amoco.pdf

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Build this
Banal Box
The fifteenth-tallest building
in the WORLD
and a superb monument to
Corporate Hubris
Completed model
Built in 1973, in a relatively undeveloped area east
of Michigan Avenue, this unadorned 82-story box soars
to 1136 feet above the street. That’s nine feet taller than the John
Hancock Center, making the Standard Oil Building one of the five
tallest in the world when it was built. Locals nick-named it “Big Stan,” a
partner to “Big John,” the John Hancock Center, the two lone giants on
the city skyline at that time.
But the folksy nickname failed to stick to the building’s anonymous
façade, and the Standard Oil Building, like the eponymous corporate
machine inside it, faded into a pragmatic secrecy about its presence in
the city landscape. While the John Hancock has welcomed attention
with a friendly, accesible, and recognizable cariacature for the city
skyline, the blank box of the Amoco Building has no public spaces, no
public observation deck, no recognizable features or antennae. Few
visitors, or even residents of Chicago, realize that it is in fact the second-
tallest building in the city, at present the fifteenth-tallest in the world.
If the building achieves any sort of notoriety, it is for its unusual
construction materials. When it was built, it was originally clad in fine
Carrara marble, a thousand feet of gleaming pure translucence, the
highest construction in marble ever attempted. Over local outcry, the
same quarries where Michelangelo acquired the stone for his sculptures
were completely depleted in the quest for enough marble to clothe the
soaring walls of the building.
Perhaps as if cursed, in a few years time the thin marble sheets began to
buckle and crack, unable to withstand the extremes of Chicago weather.
Rather than risk an accident, the entire building was stripped of its
stonework and reclad in a light-colored North Carolina granite.
Due to the machinations of corporate restructurings and mergers, the
building has changed its name yet again. The sign on Randolph street
now labels it “Aon Center,” in honor of the new major tenant. No one
seems to have noticed the change, as many locals still walk up to the
door asking “This the Standard Oil Building?”
Scale = 1:4000
This miniature model designed
and prepared in a cubicle in the
northwest corner of the 38th
floor of the Amoco Building.
AR-CHI-6i
Published by
Wurlington Brothers Press
1316 W. Montrose
Chicago, Illinois 60613
www.wurlington-bros.com /~wbros
©
2000 Matt Bergstrom

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