"Against Chicago’s matrix of steel, glass and right angles, Bertrand Goldberg’s twin Marina City blocks – giant, scallop-edged concrete cylinders – are like two fingers held up to the rest of the city. When they were completed in the early 1960s, locals began referring to them as “the corncobs” but there’s far more to the Marina City towers than their shape. Goldberg’s “city within a city” was his solution for affordable urban housing at a time when professionals were moving to the suburbs. The towers start with a helter-skelter of car parks up to floor 19. Floors 21 to 60 are divided into pie-slices of three different variations to create studios and one- or two-bedroom units, each with their own balcony. There’s also a supermarket, launderette, dry cleaner, gym and marina. Marina City offers all the attractions of life in the suburbs for almost 900 apartments in the middle of the city."
