Perkins+Will Dumps Mies; Heads to Wrigley

Perkins+Will, Chicago's largest architecture firm, with over $400 million in revenue, announced this morning that they're switching from one architectural icon to another.  Early next year, they'll be vacating their long-time home at Mies van der Rohe's IBM Building, now known as AMA Plaza, for new offices in the recently refurbished Wrigley Building, the classically-styled  that's been a floodlit icon at  the foot of North Michigan Avenue and the River since its opening in the 1920's.  Perkins+Will, established in 1935  has been at the IBM since 1992, when it announced it was moving its 330 employees into nearly 50,000 square feet of space.  The firm currently occupies the 35th and 36th floor at IBM/330, the last skyscraper designed by Mies before his death in 1969.

In making the move, the firm will be trading in Miesian minimalism for the ornately ornamented, glazed terra-cotta grandeur of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White's design, the first tower built north of the Chicago River.  The annex opened in 1924.  The original 425-foot-high south tower, completed in 1921, is dominated by the 20-foot-high clock at its apex.

After being acquired by Mars Candy, Wrigley sold their landmark building and in 2012 moved its last employees to the company's research facility on Goose Island.  The complex has undergone a major rehabilitation, including a rehab of the plaza between the two buildings that has seen the opening of a two-level story Walgreen's, Peet's Coffee, and, most recently, a two-story Ghiradelli Chocolate store opening along the plaza.

Perkins+Will will occupy over 60,000 square feet in the "top floors" of the north tower annex, configured into open-space offices, with employees also having access to a new rooftop terrace.  The firm moved up from fifth position on Architectural Record's just-published list of top U.S. architects, with its revenue approximately 2/3 domestic and 1/3 international.

Full text of this morning's press release after the break.

The Wrigley Building Chronicles 

Update: Side Lot Windfall lastest twist in the epic Wrigley Building Chronicles

Four Buildings and a Funeral - Wrigley: The Architecture that Remains after a Great Company Dies.

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Wrigley Building Plaza:  Where Perfect People meet the Rest of Us

 The $2 Million bargain: The Grandeur of the Wrigley Building Plaza restored

The Realtors Dream - Does the Plaza of the Americas Have a Future?

An Affectionate Last Look at a Building Not Worth Saving: Wreckers descend on the Downtown Court Club

Mie's New Friends: Ju Ming sculpture lands at IBM Plaza

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No wonder those businessmen look a bit tired.  It's taken the better part of two years for them to get to their destination.

It was in July of 2013 that the Langham Hotel Chicago, owners of the sculpture, opened in Mies van der Rohe's last skyscraper, the iconic IBM Building (now officially renamed AMA Plaza.)  And it's been 15 months since the Commission on Chicago Landmarks reversed its initial decision to ban the metallic travelers for being too close to the building.  The move followed an agreement to move the sculpture from its original position beneath the Landham's gilded canopy on Wabash to a spot on the adjacent riverfront plaza.

The pedestal for the work by Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming was installed last December, but stood empty as late as last Saturday, when it was used as a stepping stone for photographers snapping shots of the annual St. Patrick's Day dyeing of the Chicago River green.

Then, sometime this past week, without fanfare, the travelers took up their station.  As with other of the sculptor's works, visitors are already enjoying sharing space with the frozen figures.

Ju Ming, born in 1938 and trained as a woodcarver, has gone on to an international career creating works in a wide variety of materials.  In 1999, he spent most of his life savings to create the Juming Museum near Taipei to showcase both his own work and that of other contemporary masters.  It is Taiwan's largest sculpture garden.  His subjects range from generic everymen, women and children, to paratroopers and even Albert Einstein.

If the businessmen had been placed under the hotel's canopy, they would have looked like they were waiting for their rides, cousins to J. Seward Johnson's Allow Me hailing a cab outside the Four Seasons on East Delaware.  Standing isolated on the plaza, however, they begin to look a bit dazed and confused, 1960's Man-Men-era executives teleported in an instant from an unknown place to a place unknown.

