Building
The Merchandise Mart was designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White to be a "city within a city". Second only to Holabird & Root in Chicago art deco architecture, the firm had a long-standing relationship with the Field family. Started in 1928, completed in 1931, and built in the same art deco style as the Chicago Board of Trade Building, its cost was reported as both $32 million and $38 million. The building was the largest in the world in terms of floorspace, but was surpassed by the Pentagon in 1943, and now stands thirty-sixth on the list of largest buildings in the world. Once the largest commercial space in the world, Dubai International Airport Terminal 3 is now recognized by Guinness World Records as holding the record.
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“I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love.... It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigour of the earlier world?”
—William Morris (1834–1896)
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