190 South LaSalle Street

The 190 South LaSalle Street is a Postmodernist skyscraper designed by Johnson/Burgee Architects, with Philip Johnson as lead architect, in association with Shaw Associates, and built between 1985 and 1987 in Chicago, IL.

190 South LaSalle Street is not the only name you might know this building by though. The building is, or has also been known as U.S. Bank Building.

Its precise street address is 190 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL. You can also find it on the map here.

In 1987 the 190 South LaSalle Street was awarded with the Chicago Building Congress – Building of the Year.

The various gabled roofs were inspired by the rooflines of the Burnham & Root Masonic Temple, built in 1892, which was originally located just a few blocks from 190 South LaSalle.

The building is located within the LaSalle Street Historic District..

The building underwent a major restoration in 2022. The architect commissioned to undertake this restoration was Norman Kelley.

Johnson/Burgee Architects, with Philip Johnson as the lead architect, was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design, in association with Shaw Associates.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the 190 South LaSalle Street a reality:

• Cohen-Barreto-Marchertas in charge of Structural Engineering
• Turner Construction Company as the Main Contractor
• Midwest Curtainwalls in charge of Facade Consultancy
• The John Buck Company as the Main Developer
• Anthony Caro, and Helena Hemmarck as the collaborating Artist

The 190 South LaSalle Street can be categorized as a Postmodernist building.

The 190 South LaSalle Street was completed in 1987. At that time Postmodernism was the prevailing style. Fresh, bold and daring, architects were exploring the freedom of designing without having to follow the strict, sometimes arbitrary rules of a specific architectural movement (which ironically became a movement itself). The 190 South LaSalle Street was therefore every much in line with what the architecture community, and the people liked and wanted at the time.

The 190 South LaSalle Street uses a frame structure made of steel columns and steel, concrete slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade uses a non-load bearing modular, or panelized system. This type of facade can function as either a window wall or a curtain wall, depending on the design. Unlike traditional glass curtain walls or window walls though, the modular facade is not primarily composed of glass. Instead, it often features more opaque panels that mimic masonry or stone-clad finishes, with smaller windows cut into the panels.

This type of facade allows the building to benefit from the modern qualities of a curtain wall while giving the design team flexibility to achieve visual aesthetics beyond the all-glass modern skyscraper.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features light-colored limestone cladding. Strong vertical lines, defined by narrow bands of grouped windows arranged in rows, alternate with massive piers, giving the facade strong rythm and guiding the eye upowords.

At street level, the tall base of the corner building is clad in reddish-brown limestone over a granite plinth of the same color, and on each street-facing side, tall central arches, flanked by slightly shorter ones on either side, mark the building's entrances, while a frieze of triplet windows crowns the brown-toned base.