CHICAGO | AON center | 1,136 FT / 346 M | 83 FLOORS | 1973
 

built in 1973 AON center was once the tallset building in chicago.
it is the 4th tallest in the US and 16th tallest in the world.
the buildings facade is made of mount airy white granite.
it was once made of marble but was refaced for about $80 million dollers which was over half the cost of the building itself. the old marble was crushed and used for landscaping.

those facts are from: Aon Center (Chicago) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.skyscraperpicture.com/chicago08.jpg


this pic is from www.skyscraperpicture.com/aoncenter.htm

more pics from: www.skyscraperpicture.com/aoncenter.htm
http://www.skyscraperpicture.com/chicago189.jpg
http://www.skyscraperpicture.com/chicago186-1.jpg
http://www.skyscraperpicture.com/chicago190-1.jpg

Seems like people on this board seem to have a fascination with this building, but from my experience an average person on the street really doesn't think too much of it. Bland and tall, and that's about it.

..but, it really understands verticality. Not the world's greatest building, yet still underappreciated for its simple and monolithic beauty

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...Picture043.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...Picture042.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...Picture060.jpg

Didnt this building had/has on some floors Tiffany Ceiling?

I like it, but I also like box monoliths like the AON Center in LA as well.

it looks like the world trade centers long lost twin!

Maybe someone from Chicago can help me...

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the building originally proposed with a pyramid top??

I seem to remember that the pyramid top was scratched in order to allow Sears to become the world's tallest building??

And lastly I seem to remember seeing a rendering of the original design, pyramid topped design. If so I'd love to see it posted.

Is any of this true, or am I just imagining things?

^^^
yes it did have that. but i couldent find any pics.
sorry.

Unapologetically brutal!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...CHICAGO533.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...CHICAGO656.jpg

Love this shot! :tup:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...CHICAGO533.jpg


Don't love the building though...

My Dad worked here in the 70's for amoco and so this building has always had a special place in my heart.. Cold, Stoic, Brutal, Beautiful. :worship:

I have to admit I never cared much for AON ("Big Stan") when it was being built. Since, I have mellowed somewhat and AON has been redeemed even if only for the impact its great size and contrasting light color make on the Chicago skyline. If it were half its height it would have been lost and forgotten in mediocrity. The functionless stone cladding emphasizes vertical line but at the expense of the underlying structure, which done right sans cladding, might have been a more interesting design. It just could have been so much more.

(Yes, its me X-fib. Not my first post by far, had to re-register due to e-mail domain issues).

I'm in this building right now. . .

^^^
really?
do you work there?

does this building have/had on some floors Tiffany ceiling? ive heard a while ago that it did....

:haha: lol

Only in Chicago can a 1000+ ft skyscraper be "just another building" ;) Most average Chicagoans probably dont even know the name of this building, unlike for instance the Sears Tower or John Hancock.

paging hydrogen and his insanely good pics of this building.

because chicago has so many tall ones unlike other citys where there average building is about 20 floors.
in chicago 100 floors is the average!!

I wouldn't go as far as saying that 100 floors is the average. Right now we only have 2 out of like 1,047 or something like that. :cheers:

but soon we will have more.

Anybody got any pictures of this beaut in her original marble cladding?

A 'good' supertall I'd say, I like simplicity, but still I feel this tower may be overrated on this forum. But it was a surprise tower too, for me, since everywhere else this tower then feels a bit underrated. I first came to Chicago knowing about JHC and Sears then I see this.... and I'm like "wth, what is this? It's even taller than JHC!"

um theres also new york well 1000+ ft is the norm for ny but not 100 floors

It was never one of my favorite buildings when I was growing up there, even though I remember when it was being built...
Now, tho, when I look at the pictures, I have a new appreciation for its simplicity, and how it anchors the central portion of the skyline...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3016/...c97d1551_b.jpg

On my recent trip to Chicago i loved how, as many have mentioned here previously, the verticality and lines of AON but i also loved how it changed as dusk fell to hide the strong white vertical lines and exchange them for the endless horizontal lines of its 100 floors lit up at night. It almost seemed like a different building to me. Night or day i love its strength and height.

http://i.pbase.com/o4/55/634555/1/55511881.Chicago5.jpg
Here is a pic i got from: http://www.pbase.com/tianphoto/image/55511881

I think Aon center has the best lighting in chicago!

