[5K] Chicago Architecture River Cruise | Boat Tour full of Amazing Stories

[Music] all righty everybody we're going to be going on to the chicago river starting up our architecture tour who's ready for a boat what i love to ride i am as well luckily for us we're on a boat now we're going to be getting going on our architecture tour i just want to go through some safety announcements before we start off talking about some buildings now some things to be aware of as for coast guard regulations we have life jackets available for everyone they're inside of these boxes around the boat we'll let you know when and how to put these on in the very unlikely case of an emergency it is also coast guard required that while we are on the boat today you do have to wear a mask i know that the rules have been loosened around the country from the sea uh the cdc and everything um but while you were on the boat today still it is required to have a mask on i will be wearing my mask the entire tour i do occasionally walk over here behind this plexiglas if i need a breath to pull it down but otherwise i wear mine the whole tour as well so that is something to be aware of especially as you're moving around the boat please be considerate of others and wear your masks okay guys now it is also required that while you're on the boat today please remain in the parameters of the boat do not try to reach or lean over the side or stand on any of the benches and try to reach and touch anything up high uh is just wanting do you want to stay inside the boat and you know don't lose an appendage or anything like that all right guys we're getting going onto the river we're going to talk about some lovely stories here in the city of chicago my name is sam i will be your docent or tour guide and i will be telling you about these stories i am a storyteller by trade i actually graduated with my degrees in theater history and art history about four years ago which means that i am actually qualified to do just this job and nothing else nothing in the world which is fine i mind it it's a great job i get to hang out in a boat in my favorite city and talk about some lovely stories now my favorite thing about architecture is that once you start to understand the language of architecture you can use it to learn stories about the city that you're in so our goal on the tour today is that we're going to learn some stories about this city but we're also going to learn a bit of that language of architecture so that when you leave the boat today you have the tools to find some of these stories for yourself okay guys let's jump in now before we get to these buildings i want to give you guys a little bit of an early history of chicago while we why we are all here on this boat gotta go all the way back to the 1600s that is when some european traders first came through the area and they were looking for a way to connect the lake michigan area to the mississippi river they were introduced to native miami and potawatomi tribe members in the late 1600s that showed them this lovely chicago river that we are on we'll take you down to the mississippi through a couple of other waterways it was a very important trade route that they had been using for generations but they didn't really settle around this area because historically the area around the river was actually pretty marshy you see those natives are actually who gave this river its name it was originally called chicago eventually turns into chicago and shikaku means smelly onion yeah we're the city of the smelly onion and we're proud of it i'm gonna get a shirt that says big smelly onion but you see there were these native onions and leeks that grew around the river in that marsh and they made the river smelled not very good which is why it was called the smelly onion river we didn't even have our first non-native settler until about 100 years after that the late 1700s the father of chicago is the name that we give to jean-baptiste point du sable he was a haitian immigrant a man who came all the way from haiti with his family are you from haiti or you just shout them out that's great the father of chicago from haiti they brought his family all the way up here in the late 1700s and i think that's kind of amazing he built his first training post in this area and the first man in this area to be settled around here so the father of chicago is actually a haitian immigrant very fun all right guys i'm going to hop off the mic for a second we are going underneath this bridge and we're going to have this city open up to you guys so hope you guys got your cameras on you i see if some of them out because this is going to be kind of like a curtain going up on opening night and we're going to jump right in some architecture as we come out from underneath this bridge okay guys look at that city ain't she pretty all right guys i want to jump right into some architecture the first building i want to draw your eyes to is going to be coming up over here on the left hand side it's actually the newest addition to our skyline it's pretty hard not to notice it is these three wavy blue buildings that are attached together coming up on the left they make up the one saint regis the saint regis is the new third tallest in our city at 1191 feet it is a building designed by genie gang who is a local chicagoan my favorite architect she's an incredible woman from this area she even won the 2011 macarthur genius grant so we call her a genius this building at 1 191 feet means it is the tallest in the world designed by a female-led architecture firm as well by genie gang and studio gang here in this city these six different shades of blue that cascade up the side of the building kind of make it look like those foamy waves that we have out in lake michigan being a local chicago and she is often inspired by the geology of the area when she makes buildings around here it's a multi-use building both hotel and residential it's mostly open for the most part they've been selling many of the floors the pet house was sold about a year ago for a cool 18.5 million which is like a really normal starter home in chicago super normal now i want you guys to notice way up there at the 83rd and 84th floor how there's a couple of floors that are still open you guys see that looks like they just forgot the glass they actually didn't they're doing that on purpose you see way up there they're going to leave it partially open to let the wind blow through it when the building is completed all the way now what this does is it actually helps to keep the building from swaying too much all tall buildings sway but just a little bit we don't want them to sway too much because well you don't want to get sick at the top floor right so i want to teach you three different ways here in chicago that a structural engineer keeps a tall building from swaying too much it's a pretty common problem being in the windy city so this is our first technique that's called a blow through floor the other two will be later on in the tour so i'll be looking out for them but a blow through floor is very simply letting the pressure of the building be relieved by letting the wind blow through all right let's move on to the next building coming up on the left hand side behind this triangular building you're going to see a blue glass building with a bunch of white fins that cascade down the outside now you're going to see it a little bit more clearly as we pass through in between these two buildings you guys see these balconies that undulate down the side in a bunch of different patterns it's a very unique design that is aqua tower finished in 2009 it's actually also designed by genie gang that was one of her earlier projects it actually won a lot of awards for that unique design with those balconies cascading down the side see those balconies are all mathematically different from one another they're completely unique going down the side what this means is it actually has some practical functions as well they successfully let the building buffet the wind off the side of the building so when you stand on your balcony during our very cold chicago winters well you don't get as much of that chilly chicago wind and the second fun practical purpose is that they fan down the side of that building like that instead of being stacked right on top of each other like you normally see what that means is you can look over and see a bunch of your neighbors you can say hello neighbor did you know that my balcony is mathematically different from your balcony i bet you didn't that's a conversation starter and that's what genie gang wants you to do get out and know your neighbors create a community all right let's talk about a building way back in time over here on the right hand side this is a fun little story you guys see that building with the yellow onion up at the top there that is the intercontinental hotel it was built in 1929 i actually want to talk about that chimney that's right behind it you guys see what is a chimney that peeks out it's the highest point of that building over there essentially kind of a funny design if you see it from the side because the chimney just sort of shoots up there but they actually designed it like that so that it would double for another purpose they thought they would make a lot of money off of people parking their blimps at the top of the building and no that never happened not once but i love that story because it shows you that architects are thinking about the future and what a city might look like and just because he was wrong doesn't mean it's not a great story about what it could have looked like all right we're coming up to the city center you guys the dusabla