“A daring design for living” It is 1962. U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy has returned from a visit to Japan. In Paris, half a million people fill the streets to mourn eight victims of recent rioting. On the cover of the February 23 issue of Life magazine is a photo of Shirley MacLaine, age 27, from her “tortured role in a daring movie.” And inside the issue is a pictorial on nine new skyscrapers in Chicago, including a young Marina City. (Left) Life’s caption: “High Flying Crane. Far above Sheraton Chicago Hotel (left), Tribune Tower and Wrigley Building, crane hoists materials to workmen who are adding circular floors to Marina City’s cores.” (Below) Photo of Marina City under construction in 1961, from Chicago: City of Exciting New Skyscrapers, a 1962 Life magazine pictorial.

“Soaring up like giant beanstalks only two blocks from the Loop, the twin 60-story towers of Marina City apartments are the most daring of all the additions to Chicago’s skyline,” begins the Life article.

Photographers Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) and Robert Kelley (1920-1991) captured daytime and nighttime images of Marina City under construction, then consisting mostly of just two concrete cores.

“The center cores,” reads the article, “will house elevators, water, electricity. The apartments will be built around the cores.”

Bertrand Goldberg is mentioned, with the article noting that the Marina City architect “has broken with the stark simplicity of Mies [Van Der Rohe] to lead what one observer calls a ‘movement against right-angle thinking.’”

The other buildings included in the pictorial are Inland Steel Building at 30 West Monroe Street, Harris Trust, Executive House (now Hotel 71), a garage on West Wacker Drive where Leo Burnett Building is now located, Sun-Times Building (now Trump International Hotel & Tower), Water Tower Inn near Water Tower, Rush Street Garage, an eight-floor parking garage at 875 North Rush Street, and 1000 Lake Shore Drive, a 23-story apartment building.

(Left) Cover of February 23, 1962, issue of Life magazine.