Merchandise Mart
The Merchandise Mart (short Merch Mart ) in Chicago was the largest building in the world when it opened in 1930. The building was built on the site of the 1911 discontinued Wells Street station of the Chicago and North Western Railway.
The Chicago Mart bundled wholesale under one roof.
The Chicago architectural firm Graham, Anderson, Probst and White designed the Merchandise Mart as a "city within a city ". The Merchandise Mart is so large that it had its own zip code to 2008 ( 60654 ).
Owners were the descendants of Marshall Field and then over 50 years, the Kennedy family. In 1998, the Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc. Vornado Realty Trust adopted by the MMPI. In early 2007 the building was estimated at 917 million U.S. dollars.
2007, the building was awarded the LEED Silver for old buildings.
Art in architecture
1953 Joseph P. Kennedy gave eight bronze busts in order to " immortalize outstanding American merchants ", the "Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame":
- Frank Winfield Woolworth,
- Marshall Field,
- Aaron Montgomery Ward
- Julius Rosenwald
- Robert Elkington Wood
- John Wanamaker
- Edward Albert Filene and
- George Huntington Hartford
Outdoor Lighting
It belongs to the tradition of the house to illuminate the facade and the windows of the outer towers with upward lighting. It is used on certain days colored light: St. Patrick 's Day in Irish green, in autumn for Halloween and Thanksgiving in Orange. Other colors are used for example in cancer prevention week and on other occasions.
For Art Chicago in 2008, the American artist Jenny Holzer illuminated the facade of the Merchandise Mart with a poem by the Polish Nobel Prize winner for Literature Wislawa Szymborska.
At night, exterior lighting shall be coordinated with the colors of the antenna tower of the Willis Tower, the John Hancock Center and the upper floors of the Aon Center.
Public transport
The Mart has its own station in the 'L' system of the Chicago Transit Authority.