Carbide & Carbon Building
Encyclopedia
Michigan Avenue (Chicago)
Michigan Avenue is a major north-south street in Chicago which runs at 100 east south of the Chicago River and at 132 East north of the river from 12628 south to 950 north in the Chicago street address system...
. The building, which was built in 1929, is an example of Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
architecture designed by Daniel and Hubert Burnham, sons of architect Daniel Burnham
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC...
, and was designated a Chicago Landmark
Chicago Landmark
Chicago Landmark is a designation of the Mayor of Chicago and the Chicago City Council for historic buildings and other sites in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, architectural, artistic, cultural,...
on May 9, 1996. Originally built as a high-rise office tower, the Carbide & Carbon Building was converted in 2004 to the Hard Rock Hotel Chicago
Hard Rock Cafe
Hard Rock Cafe is a chain of theme restaurants founded in 1971 by Americans Peter Morton & Isaac Tigrett. In 1979, the cafe began covering its walls with rock and roll memorabilia, a tradition which expanded to others in the chain. In 2006, Hard Rock was sold to the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and...
. The building has 37 floors
Storey
A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...
and is 503 feet (153.3 m) tall.
The exterior of the building is covered in polished black granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
, and the tower is dark green terra cotta
Terra cotta
Terracotta, Terra cotta or Terra-cotta is a clay-based unglazed ceramic, although the term can also be applied to glazed ceramics where the fired body is porous and red in color...
with gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
leaf
Metal leaf
Metal leaf, also called composition leaf or schlagmetal, is a thin foil used for decoration. Metal leaf can come in many different shades. Some metal leaf may look like gold leaf but not contain any real gold...
accents. According to popular legend, architects Daniel and Hubert Burnham designed the building to resemble a dark green champagne bottle with gold foil
Foil (chemistry)
A foil is a very thin sheet of metal, usually made by hammering or rolling a piece of metal. Foils are most easily made with malleable metals, such as aluminium, copper, tin, and gold. Foils usually bend under their own weight and can be torn easily. The more malleable a metal, the thinner foil can...
. Beginning on November 16, 2007, the gold-leaf tower was permanently illuminated at night. The design of the building has been compared to the American Radiator Building
American Radiator Building
The American Radiator Building is a landmark skyscraper located at 40 West 40th Street, in midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was conceived by the architects John Howells and Raymond Hood in 1924 and built for the American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Company...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
The ground floor was originally designed to display products of the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation
Union Carbide
Union Carbide Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company. It currently employs more than 2,400 people. Union Carbide primarily produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers before reaching consumers. Some are high-volume...
's subsidiaries whose offices were in the building. The lobby features art deco bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
work and black Belgian Marble
Noir Belge
Noir Belge is collective noun referring to black limestone found on several sites in Belgium. Some trade names refer more specifically to the quarry were the material was found, for example "Noir de Mazy" or "Noir de Golzinne"...
.
The top of the building was the filming location for an opening shooting scene in the 2008 film Wanted starring James McAvoy
James McAvoy
James McAvoy is a Scottish stage and screen actor. He made his acting debut as a teen in 1995's The Near Room and continued to make mostly television appearances until the early 2000s. His notable television work includes State of Play, Shameless, and Frank Herbert's Children of Dune...
, Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
, and Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...
.