bridge named after the father of chicago that i mentioned before his name's actually also on dusable park it's on dusable african american history museum on the south side another place i highly recommend i believe it is opening up soon now i want to talk about this beautiful white building with the clock tower over the top on the right hand side is being reflected really lovely by that sun right now that is the wrigley building it was built in 1921 and 24. it has 250 000 glazed terracotta tiles on the outside that are six different shades of white and cream now this is a style of architecture called spanish revival spanish revival this is where i want to start with architectural styles you see as we start to develop this downtown city center in the late 1800s early 1900s in chicago we didn't really have our own style of architecture yet you know at that point we were still copying and pasting what we saw in europe taking their sense of beauty making our own very literally sometimes in this case that clock tower up there at the top of the wrigley building was designed directly after the geralda tower which is on a cathedral in sevilla spain which is why we call it spanish revival so at this point we still take our story from europe copying and pasting their designs and this is really where it starts in chicago so we'll talk about how that develops later on in time let's move forward way in time because right here in front of us is the second tallest building here in the city trump international hotel in tower 1389 feet up to that spire up there this is a style of architecture called contextualism this is uh what i call the friendliest style of architecture contextualism these buildings are all about being specific to their site they want to mimic things happening around the building to make the whole area look a lot more beautiful here's one example right here guys see how it has three patios one two three those patios are actually matching the heights exactly of buildings that came before it in the area the first patio is the same height as the wrigley building the second is the same height as the mather tower which is that skinny gothic building over there on the left-hand left-hand side and the third is the same height as the ama plaza that large black box building coming up on the right so what it does is it tips the cap to these other buildings and what that does for you is it makes a little bit easier for your eyes to transition from one thing to the next it even has a bit of a silvery sheen to it to make a nice easy transition from the white building on the left to this black building coming up on the right it fits into its context that's why it's called contextualism site specific now i do want to talk about this large black box coming up on the right this is the ama plaza finished in 1973 designed by ludwig mies van der rohe mies van der rohe very important architect he was known as the father of american modernist this is black box modernism now mies van der rohe coined the phrase less is more you guys heard that one before it's all about the simplicity of something leading to its internal beauty now that's what i want you to think of when you see this style because what he's actually doing is stripping away the usual decoration that you saw in buildings to leave you with the simple materials architecture stripped to its core less is more i'll get back to modernism but i want to point out these very photogenic corn cobs sticking to the ground on the right-hand side these are the marina city towers that we're coming up to they were finished in 1968 designed by bertrand goldberg goldberg is an architect who considered himself a social scientist first you see this structure was actually an experiment of his back in the 60s not a lot of people lived down here in the city center there wasn't a lot to do and there weren't very many residential buildings so he wanted to try and change that but to get you to live down here he had to give you everything that you needed all in one place this was his experiment if i give you a city within a city does it help to revitalize the area so what this is is exactly what i'm describing you live up top have your car valet parked for you down below got your laundromat your daycare your movie theater your ice skating rink your offices your restaurants all back there and right here in front you have your marina as well because he knew you couldn't live without a boat in chicago gotta have it we all got boats it's actually a genius design and a genius idea it really did help to revitalize this downtown city center many residential buildings came after it and that's kind of the beauty of what marina city did all right how about we switch our eye lines let's go over here to the left guys so come out from underneath the bridge i want to point out this uh shiny glass building with the white granite columns lining the outside that is 77 west whacker it's a style called neo classical now that means new classical neoclassical classical architecture comes from greece and rome it's thousands of years old so what this style does is updates it with contemporary materials you guys see how it has solid base soaring columns evenly proportion and way up the top that triangle that pediment it kind of looks like a bunch of themes you might see on say the parthenon but what it does is it updates it with that glass and that white granite to make it look like well a tall shiny parthenon sitting on the chicago river neo classical and that building was designed by ricardo beaufield by the way one of the only uh non-american architects on our tour today he's a spanish architect 1992-77 west whacker over here on the right we got this low-lying red brick building here the grandfather of this area of chicago it was built in 1914 this is the reed murdock it's had a lot of lives on this river it's been a makeshift hospital a warehouse a traffic court uh it even has encyclopedia britannica's headquarters in there nowadays it's sort of an encyclopedia building had a lot of purposes it's been here for over 100 years now i want to talk a little bit about bridges we got some pretty famous bridges in our city as well we've been going underneath a lot of them already these burgundy bridges like this one right here in front of me are actually called chicago style bridges they are unique to our city a chicago style bridge is a double leaf trunnion bascule bridge double leaf means that it opens up in the middle like so oh yeah we have 43 movable bridges in our city that's actually the second most in the world only behind amsterdam they've got like 61. and we do still lift them up in the spring and then the fall that's how we get our sailboats to and from the lake if you're around downtown in the morning you would have seen it they let some sailboats down to the lake they live on the south branch so you have to open up the bridges one by one to let them on through it's a really fun possession to watch if you ever get the chance to see it all right now coming up on the right hand side i want to talk about that giant building with the indiana limestone on the outside that is the merchandise mart or the mart as we call it on the other side of the bridge the march was built in 1930 it actually happened to be the largest in the world for about 10 years it was four point it is 4.2 million square feet takes up two city blocks it had its own zip code until 2008 it's a huge building and this is also our first example on the tour of art deco welcome to art deco now this is really our first distinctly american style of architecture it shows up in the late 1920s so before that time remember we were looking back towards europe now we're looking forward towards an american machine made future here's how you identify art deco you guys see what has these vertical lines going up the side of the building that are right next to these deep dark inside windows you see how they break up the horizontal lines on purpose they're doing that so that your eyes will naturally follow the movement of the building up art deco is all about verticality and movement you'll even see there's a lot of repeated patterns like the building is moving along the side with those arrows emulating from those gold diamonds now i think of the roaring 20s when i see art deco that's the time when it shows up it's a time of great optimism so when i see a building that makes you look up towards the sky it makes me think of that optimism and i always think of those vertical lines sort of like pinstripes because you know they had their great zoot suits at the time i imagine they were wearing them when they made the building all right we'll get back to art deco but we've arrived at beautiful wolf point it is looking quite lovely today wolf point is the confluence of the three branches of the chicago river we're actually on the main branch right now we're about to head up the north branch to our right and then down the south branch after that there's a lot of brand new buildings around this area that make it look quite beautiful over here on the right are the wolf point towers we'll point east is that light blue one finished last year wolf point south is this one being worked on in the middle and on the other side is wolf point west a dark blue residential building built in 2017. up here in front of us that building looks like a pencil stuck in the ground and the one with the arch in the bottom you see those two large blue glass buildings those were both built in 2017 as well now i want you to notice how many brand new buildings are built around wolf point that's important to notice because well for most of our history we didn't really want to come down