City-County Building
Pictured is a sculpture that adjourns the City and County Building. Analogous to Certs--Two Mints In One--the Cook County Main Administration building is combined with Chicago's City Hall in an 11-story, Greek-styled building designed by Chicago architectural powerhouse Holabird & Root. According to the Architectural Foundation, the design was chosen through a competition that saw Henry Ives Cobb (1859-1931), one of the City's leading architects, propose a 14-story skyscraper that was rejected in favor of historic tradition.
The portion of the building occupied by the City carries the address 121 North LaSalle Street, while the portion assigned to Cook County carries the address 118 North Clark Street. The tenants don't open the rooftop to the public, but it now holds another architectural innovation--a rooftop garden designed to make the building more energy efficient. The garden was added in 2001 as a demonstration project in Chicago's Urban Heat Island Initiative. It includes 20,000 plants of more than 150 species. The plants reflect heat, keeping the building cooler. They also filter the air, thereby improving air quality in the Loop.
The building is actually two identical buildings. It is constructed of Woodbury granite and 21,000,000 pounds of structural steel. The most notable feature is the non-load bearing Corinthian columns that rise 75 feet and are nine feet in diameter. I am particularly fond of the sculptures that line the Clark Street side of the building.
The Cook County Building's Corinthian Columns Reflected in the Daley Center Windows
(Note how the floor to ceiling curtain folds mimic the columns)
