What is it about grain elevators? I can’t pass by one without taking a picture or wanting to take a picture. They’re always surrounded by the most wonderful conglomeration of random industrial stuff and railroad cars. Maybe it was all those drives across the country when I was a kid…Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota…Saskatchewan. And that nice one in Alton, Illinois near where I went to college. Grain elevators. The skyscrapers of the plains.
While I’m giving accolades to the Admin building, here’s another view, framed by its neighbor across the Plaza, the Colonnade building. On a cold gray winter day the Colonnade looks like part of a battle-damaged science fiction movie spaceport. That’s a compliment, by the way.
Few people I have talked to in passing love it. Most would say it is stark or brutal (true to the style) or comment on the “unsightly” weathering of the concrete. But I happen to love it, in spite of those qualities. Perhaps, in part, because of those qualities. I like to look down the length of the reflecting pool and then visually run into its solid, soaring, uncompromising solid form. It was built in the early 70s and one might make the case that it symbolizes the aspirations of the organization at the time, just as the cathedrals did for their builders centuries before.
I worked on the 21st floor, the 20th floor, the 19th floor, and the 15th floor. Some were redecorated, but a few still had the jarring greens, oranges, and blues of the vintage 70s decor. And, just before it was shut down to re-emerge as 177 Huntington, I got some great old office supplies including rubber stamps, typewriters, and old file folders (a friend of mine got a dictaphone). Every day I looked forward to walking out of the elevator to the expansive, floor-to-ceiling, thick glass window view of the city.
It’s easy to walk by and shrug it off as just another ugly nondescript concrete sub-skyscraper. But take a closer look for a minute. The wide side’s window grid bracketed by an inverted “L.” The unbroken line of the top row of windows. The sharp point of the double corner and the octagonal narrow end that harmonizes with the domed Church across the plaza. Some nice design wok there. Though there are many buildings of this general configuration from its era, none look quite like this. Maybe it’s just me, but I think this would stand out and be recognizable anywhere, unlike it’s similar neighbors, one a mile to the north and one a mile to the south.
*to borrow a line from Tom Waits.