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(Above left) Marina City’s House of Blues in 2009, from west side of North Dearborn Street. (Above right) HOB in 2007 from the private driveway near State Street.
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Marina City’s theatrical flourish
Bertrand Goldberg compared the design of the theater building to the physical structure of an arm. “Where the exterior concrete frame of the theatre touches the ground, we have the elbow. At the extreme cantilevered reaching end, we have the hand. And high up, we have the shoulder. The roof is slung by means of catenary [curved] cables between the hand and the shoulder. The seats – the gallery – is supported along the concrete arm itself.”
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Designed for live theater, the saddle-shaped building was constructed betwen 1963 and 1968 using space frames, arched beams, and sprayed concrete. It was covered in lead sheathing which acted as a sound deadening material.
(Left) Early concept of Marina City Theater. (Click on image to view larger version.)
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Besides the main entrance on the east side, there was an entrance, no longer there, on the west side near the Dearborn Street Bridge. It led to an exhibition space named McFetridge Hall in honor of William McFetridge, whose labor union financed the development of Marina City.
(Below left) Construction of theater building in May 1963 from northwest corner of property. West tower at right. (Click on image to view larger version.) (Below right) Workers install lead roofing in 1965.
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According to Ben Honda, who worked for Goldberg, the Marina City architect was a fan of the arts. He would sometimes fly to New York for an opening night and then fly back to Chicago. Honda believed that Goldberg was hoping the Goodman Theatre, a prominent regional theater company in Chicago, could be lured to the theater building at Marina City. Starting out in 1925 at The Art Institute of Chicago, the Goodman did eventually move in 2000 to an old theater building a few blocks away from Marina City on North Dearborn Street.
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(Above) Theater building at Marina City, circa 1967. (Click on images to view larger versions.)
(Left) Main entrance to theater building. A directory printed on the lobby windows left and right of the entrance points to McFetridge Hall, a restaurant, “towers,” parking cashier, and television station WFLD.
(Right) Closer view of theater building lobby, from northeast corner of building. In lower left frame, an escalator is visible, inside the lobby, which led to the lower level of the commercial platform. The parking cashier station can be seen at right. Also visible are three paintings, commissioned by Goldberg, by Victor Vasarely (1906-1997), a Hungarian-French artist.
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