Residential · River North
Marina City
300 N State Street, Chicago1967
Bertrand Goldberg Associates · Modernist
Light study
Noon
12:00
Flat light. Good for comparing materials, less kind to depth.
The balconies shade one another, so the facade is always striped with shadow. A raking sun — morning from the east, late day from the west — is when each petal edge turns bright and the roundness becomes obvious.
The study applies a color treatment to the photograph. It is a way of looking, not a measured solar model.
Photo: Chris Rycroft · CC BY 2.0 license · source file
Bertrand Goldberg’s corncob towers — a city-within-a-city on the river, and the most recognizable round residential form in Chicago.
Marina City, at 300 North State Street, is Bertrand Goldberg’s argument that downtown could be a place to live, not only to work. The complex — two 65-story residential towers, a marina on the Chicago River, parking spirals, and a commercial base — was built through the 1960s. This collection dates the profile to 1967.
The towers are reinforced concrete, round in plan, with petal-shaped balconies from the twentieth floor upward. Below that, the parking ramps form a tighter spiral. The “corncob” nickname stuck because the shape is honest: each balcony is a single repeated cast, and the repetition is the architecture.
Goldberg wanted a full life within walking distance of the Loop. The residential towers are what the skyline remembers. Individual apartments are not offered or described as listings here.
- In the collection
- 1967
- Towers
- Two · 65 stories
- Use
- Residential towers
- Architect
- Bertrand Goldberg
- Style
- Modernist
- River
- Marina at the base
Neighborhood
River North
River North meets the river here. State Street, the Dearborn bridge, and the riverwalk all pass the base. The towers are a gateway: round concrete against the rectilinear Loop to the south.
- RiverwalkAt the foot of the complex
- State StreetThe address itself
- The LoopSouth across the river
Near north · lake to the east
- One Bennett Park
- The St. Regis Chicago
- Aqua Tower
- 860–880 Lake Shore Drive
- 875 North Michigan Avenue
- Marina City
Lake Michigan
Marina City · River North. Open the building from its pin.
The pin map above is ours. A street map of Marina City loads from OpenStreetMap only if you ask for it.
Sources
In the book
Also in the collection
