Retailer's Redesign in Chicago Hits the Target

From the July 26, 2012, Chicago Tribune by Blair Kamin.

When Target announced last year that it was going to open a store in Louis Sullivan's former Carson Pirie Scott & Co. store at 1 S. State Street, I was worried it would somehow be turned into one of those giant boxes the chain so loves.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The new store opened July 25th. and it "strikes the right balance between preserving the aesthetic integrity of one of the nation's great works of architecture and projecting the visual brand of one of the nation's biggest retailers."

The building took its shape between 1899 and 1906.  Louis Sullivan had already made his reputation designing skyscrapers and now turned his talents to the horizontal plane.  The building's steel frame was clad in lines of white terra cotta.

The buildings upper floors are now offices and it is called Sullivan Center.  The Target store is on the bottom two levels.

A perfect repurposing  (well sort of) of a remarkable piece of architecture.  I'll have to go to my local Big Box Target in McHenry and buy something, no wait, I bought the new Jason Aldean CD at it last week.

Thanks Target, We Needed That.  --RoadDog