also live here. Rent is really dependent on how upgraded the condo is and your view. I face northwards but can still see a bit of the river if I peer over the edge of my balcony and I pay around $1700. Other 1BRs typically come in $100-200 more per month. Studios are typically $1400-1600 and 2br are usually $2600 and up. Hope this helps! (PS depending on your unit, you can totally see fireworks from your balcony. Regardless, you can always see them from the roof which is open to all residents and they sometimes show movies up there!)
@@solomonsaintclair22 thanks for that info my friend.
WOW! Movie night on the roof of the tower sounds amazing but also incredibly scary! I would go but I'd for sure bring a parachute. They're in the windy city for crying out loud!
There are plenty of right angles in nature
That’s true. Trees meet the ground at roughly 90 degrees, for instance.
The lack of 90 degree angles must drive some people up the walls.
lmao
That’s when you walk out on your balcony to reset your mind, feel the sun and air coming off Lake Michigan. Then you go back inside and the lack of 90 degree angles doesn’t matter.
Floor to ceiling is still 90s... Windows are still square. Doors are square.
There are few 90s in nature. But in marina you are surrounded by 90s. As with all buildings. Elevators. Tvs. Cabinets. Countertops. Light switches. Everything manmade is cornered. Even a radius usually leads to a dead 90° perpendicular surface. This notion that somehow you would feel the absence of 90 degree angles is absurd.
It is pretty awful to try to put furniture in or artwork on the walls.
My Dream!
Fantastic 🥇🥇
I work in this area and I call them the "corn on the cob" buildings
I don't understand why everyone says they look like corn, I think they look nothing like corn.
Love these. I want to move to Chicago just to live here. I bet they cost lots of $$$$$$$$!
Then now's the time to go for it because they're insanely cheap right now with everybody fleeing COVID.
@@wotan005 10 months later, nobody is fleeing.
@@iwouldliketoorderanumber1b79 and inflation
@@Andrew-ig5sp no worries, america and the world is always dealing with inflation. We will get through it like we always do. Stay optimistic and positive.
@@iwouldliketoorderanumber1b79 Actually they are. Plenty. Population has been steadily declining since 1980. Hence, no longer the “second city”. And the decline has been exponential since 2010.
The elevators are extremely violent
Cool architecture but I could never live there. The bathroom are tiny which is usually the case with cylindrical buildings.
Have you been inside a unit there?
@@fragout9575 No but I used to live in Chicago and thought they were a cool design. I have stayed in circular hotel rooms though. Bathrooms are always tiny with weird layouts.
Loads of right angles, because guess what? ... there are plenty of right angles in nature.
I find the streetscape odd. Imagine walking along and all you see is the ass end of parked cars. It seems almost dystopian.
These screw into the ground in case of an air raid. (brother's joke)
They keep saying "apartments". But don't you have to buy these like condos?
repairdrive the building was originally all apartments and then transitioned into mostly condos although there are still some units rented out
You can rent them from the owner of the condo.
Yea apartments when they were first built because it wasn’t any other tall buildings around it. The area has changed so now they are labeled condos, when technically there still the size of an apartment.
@@iwouldliketoorderanumber1b79 Apartment vs condo refers to the type of ownership.
An apartment is a unit within a larger building. There are condo apartments and there are rental apartments.
swankalishus!