here to wolf point even though it looks super beautiful today the main reason why was because the industries that lived on the north and south branch polluted this river pretty indiscriminately so areas like wolf point they weren't fun to be around they smelled terrible we really haven't been cleaning up the river until about 40 years ago when we started which is why only about five years ago you have so many brand new structures being built around areas like wolf point i mean over here on the right where the whole point south is being worked on this was just a car lot five years ago so that shows you how much we're changing the way we use this area of our river in chicago we're going to talk a lot about getting back to the river today it matters it's a part of our story this is where we get our name so it is exciting to see all these brand new buildings utilizing areas like wolf point because now we can come down here and enjoy it and it does look quite beautiful too all right we're turning up the north branch all right i want to talk about up here in front of us that large peach rectangle that's coming up on the left hand side of the river over there might not look like much but it's actually the oldest building on our tour today that peach rectangle's fulton house was built in 1898 but it didn't always look like that it didn't even always have holes in it because it used to be a giant freezer we had a booming meat packing district here in chicago for many years on the south side you ever heard that chicago was called the hog butcher of the world for many years and the city of broad shoulders i mean you probably guessed that second one from looking at your tour guide right no it's fine don't worry about it now we would haul that meat around and we would store it in large freezers like fulton house coming up over here on the left hand side but then that meat packing district died out in 1971 and they converted into the apartments you see today designed by harry wiest in the 80s but they had to convert the building first and well it took a little bit of time they had spent three months thawing it out and they had to take the insulation out of the walls as well and they discovered that they used just loads of cork and horse hair four inches of insulation in the walls so they had to take truckloads of it out but nowadays the lovely apartments you see today harry reis this architect is actually the same man who designed these triangular buildings that are going to be coming up down here on the left hand side these small triangular residential buildings here these are the riverfront cottages built in 1989 these are really our only example of post modernism on the tour postmodernism is the only style i would say is the opposite of another modernism do you guys remember modernism large black boxes less is more simplicity to its core it's all about rules so that means that post-modernism has no rules it's more is more it's silly it's whimsical it's a little bit over the top it's even out of the box literally in this occasion because it's triangular you see harry wiese was a big sailor he wanted them to look like triangular sails the main thing with post-modernism is there are no rules you can do whatever you want it's more of an expression of the architect himself now when he first built these triangular riverfront cottages in 1989 he received a lot of criticism for putting them right here nobody got it they were like ah harry whis nobody wants to live down here on the north branch they call this a stinking pit 30 years ago now it might have been but i would say harry weiss has a bit of foresight because he sold one of those riverfront cottages for about 2.25 million five years ago so yeah people do want to live down here we're changing the way we use this area of our river and that's pretty exciting we have some more um coming up on the left hand side some red brick town houses they were constructed in 2001 they are also revitalizing this area these are also high-end properties some of them were sold for about two million a piece as well these red brick townhouses coming up on the left in 2001. now i want you to notice how these townhouses all face the river you guys see how they're set back and they have a river walk out here that means that they want to come out and enjoy the environment now that's really small but it's huge in the grand scheme of chicago because we never did that over here on the right hand side is the east bank club 450 000 square foot fitness center built in 1980. see how this building has its back to the river that alleyway there wasn't even added until about 10 years after its construction so there's only a 20-year difference between the buildings on either side of us and a vastly different perspective of how you might tell the story of the river through architecture we want to get back to this river that gives us so much that's part of our story today so one simple thing you can do is just flip your buildings around enjoy the environment that you're given flip those buildings around just like you're flipping this boat around a heyo segway all right i'm gonna take a minute off the mic you guys this is gonna be our first break on the tour which means you can head back to felipe and get yourself another drink or get yourself uh your first drink or maybe even your third drink i have no idea how long you guys have been drinking on this boat now you can go back there and get yourself a lovely uh maybe a rum punch and a water that way you are hydrated and you have a rum punch i call that the best of both worlds i'll be back in the mic as we head towards that old railroad bridge over there on the left-hand side of the river back there that's where i'm going to be talking about next so until then you guys have this break so head back to felipe and after he treats you well with a drink make sure you treat him well and tip him well as well i'm gonna walk up and down the boat if you have any questions let me know i'll be back on the mic in a couple of minutes musketeers questions you're really awesome oh thank you i'm glad you're enjoying it where are you coming from my wife and i from where from michigan michigan lovely have you been chicago before yes a couple of times it's great like my second favorite city in the us what's your favorite song i love san francisco that's a great thing i thought you were going to say new york and i was going to be like no chicago's better i love san francisco i don't know that's a tough one san francisco i love new york too i i do but we never been there yet you gotta go yeah all right guys i'm back on the mic so let's check out this old railroad bridge that's coming up in the air on the left-hand side of the river over here this is the old carroll avenue bridge it was built in 1908 over 100 years ago it was actually the longest and heaviest trunnion vascular style bridge built in the world at that time that word bascule it comes from the french it means see-saw or teeter-totter it's a big weight counterweight system so i want you guys to see that large concrete block on the back side of that bridge that is actually what is holding it up in the air right now and what would bring it back down as well so it sort of works like a seesaw basket now all of our chicago style bridges those burgundy ones that we talked about earlier they are actually the exact same style trying in basketball but for the most part they have their counterweight hidden below ground so on that old railroad which is cool you can see it working and we do lift it up and down about once a year you know just to show people we can but it is a landmark all right check that out crossing the tracks up there in front of us you guys see that train that is our public transit here in the city of chicago the l how i get to and from this boat it's a very unique picture if you guys want to snag it as it goes over the bridge on the river it's a very cool picture now of course if you guys didn't know um the l train is called the l because it is elevated we're really clever here in chicago yeah now coming up on the right we have this building with the arch in the bottom that is river point built in 2017 i call it the hungriest building on the tour because it always makes me think of a large mcdonald's pie box or maybe a hot pocket i was a college student once now you see this building does make me a little bit hungry but it's also got some fun structural things happening including well over here on the right hand side i want to show you guys see above the river these holes cut into the wall here these are actually exhaust vents you guys see these over on the right-hand side their exhaust vents for the metro and amtrak train lines they run down below the land on the right-hand side what that means is that all of these buildings coming up on the right including river point have to deal with that problem how do you build on top of land where there are train lines down below well for the most part you got to avoid them because you don't want to ruin somebody's morning commute right so this building coming up on the right is doing exactly that this is 150 north riverside looks like a large pencil it has a 30 foot wide base which i'm pretty sure is skinnier than this boat that's crazy but this is actually the only way they could build this building in this location you see those train lines run down below the land on the back side of the building they couldn't put any foundation down there and they actually couldn't put anything down on the front side as well for a different reason it's because the chicago chicago as a city requires all brand new buildings being built along the river like this to have a 30-foot