I don't, but I remember the original marble as being both warmer & somewhat glossier, almost like terra cotta.

I've always had a soft spot for this beautiful white monolith. Her white skin's a lovely contrast to the black of the other two giants in town. I wonder how the granite would have looked if they had decided to polish it?
Anyone got pics of the inside of this tower, or can get any? Apparently she also has a lovely courtyard.

Funny thing is, I'm working on a story about the "skin graft" Aon got, told from her perspective. Suffice to say, she didn't enjoy it much at all. Hurt like hell, anyone?

Rumour has it that during the construction, the wife of Amoco's CEO, Bonnie something-or-other, insisted that the building be clad in expensive marble imported from Italy at great expense. It did look beautiful in it's day..

According to Wikkipedia the marble was ground up and now lines the grounds of one of Amoco's oil refineries. :haha:

^^^
about the marble...
well thats what i said in the first post.

Right you are

Right. . . and they likely got that tid-bit from Emporis. . . I posted it there years back when a friend of mine who worked for BP told me about the "Whiting Beutification Project" where they took all the marble removed from the then Amoco Building and used it in landscaping at the Whiting refinery. . .

. . .

i don't remember the marble being warmer, that italian marble was dead cold white, much colder and whiter than the replacement granite, but it definitely had a sheen that made the tower gleam in the sunlight. the granite does not produce such an effect.

I wish I had seen that.

Does anyone have any photos of the tower with it's original cladding?

That's what I asked a couple days ago!! :haha:

Tom. Do you have any renderings of the original AON WTB proposal?

Now that's really funny!

This has always been one of my favorites in Chicago. I love the long, vertical lines that stretch from the bottom to the top, and I also love the white facade in broad daylight.

And this building is stunning from Millennium Park at night.

My favorite building in the traditional Adler Planetarium postcard-shot.

i love aon. sometimes, on hot summer days, i like to lay out on the benches in the park across the street and look up at it, and i think: daaaaaamn, that's tall. and i think how cool it'd be if it were 4x its height or more and wonder how tall it would have to be for the perspective from sitting at the base to combine all the vertical lines into one single point.

To me, Aon is a sweet building. It may not be flashy, but its tallness is spectacular. And I actually think it's fairly straightforward design helps give the building an even bigger presence, particularly from Millenium Park. I generally walk up Michigan Avenue in that part of town each weekday and I can't help but stare at Aon.

it's really all about those strong, distinct, and prominent vertical lines. aon center soars into the sky in a way that no other box-scraper on earth does. it can easily be criticized for being a one trick pony, but the one trick it does is still pretty damn good.

I wasn't aware there ever was one?

An oldie but a goodie.. perhaps a mid-70's photo with the white marble...

http://www.artificeimages.com/gbc/im...d_aj1339_b.jpg

Punch buggy (twice)!

:previous: Wow great find! Look at all that emptiness to the east of Aon!

^They don't call it the "New Eastside" for nothin'. . . although the building I live in two blocks east of Aon was built in the early 1960s, most of everything east of there was built in the last 20 years. . .

I think because its so skinny thats what makes it seem so tall because its really only as tall as JHC not that im saying its not tall but its not as tall as it looks if that even makes sense.:haha:

Aon IS tall, its 1,000 ft+, what everyone calls supertall. Also, Aon is not skinny at all. Its massive, thick, of great proportion. What makes it seem very tall are its windows.

I always heard they made corporate gifts and paperweights
out of some of the Italian marble.