Metropolitan Tower (Chicago)
Encyclopedia
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
located at 310 S. Michigan Avenue
Michigan Avenue (Chicago)
Michigan Avenue is a major north-south street in Chicago which runs at 100 east south of the Chicago River and at 132 East north of the river from 12628 south to 950 north in the Chicago street address system...
in Chicago's
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
East Chicago Landmark
Chicago Landmark
Chicago Landmark is a designation of the Mayor of Chicago and the Chicago City Council for historic buildings and other sites in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, architectural, artistic, cultural,...
Historic Michigan Boulevard District
Historic Michigan Boulevard District
The Historic Michigan Boulevard District is a historic district in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States encompassing Michigan Avenue between 11th or Roosevelt Road , depending on the source, and Randolph Streets and named after the nearby Great Lake...
in the Loop
Chicago Loop
The Loop or Chicago Loop is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas located in the City of Chicago, Illinois. It is the historic commercial center of downtown Chicago...
community area
Community areas of Chicago
Community areas in Chicago refers to the work of the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago which has unofficially divided the City of Chicago into 77 community areas. These areas are well-defined and static...
in Cook County
Cook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and has been renovated as a condominium
Condominium
A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
complex with 242 units. Residences range in size from 1200 square feet (111.5 m²) to 4000 square feet (371.6 m²). Penthouses
Penthouse apartment
A penthouse apartment or penthouse is an apartment that is on one of the highest floors of an apartment building. Penthouses are typically differentiated from other apartments by luxury features.-History:...
feature 360 degree city views and private elevators. Prices run from $300,000 for a 762 square feet (70.8 m²) one-bedroom unit to $1.365 million for a 1932 square feet (179.5 m²) three-bedroom. The Metropolitan Tower is also home for a branch of Chase Bank
Chase (bank)
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase, is a national bank that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of financial services firm JPMorgan Chase. The bank was known as Chase Manhattan Bank until it merged with J.P. Morgan & Co. in 2000...
.
History
Designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & WhiteGraham, Anderson, Probst & White
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White is a Chicago architecture firm that was founded in 1912 originally as Graham, Burnham & Co. This firm was the successor to D. H. Burnham & Co. by Daniel Burnham's surviving partner Ernest Graham and Burnham's sons Hubert Burnham and Daniel Burnham Jr...
, the Metropolitan Tower was named the Straus Building when completed in 1924. Though it was the first building in Chicago with 30 or more floors, it was never officially designated Chicago's tallest building since the Chicago Temple Building
Chicago Temple Building
The Chicago Temple Building is a 173 meter tall skyscraper church located at 77 W. Washington St. in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is home to the congregation of the First United Methodist Church of Chicago. It was completed in 1924 and has 23 floors dedicated to religious and office use...
, also completed in 1924, is taller by 92 feet (28 m) but has seven fewer floors. The Straus Building and the Chicago Temple Building were the first to take advantage of the 1923 zoning
Zoning
Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...
ordinance; before then, no building in Chicago could be taller than 260 feet (79.2 m).
The Metropolitan Tower was at one time called the Continental National Insurance Company Building (later Continental Center I). From 1980 to 2004 it was called the Britannica Building
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
when that company was its tenant.
Characteristics - Past and Present
This U-shaped building, standing at 475 feet (144.8 m) in height, fronts Chicago's Michigan AvenueMichigan Avenue (Chicago)
Michigan Avenue is a major north-south street in Chicago which runs at 100 east south of the Chicago River and at 132 East north of the river from 12628 south to 950 north in the Chicago street address system...
and Grant Park
Grant Park (Chicago)
Grant Park, with between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, offers many different attractions in its large open space. The park is generally flat. It is also crossed by large boulevards and even a bed of sunken railroad tracks...
. The 40 feet (12 m) pyramid
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...
at the top of the building (which Schulze & Harrington, authors of Chicago's Famous Buildings, compare with the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus
Mausoleum of Maussollos
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC at Halicarnassus for Mausolus, a satrap in the Persian Empire, and Artemisia II of Caria, his wife and sister....
