The 30 North LaSalle is an International Style skyscraper designed by Thomas E. Stanley, and built in 1975 in Chicago, IL.
Its precise street address is 30 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL. You can also find it on the map here.
The building is located in the heart of the Chicagoo Loop, and ocupies the lot where the Chicago Stock Exchange Building use to be between 1894 and 1972. It then comes as no surprise that some of the neighboring buildings are the County and City of Chicago offices.
Thomas E. Stanley was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.
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 30 North LaSalle a reality:
The 30 North LaSalle can be categorized as an International Style building.
The international style originated in Europe in the early 20th century, and made its way to the US a couple of decades later when the rise of the Nazi regime forced figures such as Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, or Mies van der Rohe to flee Europe.
The International Style emerged as a response to the prevailing historicism and ornate architecture styles of the late 19th century, which according to a younger generation of architects didn't represent the new materials and construction techniques that were on the rise at the time.
Architecture in the early 20th century US was marked by the adoption of steel structures, modern construction techniques, and the rise of the skyscraper. As it turns out, this combination of circumstances created the perfect ecosystem for the International Style to flourish, becoming the to-go style for skyscraper designs during the mid-20th century, when American cities were growing fast.
The International Style’s legacy can not only be found in numerous iconic buildings across all major American cities, but also incorporated in contemporary architecture, which still puts a big emphasis on functionality and minimalism.
The 30 North LaSalle reaches an architectural height of 554ft (169m). It has a total of 44 floors, which combined offer a total of 987,825 sqf (91,772m2) of usable space.
Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1975, the 30 North LaSalle has mainly been used as Commercial space.
The 30 North LaSalle uses a frame structure made of steel columns and 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.
From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a 2-floor base clad in dark "emerald Pearl" granite, with glass and extruded aluminum from there on to the top.
Each side of the facade is vertically organized in 10 "columns" of windows, which run from the second floor to the top, and are only interrupted by two intermediate service floors, where the glass is replaced by dark metallic racks that allow the machinery inside to take in cool air and release heat.