setback you got to give away a part of your lot space for public use because remember we don't want our buildings right up on the river anymore we want to use the river so we got to have it set back but because of those two stipulations it only takes up 20 percent of its lot space and they still did it that's kind of amazing and it leads to one of my favorite designs i want you guys to notice on the side of the building see our boat floating on by we actually got two boats floating by right now a little unique situation that rarely happens it's like the building saying hello to us it's like hello welcome to chicago river i hope you're having a great day what a friendly building so midwestern all right guys i want to move on we're going to come back to that building later i've got another thing i want to talk to you about with it but i want to move on to this large black and silver building coming up on the right now this is the boeing build home to boeing they make planes but if you were a detective trying to figure out who used to own the building you still could because they left something behind the original owners when the building was constructed in 1990 was the morton salt company i want you guys to look all the way up to the top of the building as we come out underneath the bridge and see those six steel holes that cut into that frame up there that are six holes cut in that steel frame what that design does is it makes the building kind of look like a giant salt shaker for the morton salt company oh yeah but boeing moved in in 2001 and they left it around so i i guess i've been told they weren't too salty about it yeah all right guys over here on the left is this brand new building the bank of america building just finished in the last year uh did i just get a woot for bank of america all right these being steel beams out front i mean you know whatever it's a cool building but these being steel beams out front are there because of that 30 foot setback you see they're giving away a part of their lot space for public use so that means they got a design around it which is why it has that cool design all right guys we're entering it to my favorite location on the river this little section right here is what we call the art deco canyon the art deco canyon we are surrounded by giant art deco buildings on the left is the civic opera building on the right is two north riverside plaza both buildings were built in 1929 you guys know what that means we just entered the running the roaring 20s guys welcome to the jazz age do you hear the jazz not yet it's still in the buildings well now at this point on the tour guys as funny as it is to hang out in the roaring 20s we are in our own roaring 20s i guess right now but i want to take you guys on a journey through the next few decades you see the next five buildings on the right are actually built chronologically they didn't mean to do that but i'm kind of glad they did because i can show you how we get from one style to the next all right guys starting here with art deco in the roaring 20s remember i said this was a time of great optimism in america they were really looking forward to the future and they weren't really too afraid about spending money even these architects are building big opulent buildings with a lot of extra decoration art deco but then what happens in 1929 well the stock market crashes and then there's almost a 30 year gap where there are pretty much no office buildings being built anywhere in america because we're going through the great depression and world war ii and well suddenly we've arrived in the 60s and black box modernism is the style of the day that's really different from art deco so i to in order to understand where this comes from i want you to think about the shift in generations think about how these architects would have for the most part grown up during the great depression how does that change the way you view money well it makes you a lot more frugal let me tell you you're not going to spend as much money on a big opulent building like the art deco architects from before i think about that frugality when i see black box modernism because in the 60s businesses were booming there was a great need for office buildings which means that you can build a lot of these buildings for not a lot of money what you see is what you get there's no added ornamentation it's just that black steel frame and that black curtain wall of glass so you can build a lot of these buildings for not much money which is what chicago did we have over 50 of these structures in the city but at the same time i understand it looks a little bit boring and maybe drab nowadays especially very austere and cold so i want to remind you that at the time it was revolutionary they believed that less is more mantra it wasn't just a monetary thing they wanted to strip architecture to its core to show you how simple sleek and beautiful it can be so remember that as well when you see black box models all right guys let's say goodbye to black boxes we're done with that uh we're moving into the 70s guys so i need you all to say hello to white boxes we're getting crazy now this style is called international style that means that you can pick it up put it anywhere else in the world and it wouldn't interact with the environment any different it's not a site specific building it's more like site apathetic its point is it's trying to be cheap repeatable international a building you can build anywhere so it's pretty similar to black box modernism the only real difference is you can add some white concrete to the outside so i want you to notice how in the 60s and 70s these styles are mostly pretty cheap repeatable and very international that was convenient for the time but i want to show you how we shift as we head into the 80s coming up on the right hand side you guys see that curvy blue and green glass building there it was built in 1983 it is a site-specific building we talked about this style before contextualism so what it's doing is it's not harmonizing with heights it's actually harmonizing with the river down below that blue and green curve and that bubbly glass matching that blue and green curve of the wavy river down below now what that means is that as we head into the 80s we're turning away from these cheap repeatable international buildings and now it's more about being specific to your own site unique diverse and i'd say local because this building cannot be built anywhere else in the world it can only be built right here harmonizing with this environment so welcome the 80s everybody i hope you brought your hairspray oh check this out over here on the left by the way you guys happen to be confused about where we are there's a map of the chicago river on the side of that building see that red brick up there that is this building it's an 800 000 you are here sign alrighty guys so i want to point out the art deco building coming up on the right remember art deco racing lines deep dark inset windows those pin stripes you might even recognize this building from the beginning of the dark night film the joker drove a bus full of cash out of that building and he got away along van buren street above us this is the gotham city bank oh yeah although um before that it was the old chicago post office this was actually the largest post office in use in the world from 1932 until 1996 when they vacated the building uh they no longer have a use for gigantic post office in the modern world so it laid empty for almost two decades because nobody really knew what to do with it nobody wanted to spend the money to invest in a giant building like this and they couldn't really get rid of it because well the interstate is right in front of us and it goes down below and in between the building it's a bit of a logistical issue which is why it laid empty for so long and the joker was allowed to use it but about five years ago they finally found the right investors they are spending over 600 million dollars on its renovation changing it to brand new office space the plan is to attract big businesses to come down here to this area of the south branch and revitalize this part of our river businesses like walgreens uber home chef have actually already moved in their home their headquarters into the old chicago post office so it's actually a mostly finished project especially on the inside it is pretty much done uh they just have a little bit of work to be done on the outside they've done remarkable work on it it really did not look this great even a couple of years ago now i'm going to talk a lot today on the tour about the individual stories that these buildings tell but i do want to draw your attention to the fact that there is an overarching story as well a story of chicago sort of like a thread that ties the buildings together i want to give a title to this story of our city for the purposes of this tour the title of the story of chicago what i would give is our city motto i actually think it's perfect i couldn't find a better way to describe our story our city motto is a latin phrase herbs in orto herbs in orton means city in a garden city in a garden i really think that's perfect you guys that describes chicago to me now think about that they gave that motto to this city when it was first founded in 1837. they must have looked around them at the three branches of the chicago river at lake michigan and the lovely marshes and prairies that they were given and said this is a garden and we want to treat it like that we are just a city in a garden i mean think about that there's a difference between a city in a garden and a garden in a city what that means is that here in chicago we try to