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this is a fab 21st century modern building built by calatrava!
I can't wait.

Love this design and I really hope it gets built. I'm glad that the newest revision is a bit more similar to the original plan, even though the spire is gone. I hope that it stays more or less this way and isn't shortened.

It'd be an amazing addition to the skyline. I was standing at Michigan and Wacker just the other day imagining how incredible it'd look just to the east of that intersection on the river.

I think the location is horrible. The building is nice to look at but it won't fit into our skyline and buildings.

I usually love everything that he has designed though.

it doesn't "fit" into our skyline because there is nothing like this. But as time marches on, our skyline will continue to add new styles and break out of the rectangle skyscrapper

I like Calatrava' work, but this one, well, it's, uh...vaguely...
French ticklerish.

Side note: Isn't anyone tired of the Manahattanization of Chicago?

Correction: Manhattanization

Kurt--I was about to say the same. It's innovative, absolutely...but only able to be effectively implemented if you want a giant phallus in your skyline.

most buildings and monuments are phallic symbols. It is really nothing new.

I love Calatrava's Milwaukee Museum of Art, along with more than one of his bridges in Europe (especailly the Alamillo Bridge in Seville). However, I HATE the now neuterd spire-less Chicago Spire.

I love one block west of the proposed grossly over-scaled edifice to Calatrava's already (self)inflated ego. SO, I can speak to how this building poses many problems to an already poorly conceived, designed, and over-developed Streeterville neighborhood. FOr exmaple, it will literally and figuratively over-shadow and dominate its immediate surroundings. Imagine blopping down a building TALLER than the Sears Tower one block from your home (and add 2600 cars---2 for each unit).

Whether you agree or not, Streeterville is a neighborhood. Sadly, this nieghborhood is rapidly becoming canyonized or Manhattanized with some very ugly cheap-looking and cheaply executed buildings (I refrain from saying architecture, becuase they are not; they are just ugly buildings). Sadder still, these ugly buildings---and the neutered spire-less Chciago "Spire" is among them---will have an adverse effect on our skyline for generations.

I am NOT against high-rises or skyscrapers, increased development or modern architecture (in Streeterville or anywhere else), but I am against BAD ARCHITECTURE and BAD DESIGN. Calatrava's neuterd spire-less Chicago "Spire" is both; and it is the wrong building for this specific small (2.2 acre) plot of land.

Luv
It
Build It

I'll bypass the phallic notes and go for unicorn! I also agree that it just does not fit the surroundings. It's an interesting idea, but not for right there.

It's not so much that the building won't fit its surroundings; there's nothing wrong with striking out in a new direction. However, this has got to be Calatrava's weakest design to date. It's completely rote. The sad thing about contemporary architecture in Chicago is that we don't give much support to true innovators. Instead we jump on bandwagons and end up with watered down versions of stuff that already exists elsewhere. Case in point: Gehry's extremely tired Pritzker Pavilion. Hopefully someday we'll stop playing it so safe.

The design was comprimised to make money. It's no longer a Calatrava scupture like the first 2 designs for this building.