Marina City

Goldberg's city within a city

Bertrand Goldberg's Marina City is one of the few Chicago buildings that reads as sculpture before it reads as architecture, and that was largely the point. Completed in 1964, the twin cylindrical towers were conceived as a self-sufficient urban unit rather than a conventional apartment block: a parking garage spiraling up through the base of each tower, a marina at the water's edge for residents' boats, and residential floors stacked above, all built around the then-radical idea that people would choose to live downtown rather than flee to the suburbs once the amenities were in the same building. It was a genuine bet on downtown residential living at a moment when most of urban America was betting the other way.

The scalloped balcony profile that gives the towers their "corncob" nickname isn't decorative flourish — each unit's curved balcony is structural, part of a poured-concrete system that let Goldberg build both height and individually distinct living spaces without a conventional steel frame. Seen from the water, the repetition of those curved balconies rising in two towers is the single most recognizable residential silhouette on the Chicago skyline, and one of the buildings almost every architecture cruise slows down for.

Chicago Architecture River Cruise

Marina City is one of the most-photographed stops on nearly every river cruise route.

River North

The neighborhood Marina City anchors, on the river's north bank.

Getting the view, and what's inside today

Marina City rewards distance more than proximity — up close on the street, the curved balconies mostly disappear into a wall of concrete, and the shape that makes the towers famous only reads clearly from the water or from a bridge with a clean sightline. The Franklin Street bridge is the most reliable free vantage point on foot; a river cruise gets you closer still, gliding directly past the towers' base where the marina itself is visible.

The base of the complex today houses the House of Blues alongside restaurants and the residential lobby, and the towers themselves remain occupied condominiums rather than a public attraction — there's no observation deck or public interior tour here, which makes the exterior view the entire experience. That's not a limitation so much as the honest way to see it: Marina City is a building meant to be looked at from the river it was built to face.

• Best free view: the Franklin Street bridge, looking north across the river.
• Best overall view: a river cruise, which passes directly by the towers' marina base.
• The towers are private residences — there's no public interior tour; the House of Blues occupies part of the base.

The Chicago Riverwalk

Walk the south bank for river-level views across to Marina City on the north side.

The Merchandise Mart

A short walk or a short stretch of river away, on the same north-branch route.