put our garden first love and use this environment that we are given i want you to think about how architecture can help to write the story of a city how do you build a city in a garden one step at a time coming up on the left-hand side you guys see this snaking building with the bubbly glass this is river city river city was built in 1986. you guys might recognize it from another building we already talked about this is the second by this architect it was similarly circular but it was much taller you guys remember the corn cops bertrand goldberg our social scientist friend this is the same architect now it's actually the same idea as well marina city was a city within a city an experiment to revitalize that downtown city center so this is the same idea but on the south branch in the 80s trying to revitalize this area but where marina city was a hit downtown i want you guys to notice that river city was not i mean people still live here sure but it's not just about the building itself it's about how it was trying to revitalize the area and you might notice it's the only major piece of architecture down here today 30 years later that shows you that people were not ready to move to this area of our garden back in the 80s you know it didn't have the benefit of being in the downtown area where it was pretty far away from the pollution this area was probably still pretty smelly but that's all right this is actually an example of how the city tells the story one step at a time i love river city because it shows you that he started this chapter a little bit early but doesn't mean that the chapter isn't going to get finished there's going to be a lot more happening down here on the south branch the not too far future really i mean if you come back here in a couple of years i think you're going to see more happening down here this building won't look as lonely anymore just a little bit ahead of its time in writing this chapter of our story of a city in a garden all right guys speaking of stories it is officially story time on the tour today over here on the left hand side if i can get it to fly fly flag i want to talk to you about oh look at that was perfect oh my gosh that's never worked that lovely flag over there with the two blue stripes and the four red stars did you guys see me do that magic now i want to talk about that city flag that is our chicago city flag two blue stripes four red stars you guys seen the flag before we put it everywhere around the city i have many friends i mean many friends that have it tattooed on their bodies not i don't like needles that's not really the point now i want to tell you guys about the city flag because it is very important to us in chicago and everything on that flag has meaning so i want you to know what our flag means at the end of the tour i'm going to teach you two of those stars at this point on our journey and the rest of it later on you guys good great first two stars the first star on the flag is symbolic of fort dearborn fort dearborn was a major military fort built in the chicago area built back in 1803 they ended up building the township around the fort so that's really just the beginnings fort dearborn simple the second star is not as simple i'm going to spend a lot more time on it because it's the most important thing on the flag in my opinion the second star is symbolic of the great chicago fire of 1871. you guys heard of the great chicago fire before anybody else yeah midwesterners maybe at very least i know i grew up hearing a lot of stories about the fire it's a pretty common thing to hear about around here there's one story about the chicago fighter that's pretty often told even today it goes like this catherine o'leary's cow kicked over a lantern and started the fire so just so we're all clear they blamed a cow and they were actually lying you see the tablets were just looking for somebody to blame and they found an easy mark in mrs o'leary and her cow but we still think that today now part of the reason why is because we don't really know how the great chicago fire got started there are other theories but we know it wasn't the cow it couldn't have been they were just trying to find somebody to blame and now you guys know we don't have to frame the cow anymore i mean come on it couldn't even defend itself that's utterly ridiculous is what it is i think i heard a chuckle i'll take that that'll feed my ego for the day all right guys over here on the left-hand side i just want to point out this is um one of my favorite views of our tallest building you guys see that large black box behind a structure with a two white antenna that is the artist formerly known as the sears tower now in case it's called the littlest tower i call him tall dark and handsome he's a beautiful building we'll be talking about him as we get closer i just want to point them out because i think this is a really cool picture from the south branch oh there's that wind here we go if i you know like fly off the back you guys just somebody come up here and keep going on the tour okay great thank you you're my sup all right now here's the deal with the fire we don't know how it got started but there's something about the fire that i find more important than how it could have gotten sparked you see i think the way the city was built is a main reason why the fire was as devastating as it was now chicago had a huge population boom in the 1800s remember i said not a lot of people lived here in the early history because it really wasn't that habitable it's pretty marshy but as america started to move west this just happened to become well a very convenient trade hub for the entire nation we're right in the middle right on the mississippi river and the great lake area as well so that means that people came here in troves to make their name in trade and commerce in the middle of the 1800s it was a bit of an unexpected population boom in 1850 there was 30 000 people in the city which is you know small town by the year 1900 there was 1.7 million now here's the thing it took chicago only 60 years of being a city to become the fifth largest in the world at 1.7 million that's rapid development what it means for planning a city is that if you have a lot of people moving here very quickly you've got to build the city pretty quickly as well there wasn't a lot of time to plan say the layout or the design of the city itself what that means is they built it mostly out of what they had in surplus trees chicago was made over 90 percent out of wood when the fire broke out in 1871 and they were 14 weeks into a drought it was a giant dry wooden city and they think the cow did it now here's the story of what happened that night guys the fire breaks out over here on the night of october 8 1871 on the southwest side not too far from us and it spreads incredibly quickly because it's eating up a giant dry wooden city at first they ran to the other side of the river to get away from because it got out of control so quickly unfortunately the fire jumped over the river twice it went all the way up to the north side way up by lincoln park these incredible southwest winds that night pushing it onward by the time it finished it was almost three days later 100 000 people had been left homeless 300 people killed that is the most devastating single event in the history of our city but why do we honor it on the flag well because we wouldn't have what we think of chicago today if it weren't for the fire because they didn't do a very good job of planning the city the first time they're not going to mess it up a second this is our second city and we're going to do it better and that's what happened because architects and engineers they flocked to the city to help to rebuild it from the ground up it was a pretty unique opportunity for an architect because you know booming metropolis no buildings that means you have a guarantee that the structures will be used you can experiment a little bit more on creating a better city and these architects were creating ideas that helped build this city and cities around the world there's one invention that comes out of this period that i think is monumental and i wanted to share with you guys the invention of the very first steel frame skyscraper the skyscraper was actually born here in chicago in 1885 designed by william lebaron jenny now that is a huge invention literally and metaphorically because what is it what it does is it allows cities around the world to solve the huge population problems in city centers no longer did you have to pack people in as closely as possible to rise up populations now you can put those people in the sky vertical living changes the way that we view cities today you know back in the 1800s most cities were pretty dirty and claustrophobic i want to remind you you did not want to live in a city center in the late 1800s it was not fun to do but before that time they could only build to about 10 or 12 floors for most buildings because the typical masonry they used was not strong enough to be able to support much more than that after the invention of the steel frame skyscraper you can build buildings over 100 floors tall that is the legacy of the fire right behind me that city that tower the exact same technology is the very first one that shows you what chicago is of phoenix rising out of the ashes and that's your second stop all right guys let's jump back into some architecture i will get back to the rest of the flag later but remember the fort and the fire all right let's draw your eyes over here on the hand side let's talk about that uh rocket ship kind of like building it's got the statue way up at the top you guys notice how it has pinstripes racing lines