Read More about Mies van Der Rohe's IBM Building and the Langham Hotel Chicago:

•  The Langham Chicago official website

• IBM Building Landmarks Designation Report
  
  
• Part One -  Apotheosis of the Skyscraper:  The Rise of Mies van der Rohe's IBM Building.
• Part Two -  How Do You Get to AMA Plaza? High-tech, decline and revival at Mies van der Rohe's IBM Building. 



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• Part Three - Mies Goes Soft: At the IBM Building, The Langam Chicago Pushes Against the Envelope.
• Five Things I Learned from Dirk Lohan about Mies van der Rohe's IBM Building

• The Ninotchka of River North: George Schipporeit's IBM Self-Park

Battle of the Bling Rages between Two Iconic Chicago Towers

The contenders: Trump Tower, left; IBM Building (AMA Plaza), right

“Less is more” is taking a bit of a beating right now on a two-block stretch along the Chicago river.

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The minimalist plaza that Mies van der Rohe designed for his soaring IBM Building (now AMA Plaza) is slowing filling up with stuff.   The Langham Chicago, the 316-room hotel that opened last year on the lower 14 floors of Mies's dark 52-story tower, has now populated the plaza with the fabulous furniture of Elle, a 70-seat outdoor café.

Not far behind will be the 11 bronze sculptures by Taiwanese artist Ju Ming of businessmen in fedoras, holding umbrellas, to be installed on the plaza, closer to the river, later this year.

Ever since its opening in 2009, Donald Trump has been satisfied letting the sleek telescoping curtain-wall of his 98-story, Adrian-Smith/SOM-designed tower pretty much speak for itself.  Then the Langham got approval to add a “He went to Jared!"-styled canopy to tart up Mies elegant design in a blaze of light bulbs and shiny metal.

Obviously, the Donald could not let this vulgarity go unanswered.  So, in February, it was announced that 20-foot-high stainless steel letters would be mounted on his tower's riverfront facade, lighting up the night with that most magic of all words:  T R U M P

Tuesday afternoon, all the pieces were falling into place.  Supports for the signage were hanging from the facade . . . 

. . . and the letters themselves huddled in alphabet-soup clumps along the Trump Riverwalk.

When the deed is done, we'll post pictures.  Rumors that the Langham will respond with an animated neon Mies on the AMA's east facade, blowing phosphorescent smoke rings out over Wabash, are yet to be confirmed.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “A vast, incredible hank of hair
slouches at the base of a ruined tower.
Nearby, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read.
Right until the moment of the dreaded You're fired!
Stamped on the Jerusalem stone, a wind-worn inscription.
My name is Donald Trump, King of the Developers:
Look upon my many truly amazing properties
(And they're tremendous.
  Really tremendous),
and despair!
Nothing beside remains.
Save for storefronts still empty, and
gigantic, scattered letters,
half-buried in the sand,
spelling out where they fell,

       TorT ew rump

Read More:

Mies Goes Soft: At the IBM Building, The Langham Chicago Pushes Against the Envelope.

It's official: AMA abandons Kenzo Tange - now Married to Mies

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As reported by Marina City Online,  Mayor Rahm Emanuel today officially welcomed the 1,100 employees of the America Medical Association, who have ditched the 1990 State Street skyscraper . . .

AMA Building, Kenzo Tange, architect

. . .  Kenzo Tange had designed for them in favor of new digs at Mies van der Rohe's  1973 IBM Building, on Wabash just a couple blocks to the south.  After the departure of its anchor tenant, the IBM had been known by its address, 330 North Wabash.  It's new name?  AMA Plaza.  What used to be the AMA Building will now be known, at least until a new anchor tenant is found, as “空虚の寺塔” or “Temple Tower of Emptiness.”

How did the IBM get to the AMA, hotel attached?  It's an epic story, which we've told in three parts . . .

How Do You Get to AMA Plaza? High-tech, decline, and revival at Mies van der Rohe's IBM Building.

Apotheosis of the Skyscraper - How Mies's Spartan IBM Gained New Life by Going Soft

Mies Goes Soft: At the IBM Building, The Langham Chicago Pushes Against the Envelope