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Metropolitan Place
130 Canal Street Partners, LLC
212 Units
130 S. Canal St.
Chicago, Illinois
One of the first major conversions of a downtown Chicago office building to residential use was the former Florsheim Shoe Company headquarters and manufacturing facility.
Characteristically International Style in its original design, the building articulated the spirit of the machine age with its lack of superfluous ornamentation and close attention to fine detail. The challenge of its transition to Metropolitan Place, housing over 200 residences, parking and street retail, was to establish a balanced dialogue with the original design intent, while satisfying the vastly different, market driven criteria of the new uses. Poorly conceived 1970’s additions were removed and four new floors were added. Subtly distinguishing the 4-story addition, structure is revealed at the seventh floor. A restaurant of the vertical tower binds old and new and marks the original entrance. Cautious planning and sensitive detailing keep requisite balconies integral to the composition. Highly sculpted residential corridors, with exposed structure, mitigate the length of a block long floor plate and create a sense of place. The articulated vocabulary extends to dwelling interiors, counterbalancing the simple envelope.
Characteristically International Style in its original design, the building articulated the spirit of the machine age with its lack of superfluous ornamentation and close attention to fine detail. The challenge of its transition to Metropolitan Place, housing over 200 residences, parking and street retail, was to establish a balanced dialogue with the original design intent, while satisfying the vastly different, market driven criteria of the new uses. Poorly conceived 1970’s additions were removed and four new floors were added. Subtly distinguishing the 4-story addition, structure is revealed at the seventh floor. A restaurant of the vertical tower binds old and new and marks the original entrance. Cautious planning and sensitive detailing keep requisite balconies integral to the composition. Highly sculpted residential corridors, with exposed structure, mitigate the length of a block long floor plate and create a sense of place. The articulated vocabulary extends to dwelling interiors, counterbalancing the simple envelope.