Building Rating 70% of readers like the United Airlines Building.
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U nited Airlines Building is a delightful melding of old and new. It takes a skeleton of traditional architecture with white granite columns, pediments, and the like and updates it by filling in the empty spaces with silver reflective glass. The result is something that is both comfortable and new. Familiar and still interesting. It makes you wonder what the Romans would have been up to by now had their empire not collapsed all those centuries ago.
Architect: Ricardo Bofill
Developer: Prime Group
It is not uncommon for skyscrapers to skip a floor or two here and there. In most the 13th floor is skipped because of superstition. In this building the 49th floor is skipped so it can claim to be 50 stories tall.
The cladding is Portuguese Royal granite.
Rentable floor space: 959,258 square feet
April 18, 1990: Groundbreaking
July 26, 1991: This building tops out.
1995: In a Chicago Tribune poll, this building is named one of the city's ten favorite buildings (It came in #7).
2006: This building is renamed the United Airlines Building. The airline got $$6,600,000 in tax breaks to move its headquarters from the suburbs into this building.
2007: United Airlines ads a large illuminated "UNITED" sign to the top of this building.
Angie
Saturday, June 13th, 2009 @ 8:24am
Rating: Five stars. My husband was the project manager for Harmon Contract Glazing on this project! Beautiful building!
Leonardo Scalfi
Friday, April 24th, 2009 @ 9:33am
Rating: Five stars. This building's lobby has gained a firm place in my "best architectural memories" since visiting in 1997. And that's quite astonishing since Chicago is full of buildings that are milestones in the history of architecture.The white parian (i.e. from the greek island of Paros) marble and the soft whisper of thin water foils falling from the walls created a magically quiet atmposphere.
Sean
Friday, September 5th, 2008 @ 5:13pm
Rating: Five stars. This is a wonderful building, its pattern is graceful but simple.
Aryn Alschuler
Friday, May 30th, 2008 @ 8:41pm
Rating: Four stars. The only reason I can't give 5 stars is I don't know many details. But for it's beauty, it is difficult to surpass. It's combination of traditional form and modern materials give it a distinct look that mimics earlier Chicago arcitecture, and current. The way nature reflects off of extensive areas of glass makes it begin to disappear against the sky, interrupted only by it's minimalist exo-structure.
Clint
Sunday, January 20th, 2008 @ 2:21pm
Rating: Two stars. My girlfriend calls this the Plaid Building.
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Angie
Five stars.
Leonardo Scalfi
Four stars.
Two stars.