deep dark inside windows it's art deco now this art deco building is the chicago board of trade finished in 1930 and that statue way up there is the roman goddess series c-e-r-e-s that's where we get the words cereal and cerveza she is the roman goddess of grain and they did a lot of grain commodity trading in that building which is why she hangs out up there and looks over the finance district here in chicago hey coming up on the right-hand side i want to talk about this uh octagonal peach building with that crown way up at the top that is 311 south wacker we call her the queen of our skyline because that crown way up there it lights up very beautifully every night here in chicago it actually uh lit up so bright when it first debuted that birds got distracted by it on their migration paths they thought it was the moon and they couldn't figure out where they were going which is very sad but thankfully we do turn down those lights during migration periods nowadays don't worry birds can find their way and now i'd like to draw your attention to the king of our skyline the tallest building in the city that large black box modernist structure with the two white antenna is the sears slash willis tower now of course it was originally coined the sears tower when it was built in 1973 had a name changed about 10 years ago so most chicagoans would tell you it's the sears tower it was the tallest building in the world for 24 years after it was built in 1973. it was a serious monument across the world and it is still the tallest here in our city of chicago it's black box modernism you guys see that it's less is more but a lot more of less is more it's actually 1450 feet tall or 442 meters for our friends that don't use the same frustrating system of measurement as us in america now i want to talk about the unique design of the willis tower you guys see how that building is actually more like nine columns see how these columns are all topping out at a bunch of different heights like that only two of them go up to the top height and support the white antenna it's nine columns on a three by three plot they're all 75 feet by 75 feet kind of looks like tetris now that design is called bundled tubes or bundled columns it comes from dr fosler khan he was the lead structural engineer on this project a man who is an absolute genius has developed so many techniques that they call him the father of structural engineering now the bundled tubes technique comes from his brain as well it was very innovative at the time you know when you build the tallest building in the world in the windy city gotta keep it from swaying too much right this is your second technique the bundled tubes technique now essentially the way it works is that those columns all top out at a bunch of different heights like that to confuse the wind rather than meeting at one peak they bundle closer together with the two top columns that do go up to the top to keep them from swaying too much bundled tubes or bundled columns uh there's a little story about the creation of that design and it might be a bit apocryphal i'll be honest with you guys but i just love this story so i'd like to tell you guys now the story goes that fazer khan was working late nights trying to figure out how am i going to build this giant building in the windy city and he was playing with cigarettes and a cigarette pack and he noticed that when he pulled up a couple of the cigarettes they didn't sway or fall back down they were bundled closer together with the bundled cigarettes or bundled tubes down below so supposedly the design for the willis tower comes from a pack of cigarettes how mad men is that you guys see those four glass boxes that jut out way up there at the 103rd floor that's the sky deck anybody had a chance to go to the sky deck yet anybody anybody anybody you're very brave you are very brave because i would not do that i will never do it never in my life but you can go up there you guys you not me can go up there and look down through glass floors over a thousand feet below you and little people like well us on this boat right now really that's a crazy thing you can do there crazy thing that you cannot do there is you cannot climb the outside of the building i'm sorry it's illegal yeah i know bummer but two people actually have climbed the outside of the willis tower one of them was an american in 1981 who uh climbed the outside wearing a spiderman costume that's how i remember he was the american and he had suction cups on his hands as well the other one was a french guy about 20 years after that who climbed the outside using his bare hands he's actually known as the french spiderman doesn't have to wear the costume though because he's not american now they both successfully climbed the tower and they both were successfully arrested it's super illegal don't climb the building no it's very dangerous for you and others but that's what happens when you have the tallest building in the world for about 24 years it leads to stunts like that happening in our city very famous stunts that we remember today now i have one last story about the willis tower that i want to share with you guys this afternoon and it's about its giant white antenna if you'd like to get one last look at them it's up to you guys but you have to crank your neck and look back as we come out from underneath the bridge those giant white antennae up there at the top are almost 300 feet tall might be a little bit hard to understand that perspective it's about the same height as these black boxes over here on the left hand side they are huge but they actually very famously do not count towards the official height of the building the official height just goes up to the top floor doesn't add the antenna i have a beef with this you see about a dozen years ago a committee got together and changed the rules for how they judged the height of a building you see antenna have actually never counted they're not structural or permanent to the building so you don't get to add that extra height willis never did but my problem is that about a dozen years ago they decided that spires should count a spire is structural or permanent to the building now what that means is that contemporary architects are constantly throwing spires on things to add extra height it's a really common thing to do because cities take a lot of pride in the height of their buildings so why not add 300 feet if you can throw a spire on trump international here in chicago is the spire that adds to its height in case you're curious what one might look like nowadays the tallest building in the western hemisphere benefits from aspire it is one world trade center in new york anybody seen it before over in new york it's a really beautiful structure it's 1776 feet tall very patriotic but i want to mention that if we actually threw out spires and antenna and just said top floor how tall is the building just like the good old days willis would actually be 83 feet taller than one world trade center over new york so we still got that oh does anybody know where the tallest building in the world is right now currently goodbye excellent you guys are very smart the burj khalifa 2717 feet have you guys seen it yeah it's huge it's in dubai 2717 feet which is almost twice as tall as will it seriously it's a huge building it's a building designed by a star architect named adrian smith adrian smith is actually a local chicagoan so uh we still got that too look we're the home of the skyscraper guys i take a lot of pride in these tall buildings that we have already we're back out here into the art deco canyon we've arrived in the roaring 20s welcome back to the jazz age guys i want to talk about the lovely civic opera building over here on the right this is home to lyric opera there's a 3600 seat opera house inside that building but its most famous seat still today is actually outside of the building it's the building itself if you look up at the side do you guys see how it looks like a throne has a back and two arms now this is actually a really famous design because when it first debuted everybody made fun of them for building a throne on the dirty chicago river but the architects didn't even mean it to look like one they designed it like this because those arms in the back are just office space they wanted the office space to provide rent for the lyric opera on the inside and then after it was finished everybody realized it looked like a throne and they got made fun of for it now i for one am very thankful they made it look like a throne because if i ever wake up as a giant i will need somewhere to sit and now i don't have to worry about that and i think that's pretty important all right how about we talk about coming up on the left-hand side that building with a very skinny base that we talked about before large pencil stuck in the ground 150 north riverside it has a 30 foot wide base as you remember from before in the middle of that building is steel reinforced concrete that goes down over 100 feet below us into the bedrock and all the way up to the top of the building so it's essentially a giant i-beam right in the middle keeping it where it is but they do still have to keep it from swaying too much this is your third technique the final one on our tour today they use something called inertial slosh dampeners kind of a mouthful inertial slosh dampeners now you can actually see these but way up at the top of that building there's 160 000 gallons of water in 12 tubs and they work kind of like shock absorbers for the building i'll do a little physical demonstration if you guys want to look up here at me i'll show you how it works essentially when the building sways one