Marina City
The "corncob" towers — a whole city in the sky.
Key facts
- Completed 1964
- Architect: Bertrand Goldberg
- Two 65-story round "corncob" towers
- Bottom 19 floors are spiral parking
- Once the tallest residential towers in the world
Narration transcript
Now look to your right for two of the most instantly recognizable buildings in Chicago, the twin round towers of Marina City, which everyone lovingly calls the corncobs. Completed in 1964 and designed by architect Bertrand Goldberg, these sixty-five-story towers were something totally new: perfectly round apartment buildings with scalloped, petal-shaped balconies giving each one the bumpy look of an ear of corn. When they were finished, they were the tallest residential buildings and the tallest concrete buildings in the whole world. Goldberg had a big idea he called a city within a city. The bottom nineteen floors of each tower are a spiral parking garage, open at the edges, so residents can drive their cars up a ramp and park right in the sky. Above that are the wedge-shaped apartments, where there is no such thing as a boring square room. Kids love this next part: because those parking floors are open, cars have famously been sent right off the edge in movie stunts. Down at the base, the towers meet the river with their own marina, which is how they got the name Marina City.