Luca Celada: CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE CRUISE

Chicago is generally credited with being the birthplace of the skyscraper and perhaps more even than the isle of Manhattan, it stands today as urban testament to the architectural form that most embodies the monumental ideal. The great American metropolis purified by fire
at the dawn of modernity and reborn phoenix-like at the altar of commerce and profit was the natural setting for a vertical urban explosion rooted in technological prowess, design and hubris.

The citys river, which was itself reverse engineered to flow
backwards, away from Lake Michigan, cuts through the downtown loop as through the bottom of an urban canyon, whose sheer walls reveal the sediment of 150 years of architectural modernism. There are several architectural river cruises on the Chicago River, including the ones run by the Chicago Architecture Foundation, where works by
Daniel Burnham, Skidmore Owings and Merrill, Helmut Jahn and Mies Van Der Rohe can be seen from tour boats.

Today in the age of commissioned archistar theme parks (think Dubai), Chicago remains as testament to the organic melding of power and architecture, money and design in the American Century.

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