direction because the wind the water in the tank which is me would slosh the opposite direction and then it would continue to slosh in the tank to help to bring the building back to a rest a little bit quicker keeping it from swaying too much inertial slosh dampeners giant tubs of water tuned to keep that building from swaying too much very nifty technique a lot of contemporary buildings have some form of inertial slash dampers nowadays it's a pretty common thing to help a building to keep it from swaying too much and that's all three by the way do you remember bundled tubes was earlier we had blow through floor from the beginning and the inertial slash dampeners congratulations everybody you're certified to build a skyscraper that's all you need nothing else promise you just start doing it oh all right you guys we're heading back down the main branch now for the final act of our tour i want to start with this uh curvy building coming up over here on the right-hand side this building was built in 1983 which basically makes it ancient compared to some of the other buildings we talked about in this area now this is probably my favorite example of contextualism on the tour a site-specific building so you guys see the uh curve to the building that mimics the curve to the river down below has blue lines of glass that match the blue sky and turquoise that match the river so it sort of lives and harmonizes with its own unique site i love contextualism because to be honest with you it doesn't seem like it's terribly hard to design you mimic things happening around the building but what that does is it makes the whole area look that much more beautiful because your eyes transition from one building to the next a little bit easier it's a friendly style architecture makes itself look as beautiful as all the other buildings around it and i also happen to love the fact that well it's kind of like interactive architecture because these shiny glass buildings have only really appeared in the last 40 years of the history of men you know back in the roman times their buildings stayed the same but this building changes every time we look at it because it always reflects your environment your day and i kind of love that it's interactive architecture having a conversation with you and there's a scene in one of my favorite movies of this building as well ferris bueller's day off my favorite chicago movie ferris bueller's dad actually worked in that building he could be working right now hello mr bueller you guys you never know he could be there all right i want to talk about the merchandise mark again remember this giant building from before this was actually originally designed to be a multi-use warehouse for marshall fields the department store which shows you how popular department stores were in chicago that well you could build a giant two-block warehouse for in the middle of the city but they lost a lot of money during the great depression and they sold this building to the kennedy family jfk's dad is the man who renovated it and he also added these uh pez dispenser heads to the outside you guys see these heads facing away from us these statues are called merchant princes uh that means that they are a bunch of people that made money off of merchandise and trade in the city so it is people like marshall fields air montgomery ward sears and roebuck woolworth they all are memorialized over there facing the opposite direction because they just couldn't stand the smell of the river they had to go the opposite way guys but it's a lot better nowadays they could turn around now here's one thing that we're doing to help the river over here on the right hand side you guys see these little islands floating on the river right here next to the riverwalk these little islands with the grass growing on top of them now these little islands are actually called fish hotel that grass continues to bloom throughout the spring has roots that drop down into the river where fish gather and they they do their fish things now back in 1979 there was a very famous study of the chicago river that was done where they found that there was only 10 species of fish left in the river that's not an ecosystem not even close so since that moment we've been trying to clean up and revitalize this ecosystem nowadays we're up over 70 species of fish because we've reintroduced them to the wild to the river and they get together places like those fish hotel and now we have more of them you see we can even fish in the chicago river nowadays that's a brand new development and i've been told that by the year 2028 they think this river will be so clean you can swim in it oh yeah and i'm not gonna do it not me no no no but you can do it i do not swim i sink it is important to remember how far we've come in our city in a garden though i mean this river used to be so polluted they think it's part of the reason why the fire actually was as devastating as it was because you know that pollution would have sat on top of the water like an oil slick so many think that's the reason why the fire skipped over it but now you can swim in the not too far future come a long way over here on the right let's talk about this uh shining glass building with the channels cut into it that is 111 west whacker it's a style called sliced minimalism so it's minimal sleek and simple on the outside you can even see those windows open up from the bottom to make minimal difference on the design and it has those channels that cut into it uh as it looks very cool but it also creates things like patios on the side of the building you guys see patios going up the side see how that first patio is even matching the height of the patio the building next to it it's like it's giving a little fist bump i am now standing next to you as well i don't know maybe the buildings talk to each other now probably the most out of place building still on the tour today is coming up over here on the right hand side uh right in between these two tall beautiful skyscrapers we have this stout little angry building with the 55 at the top this is 55 west whacker it's a style called brutalism even though it has nothing to do with the word brutal and it does kind of look a little bit brutal it comes from a french phrase beton brute which means raw concrete so you see how there's raw exposed concrete on the outside of the building this is another form of modernism it shows up in the 60s remember how modernism is less is more they didn't want any decoration they want to show you the materials this is the same idea but instead of a black steel frame it's concrete brutalism rather than moderns and that's another style that pops up in the 60s it's a very common style especially for institutional buildings back in the 60s um i don't know if you guys have ever noticed but i find that a lot of college campuses just have tons of brutalist architecture large concrete buildings not really sure what that was up but it is a pretty cheap style of architecture as well all right off the distance on the right i want to point out that skinny green building with the very skinny gold top that is the carbide and carbon building was built in 1929 that's real gold up at the top by the way but is very very thin only one five thousandth of an inch thick now when it first debuted in 1929 there was a story going around everybody thought it looked like a champagne bomb now it was so popular the architects even had to come out and deny it but of course they would they built it right in the middle of prohibition alcohol was illegal here in america at that time and to be honest with you i think it would be way more fun if they didn't mean to do it you know when you can't have something you just think about all the time sometimes it just shows up places look maybe he just had champagne on the mind when he was making the building and nowadays it is a pretty good monument to the prohibition era here in chicago it's even green and gold which is very great gatsby it's a lovely art deco building over here on the right-hand side we've got the jewelers building it's this ornate building with those greek temperatures those domes up on the four corners the jewelers building was built in 1926 when they first constructed it they put a car elevator in the middle of it it went up 28 floors and they did that to try and prevent crime they were worried about your jewelry being stolen outside the building you know al capone and the mob were running around at the time things were a little bit wild so they thought why not just stay in your car ride the elevator up to the floor you want to go to to trade your jewelry not have it get stolen like your batman with your car elevator now i'm not really sure how successful it was it doesn't exist anymore uh but it does sound kind of fun i must admit i would love to try a giant car elevator all right we're coming up on the left hand side to the nbc tower you guys see that building with the nbc peacock way up at the top it has racing lines deep dark inset windows those pin stripes showing off its verticality and its movement which i described like art deco but it's actually not art deco i tricked you it's a style called echo deco which is way more fun to say you see echo deco is actually something that comes up in the 80s not the roaring 20s what it does it's actually hearkening back to art deco but it's not exactly the same i mean you guys can see that it's kind of like they found the art deco dial on a speaker and they were like how about we just turn that up to 100. it's super art deck instead of sending those pinstripes up the middle of the building like you might normally see see how they send them all the way up the side