Bertrand Goldberg, the architect of Marina City, actually worked briefly for Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at the Bauhaus. After returning from Europe, Goldberg worked in the offices of the modernist firms of Keck and Keck, Paul Schweikher, and Howard Fisher, finally opening his own office in 1937.

Before and after World II, he mainly designed residential and small-scale structures. It was later in the 1950s that Goldberg began what would become the influential large projects that gathered so much attention.

Surrounded by modernism, Goldberg diverged from the rectilinear forms and created structures with more organic or curved shapes. His unique vision of large-scale architecture fits more of an amalgam of all the various factions of modernism during his time, including International Style, Brutalism and Organic architecture. He thought that curved forms led to a greater warmth and visual comfort especially to those living in residential highrises. Some other buildings created by Goldberg include:

These are just a small number of the large-scale projects of Bertrand Goldberg. He also designed a considerable number of smaller projects such as:

Since this article is about Marina City, only a taste of the designs of Goldberg is provided. If you would like a more comprehensive viewing of his various, extensive projects, visit bertrandgoldberg.org and metalocus.

The main reason for the development of Marina City was an experiment in social engineering. Due to the greater mobility of Americans after World War II, the flight of the middle-class to the suburbs grew enormously. This threatened the large, central cities with declining populations and revenues. In order to stop the bleeding in Chicago, residential projects like Marina City were thought to reduce the effects of this demographic trend. Although one might be dubious of such a claim, nationally as well as for the Chicago metropolitan area, Marina City can claim success as an individual project and has become an iconic image on the Chicago skyline.

To explain the reasons and design of Marina City as known at the time, the Portland Cement Association of Skokie, Illinois produced this film in 1965:

One of the interesting features of the residential towers at Marina City is the parking which is placed on the first few floors of each tower and spirals upward. Here is a short video of the parking:

A video showing the internal residences of Marina City residential towers:

This short video shows the raison d’être of the Marina City as told by the Chicago Architecture Foundation:

Here is another view of Goldberg’s creation:

This is an extremely interesting video on the debate on the preservation of the Prentice Women’s Hospital at a downtown campus of Northwestern University in Chicago and brings into contrast the arguments about protecting modernist buildings.

Marina City is a marvelous example of the creative and varied imaginations of modernist architects during the mid-century. Bertrand Goldberg absorbed the influences of all the current trends in modern architecture and created a beautiful alloy richer than its original constituents, going further with invention and inimitable creativity. It takes a rare genius to do this and is sorely missing at times in human history.

Note: A future article will examine the work of Goldberg in its entirety.

HBosler