Millennium Centre

Millennium Centre
  1. About the Millennium Centre in Chicago
  2. Architect and team
  3. Architectural style
  4. Spaces and uses
  5. Structure and materials

The Millennium Centre is a Contemporary skyscraper designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, and built between 2001 and 2003 in Chicago, IL.

Its precise street address is 33 West Ontario Street, Chicago, IL. You can also find it on the map here.

When details were released about the proposed structure for the Millenium Center in September of 2000, it took only 2 days to sell 95% of the 341 proposed residential units. This was even before the city of Chicago had granted approval for the building's construction .

Building's timeline

Construction begins
2001
23
Construction completed
2003
21
years ago
2024

Architect and team

Solomon Cordwell Buenz 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 at the very least we know that there was one other part involved, that was American Invsco contractor as the Main Developer.

Architectural Style

The Millennium Centre can be categorized as a Contemporary building.

Contemporary style architecture builds on top of the principles of Modernism and Postmodernism, but incorporates other variables which might not have been that important in the past, but certainly are today, such as technology, sustainability, inclusivity, and others.

From a historical point of view, it is hard to categorize things from a not-so-distant time, and therefore we choose to categorize most buildings built after the year 2000 as "Contemporary". It is possible that as time goes by and we, as a society, gain perspective on the things happening today, we'll be able to look back and recategorize all these buildings into more concrete subsections, some of which might not even exist today.

That being said, and even thought being a contemporary building, probably taking advantage of modern materials, construction techniques, and technology, the design of the Millennium Centre is inspired by the postmodernism style.

Spaces & Uses

The Millennium Centre reaches an architectural height of 610ft (185.9m), with the last accesible floor being 595ft (181.4m) off the gorund. It has a total of 58 floors.

In regards to parking space, the building has a total of 680 spots available, which roughly equals 12 spots per floor (above ground).

Ever since opening its doors to the public in 2003, the Millennium Centre has mainly been used as Residential space.

About the residences

The Millennium Centre has a total of 341 residential units throughout its 58 floors.

610ft (185.9m)
595ft (181.4m)

Materials & Structure

The Millennium Centre uses a frame structure made of reinforced concrete columns and beams.

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 rich combination of details that protrude or are embedded in the facade's plane, some more than other, but all contributing to highlighting the vertically of the building in a way that could to some degree remind of art-deco.

The modular facade offers a sober image thanks to the balanced combination of concrete and glass.

Sources

  • www.dreamtown.com
  • www.highrises.com
  • en.wikipedia.org
  • alchetron.com
  • structurae.net
  • aviewoncities.com