The Onterie Center is a Modern Style skyscraper designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with Fazlur Rahman Khan as lead architect, and built between 1984 and 1986 in Chicago, IL.
Its precise street address is 441 East Erie St , Chicago, IL. You can also find it on the map here.
The building consists of two volumes: a main tower with 60 floors and an auxiliary tower with 11 floors.
The building underwent a major restoration in 2023.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with Fazlur Rahman Khan as the lead architect, was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.
Commonly known as SOM, the firm was founded in Chicago in 1936 and has grown to be one of the largest architecture firms in the world.
Even long after its founders passed away, SOM has remained at the top of worldwide architectural excellence by attracting visionary architects. Amongst their most notorious partners we find names such as Gordon Bunshaft, Bruce Graham, Walter Netsch, Adrian Smith, Myron Goldsmith or David Childs.
SOM has also managed to grow and evolve to tackle the architectural challenges of each time, whatever those might be, and today is committed to aspects as important as efficiency and sustainability, as core values of their designs.
With a legacy spanning decades, SOM continues to shape the skylines of cities around the world, and is a usual contestant in any competition or selection process to design large-scale or iconic buildings and structures.
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 Onterie Center a reality:
The Onterie Center can be categorized as a Modern Style building.
The modern style, also referred to as Modernism in the U.S. (distinct from the European Modernist movement), is characterized by minimal ornamentation, clean lines, and the use of materials such as glass, steel, and concrete. This style prioritizes functionality and the honest expression of materials and structure.
Modern architecture in the U.S. follows many principles of the International Style but with slightly less rigid rules than those of the purist European International Stylists like Le Corbusier, or even those who imported the style to the U.S. like Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius.
Modern skyscrapers often feature expansive glass curtain walls, open floor plans, and focus on volume over mass. This blend of innovation and simplicity defined the modern skyscraper, creating the sleek, functional urban landscapes prominent in mid-20th-century U.S. architecture.
By their own nature, the Modern and International Styles can still look current, even in contemporary buildings. So that's not to say the Onterie Center appeared old or outdated when it was completed, but Skidmore, Owings & Merrill certainly did not take many risks when it came to choosing the design style. This made the building look more "classic" and integrated within the city's architecture.
The Onterie Center reaches an architectural height of 571ft (174m). It has a total of 60 floors, which combined offer a total of 914,932 sqf (85,000m2) of usable space.
In regards to parking space, the building has a total of 363 spots available, which roughly equals 6 spots per floor (above ground), or one parking spot per every 2,519 sqf (234m2) of usable space.
Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1986, the Onterie Center has been a mixed use building. It incorporates 4 main uses, which are residential, commercial, retail, and hotel spaces.
The ground floor of the building hosts 1,860 m² of commercial space.
Above the commercial floor, the lower tower is occupied by offices, while the taller is hosts a long-stay hotel on floors 2nd to 11th and residential units above that
The Onterie Center has a total of 594 residential units throughout its 60 floors. If you are interested in learning more about the residences and their availability, you can check the Onterie Center 's website.
The Onterie Center is the world's first concrete skyscraper to use diagonal shear walls on the perimeter of the building. This type of design uses fewer columns and allows for a differentiated distribution of units.
From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features exposed concrete (which is structural) with floor-to-ceiling windows cut out of it, creating a homogeneous square grid. Some of the spaces where a window should go are filled by concrete panels, creating the distinctive X shapes on the facade. This structural pattern, which functions as a bracing system, not only provides a unique aesthetic but also enhances the building's resistance to wind and earthquake loads.
