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Aqua Tower – the tower that Jeanne Gang built
With its rippling facade and vast green roof, Chicago's Aqua Tower is a revelation. It's also the tallest building in the world to be designed by a woman. Guardian
I love this building, but this is the absolute best angle. From a distance, even from Millennium park the effect is a little flat. The floor shapes don't emerge quite as well from vantage points further away than 4-5 blocks away. It would be nice if they could figure out how to pull off this effect from a distance.
However, with that said, I think the Studio Gang is one of the best and most interesting architecture firms in the country. They are definitely top on my list in Chicago. Having attended one of Ms. Gang's lectures, I will also add that she is not caught up in the whole star-chitect thing. Seems like a very nice person with a real talent for design. Great firm.
Check out Gang's Calumet Environmental Center now under construction. There is even a small blurb on about it on page 40 of the October Interior Design magazine.
"...at 819ft, the Aqua Tower would be the world's biggest skyscraper designed by a woman (or, to be more precise, the tallest building in the world designed by a female-run architectural practice)."
good thing that J. Glancey revises his comment, as the Aqua Tower is not the tallest tower designed "by a woman".
that would, at least, go to Hazel Wong and her designs for the Emirates Towers (hotel and office building) which are much taller.
Emirates Office Tower (355 metres or 1,163 ft) and Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel (309 metres or 1,014 ft).
But perhaps Marilyn Taylor of SOM has been chief designer for some other tall towers.
Not trying to take anything away from Jeanne Gang; just trying to keep the facts straight.
despite its "green" features, this building is basically designed like a giant heat sink, in Chicago, a cold city with lots of wind....that makes no sense.
There is a lot of Gang's work that I appreciate, the Ford nature center, the theater in her home town but the Aqua Tower seems problematic formally, conceptually and ecologically. I suspect the project is as much a learning experience as it was high profile.
The architecture is awkward because it was not well considered. It seems quite kitsch attempting to sheath a geometric shape with rows of mushroom shelves. If there was more acknowledgment of the underlying grid, there would be more tension and less wasted energy.( thanx xcarlx)
This building seems out of place for Chicago, which considering the history of Chicago, makes it sadly fit right in. The Marina Towers now has a companion building that seems through some strange transporter mishap on the USS Enterprise has been beamed from a tropical locale.
This building, I suppose is just right for the surreal, quirky nature of Chicago. I suppose at some point the phallic skyscraper was going to get veined.