of the building so it's a little bit different it's echo deco instead of art deco and that building was designed by adrienne smith that famous star architect from chicago that also built the burj khalifa by the way this is one of his earlier projects finished in 1989 the lovely nbc tower all right guys are getting some cold wind coming off the lake right now that was a change i want to tell you guys the rest of our city flag at this point on the tour do you remember the first two stars from before fort dearborn fire of 1871 so we're moving forward in time the third star in the flag was the world's fair of 1893 the colombian exposition this was a very famous world's fair hosted here in chicago only 20 years after we had a fire that leveled the city they hosted here in jackson park on the south side they built a giant campus for the fair inviting 27 million people from around the world to come through those gates which is about a third of the population of america alone at the time now the campus for the fair actually ended up being very famous it was nicknamed the white city because it was these big white european buildings in this open beautiful campus the pictures of it are actually incredible it doesn't exist anymore in full but there is one building left from it if you'd like to go check it out i recommend it it's actually where the museum of science and industry exists nowadays so it's over there in jackson park so if you'd like to go see a very fun museum great for kids or big kids like me and you can see some architecture from our third star the 1893 world's fair check out the museum of science and industry now the fourth star actually follows the theme of the first three makes it very easy to remember the first three went fort fire fair fort fire fair fourth one follows that theme as well so it goes like this fort fire fair fair it's another fair world's fair of 1933 and called the century of progress it was a big old art deco fair right in the middle of the great depression it was actually the only world's fair that was entirely privately funded because of that fact the world's first robot debuted at that fair in 1933 and it was smoking a cigarette i don't know it's a 1930s robot so that's your four stars on the flag you guys fork fire fair fare the stripes are very easy here's how they go the two blue stripes are our waterways top one is the chicago river bottom one is lake michigan and then the three white stripes it's also the south branch the top one is the north branch and the bottom one is the south branch and lake michigan am i getting called out on the tour what we're calling michigan lake michigan what about it i don't know what i'm being questioned on right now i'm going to talk to you about it later i think the second blue stripe is lake michigan but i might be wrong i've been telling that for years it's not i'm not wrong i would love i love it when i'm not wrong all right so those two blue stripes are our waterways and then the three white stripes on the flag are actually just the sides of the city from the top down it goes north side west side south side the east side is a lake where we do not live that's the city flag you guys fort fire fairfare our waterways and our sides of our city so i do hope that you uh walk around the city and maybe just annoy a few people with your knowledge of it now that you know it all right i'm gonna tell you one last story about the river before we come back out here into the docks it's a very important one now we've talked a lot about this pollution in the river it was a serious epidemic they actually called chicago the cholera capital of the world back in the 1800s which is not the nickname you want you see the pollution in the river during heavy rainfall would often drift hundreds of feet out into lake and we get our drinking water from lake michigan that's a big deal people were getting very sick because of the pollution chicago had to solve this problem here's what they ended up doing in 1889 they brought the us army corps of engineers in here they spent 11 years building a 28-mile canal this canal connects to the south branch of the river and what it did when it was completed in 1900 was it took this river and reversed it this was the solution to the pollution they thought instead of letting it get into our drinking water why don't we just send it down the mississippi now i'm not really sure how efficient that was but it was effective at least for a time and it is an amazing man-made canal to be able to reverse the flow of a river is amazing i mean this is the only river that flows away from its mouth it used to go into the lake now it doesn't even connect it to it directly you have to go down there through a river or through a lock at the end of the river to get to the lake nowadays but it's also a reminder of the damage done to the ecosystem because i'll be honest with you guys i think about all the time wouldn't it just be easier to just stop polluting i mean instead they spent 11 years building a 28 mile canal reversing the flow of a natural river to send the pollution just the opposite direction down the mississippi so while it is an amazing man make now it is a reminder of the damage done and i know that's with contemporary mindset that's something i was thinking about over here on the right we've got this large black steel frame building that we started next to the solitary building with the curve to it that is lake point tower finished in 1968 it's right where we started so i thought i'd end with where we started lake point tower is actually the only private residential building east of lake shore drive like that so you get gorgeous views no matter where you are lots of celebrities used to live there over the years because you know it's a nice beautiful building that's separate from the rest of the city it's a very popular multi-use building and nowadays i'm often just told it looks like a large fidget spinner so those are the architectural facts i'm sure you guys came for all right guys um we're gonna come out here and we're gonna chill for a little bit flip this boat around and give you guys just a moment to stand up and walk around the boat and take some pictures if you'd like just please be efficient with your time i'm never really sure how much time we have until we come back into the docks so stand up take some pictures and then find your seats i'll be back in the mic in just a minute or two and i'll be letting you guys know that we're coming back into the docs okay guys so use this time efficiently take some pictures and i'll be back in the mic in just a minute to finish up the story of the city thank you joe drop it down is all right everybody we're coming back into the docks i need you all to please find your seats at this moment and i need you to stay seated until we are totally docked up it's for your safety you guys as we come back to the docks i don't want you to bump the dock and you fall over anything so please stay seated guys make sure you look around you make sure you got all the bags that you brought with you any trash that you see please pick it up help out our lovely deckhands and find a trash can for it and uh make sure that you take your children off the boat as well unless they have an interest in sailing then i guess you could leave them i don't know i'm gonna be off the edge of the dock as you guys are all leaving if you haven't have any questions about the city or about architecture i will be hanging out for as long as you want to talk to me okay guys great i'll be here for you now i need you guys to sit down over there please i need you guys to sit down please guys all right now at the beginning of the tour i mentioned how we were going to learn what i call the language of architecture everything a building uses essentially to communicate with you this could be any number of things we've learned a bit of them i mean we've learned styles architects we've learned eras we've learned even colors that show part of the story now that you have a bit of the language of architecture i want to challenge you guys to try and use it my first challenge to you is that while you're in chicago find at least one building that you do not know see if you can look up and listen to the architecture and find a story within that build even if you can just name the style that's more than most people and my second challenge to you is to take this new language of architecture back to your own cities if you're not from chicago and i hope that you find what story your city might be telling every city has a story to tell and it's in these buildings all around you so i hope that you find those stories and most importantly i hope that you tell them as well thank you all so much for coming out today i really appreciate you guys have been great i hope you enjoy my favorite city in the world sweet home chicago thank you all so much have a great day what i know foreign [Music] sorry thank you [Music] thank you thank you guys thank you very much have a good one thank you good video yeah thank you see you guys later yes

Channel: XtraMileS

Views: 11,658

Rating: 4.9735098 out of 5

Keywords: Chicago, Chicago River, Chicago from the river, Chicago boat tour, Chicago architecture, Architecture Tour, Architecture Cruise, Chicago Architecture Boat Tour, Chicago The Architecture Cruise, Chicago Illinois, Architecture Stories, Chicago History, Chicago Architecture History, Chicago Skyline, Lake Point Tower, Merchandise Mart, art deco, modernism, postmodernism, contextualism, brutalism, internatonal style, marina city, willis tower, wolf point, trump hotel, chicago flag

Id: gGpa-R2OhyE

Length: 80min 23sec (4823 seconds)

Published: Sun May 16 2021