CHICAGO | Aqua | 858 FT / 262 M | 87 FLOORS

[Haworthia]

Fine pictures Solar Wind.

I've really grown to love the tower. This used to be a thread I just skipped over and peaked at from time to time. Now I'm hooked to it. This tower is hypnotic to me.

[Rusty Staub]

from mmstud @ Flickr

[JACKinBeantown]

Nice shot. It's interesting how some well planned curved balconies can effect a basically rectangular building.

[Complex01]

Wow, how kewl. A very awesome location with that...

[WonderlandPark]

Cool pic, as far as height, when complete Aqua should go most of the way to the top of the frame, no?

[Chitown]

Originally Posted by WonderlandPark

Cool pic, as far as height, when complete Aqua should go most of the way to the top of the frame, no?

Here's an attempt by me:


The middle is effed up, but its the best I could do with the perspective.

[ethereal_reality]

^^^
Well done Chitown....

[Mojava]

should mandarin ever get built that will be one nice cluster

[rich]

Originally Posted by Chitown

Here's an attempt by me:

The middle is effed up, but its the best I could do with the perspective.

Nice job

[Saber925]

Chitown - your rendering gave me a new appreciation for the horizontal emphasis of the building - thanks to a continuous wall of glass that isn't broken up by setbacks for balconies.

[honte]

Aqua will be the tallest exposed concrete building in Chicago when it is finished, and will be highly visible from many locations. I wonder if its reputation will get dragged down by being lumped into the rest of the towers like this, the poster child of the bad "painted concrete Boom years"?

[aaron38]

^^^You think Aqua is going to get lumped in with the likes of Grand Plaza?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by honte

Aqua will be the tallest exposed concrete building in Chicago when it is finished, and will be highly visible from many locations. I wonder if its reputation will get dragged down by being lumped into the rest of the towers like this, the poster child of the bad "painted concrete Boom years"?

is marina city villified for being a bad painted concrete tower? no.

will aqua be villified for being a bad painted concrete tower? also no.

it's all about design.

[Horio]

Be on the lookout, they might start going up around lunch time.

[honte]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

is marina city villified for being a bad painted concrete tower? no.

will aqua be villified for being a bad painted concrete tower? also no.

it's all about design.

I tend to agree with you, but I did think it was worth raising the question.

Marina City was not built during a period when this construction type had done so much damage. It's a shame, really, to look at the Shoreham and the Tides next to Aqua, because they are obviously visually connected. So, I do think it is a real risk, that Aqua could get pulled down with them. Seeing the photo above is what made this click for me.

Aqua also lacks Marina City's power from a distance. I think it works well from street level, but the jury's out on its impact from afar. That's the kind of distinction that the lay person registers immediately. Furthermore, it has none of the sculptural qualities of Marina City in its structure (hear what I'm saying before anyone jumps on me for this statement), just being flat plates in most cases. This limits its visual appeal as compared to Marina City on a detail level. Marina City is truly masterful concrete construction; this one is rather prosaic except for the innovative balconies.

In essence, the more I see Aqua, the less I think it compares to Marina City in innovation or quality. This is not intended to damage or dismiss Aqua in any way, but only to recognize Goldberg's achievement at Marina City.

So, will people mistake Aqua for Grand Plaza? Surely not, but it's obvious they are distant cousins.

[Steely Dan]

^ you and i are just gonna have to agree to disagree on Aqua as i hold the opposite opinion of just about everything you said above. i see absolutely no danger of aqua being dragged down by the likes of grand plaza merely because it's a painted concrete tower any more than it will be uplifted by the likes of marina city because of the same, but if you think that is a real possibility, well, to each their own, it's certainly not something i'm going to concern myself with. i firmly believe that aqua will be recognized as one of the best works of skyscraper architecture that chicago has built in decades.

[Alliance]

Originally Posted by honte

I tend to agree with you, but I did think it was worth raising the question.

Marina City was not built during a period when this construction type had done so much damage. It's a shame, really, to look at the Shoreham and the Tides next to Aqua, because they are obviously visually connected. So, I do think it is a real risk, that Aqua could get pulled down with them. Seeing the photo above is what made this click for me.

Aqua also lacks Marina City's power from a distance. I think it works well from street level, but the jury's out on its impact from afar. That's the kind of distinction that the lay person registers immediately. Furthermore, it has none of the sculptural qualities of Marina City in its structure (hear what I'm saying before anyone jumps on me for this statement), just being flat plates in most cases. This limits its visual appeal as compared to Marina City on a detail level. Marina City is truly masterful concrete construction; this one is rather prosaic except for the innovative balconies.

In essence, the more I see Aqua, the less I think it compares to Marina City in innovation or quality. This is not intended to damage or dismiss Aqua in any way, but only to recognize Goldberg's achievement at Marina City.

So, will people mistake Aqua for Grand Plaza? Surely not, but it's obvious they are distant cousins.

I think you're suffering from nostalgia. Aqua isn't a development concept like Marina was, but it is a building concept. And frankly, its rationalized expressionism could be the solution to the modernist ("where do we go from here") problem that has plagued architecutre of late. It ends the "anything goes" philosopy of architecture and starts to present a coherent method of design.

Lets get the building built first before we question its full impact. Also, personally I LIKE the subtely. Aqua doesn't need to flash its innovation, it makes it all the more mature. It achieves some delicate qualities that weren't as aspired too in the age of concrete brutalism.

You can certainly dislike the building, but saying its unsuccesful because it uses an unsuccessful element in other buidlings is nieve (espeically ignoring the use of the glass, the form, construction methods, etc). It totally sells short the depth, complexity, and rationality that exists an Aqua. Frankly, I think, with this buildigns height, that unpainted balconies would get lost in the strucutre. Compaing Aqua to Grand Plaza is a tremendously false comparison. Its like comparing the Eiffel tower to railroad tracks because they both use steel.

Then again, this is comming from the guy with Aqua as his avatar.

[wrab]

Chitown - that's a neat trick - thanks. Although (and this isn't a criticism) the concrete forms on the actual tower will be more pronounced on the higher floors than they are now on the lower levels, so the end effect should be much more interesting & dynamic.

And Honte, I wouldn't worry that Aqua will suffer from guilt-by-association with the purebred Lowenberg towers; from just about any angle, even from the LSE park, it will appear to group more with AON than with Tides, etal. Besdies, just about every good building in town has some bad buildings adjacent or nearby, no? In any case, iconographically, Aqua is a hybrid tower - not so much a Marina City as the love child of an illicit Marina City/IBM tryst.

But really we're all just gonna have to wait until this pup is more grown-up before judging what visual impact it's gonna have from the street. Aqua will be a very tall building, even in context. And it will be a magic box, a chimera, that changes & shifts depending on angle, light & time of day.

[a chicago bearcat]

Originally Posted by Rusty Staub

from mmstud @ Flickr

I like how if you go from right to left in this photo of lakeshore east buildings, they are about the same width, but the height, and quality of design improve with each.

If this were to hold true there would be the Illinois by frank Lloyd wright right next to aqua

[Tom Servo]

@honte: what i don't get is why gang didn't fight harder with lowendburg on not having it painted. when i saw her speak, she seemed REALLY intent on leaving the concrete exposed. she said that it was part of the concept from the beginning. but she said that like 'her developer wanted it to fit the rest of the towers.'
i guess you can't fight too hard with the person paying you? i don't know. the way i see it, no matter how great this tower turns out, it's STILL a lowendburg building. so for that, i'd say we're lucky it's as awesome as it is, and not even more bastardized. maybe?