Chicago in the late 1980s was undergoing a paradoxical boom in downtown commercial real estate. Paradoxical because, as the cranes towered over the Loop, capital flight to the suburbs continued apace, with many companies from Fifth Third Bank to Microsoft choosing to build mid-rises and the last of the sprawling campuses common to the late twentieth century in the edge city periphery around O’Hare. Meanwhile, with the exception of “business services,” jobs in the metropolitan area were down, even accounting for the burgeoning information technology sectors. (Curiously, FIRE—Finance Insurance and Real Estate—did not actually drive said real estate boom; most of those jobs were still heading out of town.)
Despite all this, it was build, baby, build. Dozens of new commercial office buildings went up in downtown Chicago from 1980 to 1995 in what will likely be the last era of the city’s global financial relevance. These offerings, while certainly postmodern, were quite diverse in terms of stylistic expression; however, as the AIA Guide will tell you, most of them are …
