They called it
Starship Chicago: architect Helmut Jahn’s kaleidoscopic and controversial State
of Illinois Center, which shocked the city when it opened in 1985 and may not
be long for this world. Today the building is a run-down, rusty shadow of its
former self, occupying a lucrative downtown block and deemed expendable by the
cash-strapped state legislature. Three
years after the stinging loss of brutalist icon Prentice Women’s Hospital,
Chicago preservationists, along with the building’s original champion, Governor
James R. Thompson, are gearing up for a major battle to save the city’s most
provocative architectural statement. |