Merchandise Mart
- Architect
- Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
- Year
- 1930
- Style
- Art Deco
- City
- Chicago, IL
- Collection
- chicago deco
When it opened in 1930, the Merchandise Mart — built by Marshall Field & Co. and designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White at the junction of the Chicago River's branches — was the world's largest building, with 4 million square feet of floor space consolidating Chicago's wholesale trade under one roof. The Art Deco tower was later owned by the Kennedy family for over fifty years before selling to Vornado Realty Trust in 1998.
the building
A ZIP code of its own. The Mart was so vast it held its own ZIP code, 60654, until 2008, and today its tenants range from the Illinois Institute of Art's Chicago campus to Motorola Mobility and the startup hub 1871.
the style
The Art Deco design gave a working wholesale building the era's fashionable glamour, wrapping 4 million square feet of showroom and warehouse space in a single Deco-clad riverfront block.
More on Art Decosignificance
The Mart was the world's largest building at its 1930 opening, a record that defined it for decades. It carried its own ZIP code, 60654, until 2008, and was sold to Vornado Realty Trust in 1998.
nearby
- Trustees System Service Building
- Reid, Murdoch and Company Building
- Lake-Franklin Group
- LaSalle-Wacker Building
- 151 North Franklin
- Randolph Tower