Architecture
Designed by Adrian D. Smith of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the Franklin Center, is one of the most famous and recognized buildings in Chicago. The building's form features setbacks at the 15th, 30th and 45th floors. Designed in the postmodern architectural style, it is a granite-clad steel-framed building resting on pile foundations. The structure is characterized by strong vertical lines, spiked roof pinnacles, granite cladding and setbacks. The granite is a deep red color at the base, but changes shade to rose-beige at the top. Above the 5th floor, the lighter rose-beige granite is protected by silk-screened aluminum panels. The building relies on Gothic detailing to showcase verticality. The building's verticality evokes images of 1920s buildings, and the sturdiness of the structure is reminiscent of the Chicago Board of Trade Building. In addition to its design, the building relies on its location at the farthest corner from the Willis Tower to set it apart.
Read more about this topic: Franklin Center (Chicago)
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“The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.”
—Audre Lorde (1934–1992)
“And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)