), with its new zinc-coated stainless steel sheathing, is peaked by a 20 feet (6 m) glass "beehive" ornament containing a blue glass box filled with six 1000-watt lightbulbs which emits a deep blue light, a prominent feature of Chicago's nighttime skyline
Skyline
A skyline is the overall or partial view of a city's tall buildings and structures consisting of many skyscrapers in front of the sky in the background. It can also be described as the artificial horizon that a city's overall structure creates. Skylines serve as a kind of fingerprint of a city, as...
. The beehive is supported by four limestone bisons. Because of this ornament, the building is sometimes referred to as the "Beehive Building."
Just beneath the beehive are four carillon
Carillon
A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...
bells ranging in weight from 1,500 to 7,000 pounds, unused for many years until restored in 1979 for the Chicago visit of Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
. At one time, the bells chimed the well-known Cambridge Quarters on the quarter-hours. The base has been altered from its original design: rectangular window openings replaced giant arches on Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard. At one time, the thirtieth floor was the Straus Tower Observatory, which was open to the public for viewing the city.
The original main entrance was a pair of elaborately carved bronze doors set in a marble portal flanked by bas-reliefs
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
and used to be in the center of the east side, through the largest of the archways.
In 2009, the Metropolitan Tower won a "Best Adaptive Reuse" award from the Friends of Downtown, a planning and urban design organization for downtown Chicago.
Symbolism
The original owner of the Metropolitan Tower was S. W. Straus and Company, a dealer of investment bonds and one of the leading financers of major real estate in Chicago during the late 19th century and early 20th century. The tower's crown has many symbols for characteristics the company wanted to portray. The pyramid symbolized longevity and permanence and the beehive stood for industry and thrift. When first installed, the beehive also contained four directional beacons, a metaphor for the company's global reach. The pyramid is supported by the four bisons, a traditional symbol for the American West. Straus was hoping to use these symbols to instill trust in their customers, to reassure them that their investments would be handled actively and carefully by an institution that could be trusted over the long term. Ironically, the firm failed during the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and closed fewer than ten years after lighting the beacon.
Area
The Metropolitan Tower is located a block from the entrance to the Art InstituteArt Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
and is within two blocks of stations for all downtown CTA
Chicago Transit Authority
Chicago Transit Authority, also known as CTA, is the operator of mass transit within the City of Chicago, Illinois and some of its surrounding suburbs....
train lines. The Symphony Center
Symphony Center
Symphony Center is a music complex located at 220 South Michigan Avenue in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Sinfonietta, Symphony Center includes the 2,522-seat Orchestra Hall, which dates from 1904; Buntrock Hall, a rehearsal and...
, Millennium Park
Millennium Park
Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, USA and originally intended to celebrate the millennium. It is a prominent civic center near the city's Lake Michigan shoreline that covers a section of northwestern Grant Park. The area was previously...
, Harold Washington Library
Harold Washington Library
The Harold Washington Library Center is the central library for the Chicago Public Library System. It is named for former Mayor Harold Washington. It is located just south of the Loop 'L', at 400 S. State Street in Chicago. It is a full service library and ADA compliant. As with all libraries in...
, and the Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
shore are within a half mile. The south end of the Magnificent Mile
Magnificent Mile
The Magnificent Mile, sometimes referred to as The Mag Mile, is a neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, that runs along a portion of Michigan Avenue extending from the Chicago River to Oak Street in the Near North Side community area. The district is located adjacent to downtown; it is also one block...
shopping district is less than a mile away. Dozens of fine restaurants and other eateries are in the neighborhood, and Grant Park
Grant Park (Chicago)
Grant Park, with between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, offers many different attractions in its large open space. The park is generally flat. It is also crossed by large boulevards and even a bed of sunken railroad tracks...
is across the street.
Position in Chicago's skyline
Metropolitan Tower appears (unlabelled) in front of Chase Tower (Chicago)Chase Tower (Chicago)
Chase Tower, located in the Chicago Loop area of Chicago at 10 South Dearborn Street, is a 60 story skyscraper completed in 1969. At 850 feet tall, it is the tenth tallest building in Chicago, the tallest building inside the Chicago 'L' Loop elevated tracks, and the 32nd tallest in the United...
in the diagram below.