Nov. 21--At first glance, the subjects of this week's two big architecture stories in Chicago are a Gulliver-and-Lilliputian pair.
Our Gulliver is the $1 billion Wanda Vista Tower, whose three glass-sheathed tiers would rise in the 300 block of East Wacker Drive. Designed by Chicago's Jeanne Gang and greenlighted Thursday by the Chicago Plan Commission, the hotel and condominium skyscraper is expected to rise to a height of 1,186 feet, making it Chicago's third tallest building.
Our Lilliputian is the planned Apple store at 401 N. Michigan Ave., which, at 32 feet tall, is a mere speck compared with Wanda Vista. Shaped by London's Foster + Partners and approved Monday by Chicago's planning department, it would consist of an entry pavilion on the Pioneer Court plaza that would lead to a below-grade selling floor on the Chicago River's north bank. Apple won't reveal the cost.
What do these disparately sized projects share? Their location along the river, of course.
With the vibrant, still-growing extension of the downtown riverwalk and the construction of new office and residential towers at the meeting of the river's North and South branches, land along the once-industrial waterway is fast becoming Chicago's new Gold Coast -- home to hyperexpensive real estate, an architectural showcase as well as a prime public space.
The big question is whether Wanda Vista and Apple will enhance or disrupt this ever-fragile balance.
Wanda Vista has sparked fears of waterfront gigantism. It will join with the gargantuan Trump International Hotel Tower and whatever gets built on the Chicago Spire site to drown the riverfront in overwhelming bulk and looming shadows, this line of thinking goes. "Scary," one commenter wrote when I posted a rendering of the tower on my Facebook page.
The Apple store has stoked its own controversy. Preservation Chicago, an advocacy group, is urging city planners to shrink Apple's footprint to maintain Pioneer Court's open space. The group also wants developers to provide unlimited public access to the store's stairs and elevator, so people can move through the store to the riverwalk.
A closer look reveals whether these concerns hold water.
The Wanda Vista Tower will stack truncated pyramids, turned upward and downward, to form interconnected high-rises that ascend in steps as the building moves from east to west. There is some of the exuberance here of 1920s setback skyscrapers and some of the modernist muscle of the 1970s Willis Tower. Yet there is also a distinctively digital-age elan.
To minimize solar heat gain, the truncated pyramids, known as frustums, will vary in shade (darker for small floors that get hotter, lighter for larger ones) That should create a shimmering, ever-shifting quality that enhances the skyscraper's gemlike geometry. The outcome could surpass Gang's curvaceous Aqua Tower, which is mesmerizing from up close but less compelling at a distance.
The best skyscrapers are good neighbors as well as eye-catching objects. Here, too, there is much to like about Wanda Vista. It will hold the wall of high-rises along East Wacker even as it soars above them. Like the tallest towers of the Michigan Avenue "streetwall" across from Grant Park, it will be both cliff and peak.
Prospects are equally encouraging at street level, where planned enhancements include an eastward extension of East Wacker Drive with a pocket park that overlooks Navy Pier. The maze of multilevel streets around the tower promises to become more pedestrian-friendly with the addition of an illuminated passageway beneath the skyscraper. It would link the park at the heart of the Lakeshore East development, of which Wanda Vista will be part, to the riverwalk's south bank.
Assuming the developers, China's Wanda Group and Chicago's Magellan Development Group, obtain financing and City Council approval, Wanda Vista could be a skyline standout when it's finished in 2020.
To be developed by Zeller Realty Group, the owner of 401 N. Michigan, the far-smaller Apple store could still exert a large impact at the gateway to the North Michigan Avenue shopping strip. Although the design reprises the basic format of the famous Apple "cube" on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue -- an unoccupied street-level pavilion leading to below-grade sales floor -- it is no soulless clone.
With its wafer-thin overhanging roof and highly transparent glass, Foster + Partner's pavilion should offer a persuasive fusion of Prairie style and high tech. The low-slung geometry will minimally obstruct views of 401 N. Michigan and the neo-Gothic Tribune Tower. It will be no more obtrusive than a modernist entry structure that once led to Equitable Building's concourse.
Granted, Apple will encroach upon the open space of both Pioneer Court and the riverwalk, departing from the city standard of a 30-foot setback from the river's edge. Yet city planners did the right thing by bending this rule. Ensuring that public space is lively matters more than preserving moribund public space. New flights of steps on the flanks of the store should beckon pedestrians to the water's edge. At night, the glowing store should be a beacon.
Still, Preservation Chicago makes a good point in calling for fewer barriers between the pedestrians and the river. The riverfront, like the lakefront, is a public space and should be treated as such. There's a precedent in the elevator that serves the multi-level plaza at the Trump International Hotel Tower. For the disabled, an elevator is a necessity for enjoying the riverwalk. Outdoor seating, which brightens the plaza at Apple's Lincoln Park store, is also called for here.
Striking a balance between private profit and public space holds the key to ensuring that the riverfront is enhanced by growth instead of becoming a victim of success.
bkamin@tribpub.com
