Now please look at the other side of the river. You will be particularly impressed by the twin towers of Marina City with their corn-cobbed faces looking down at you. That would probably reminds you of the cover of Wilco’s album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.Designed by Bertrand Goldberg, Marina City is a complex of two cylindrical towers; each of them 65 stories tall. It is a lively complex of nearly 900 apartments, recreation facilities, offices, restaurants, banks, a theater and 18 stories of parking space. The complex even has a dock at the Chicago River underneath the towers, and there's also a marina at river level. Due to their unique shape, the towers are known locally as the 'corn cobs’. Incredibly innovative when completed in the 1960s, Marina City was truly a city within a city.The experimental complex was financed by unions who feared that the outflow of people from the cities in the early sixties would lead to a decrease in jobs. Marina City would give an alternative to the villages and small towns, offering everything in a small area.The complex was at the time the biggest ever built in concrete and its shape was in contrast with the contemporary architectural concepts of straight lines and cubical apartment buildings. The cylindrical shape was used to have less wind pressure. But also, the curvature of Marina City’s facade alone points to Goldberg’s detestation for right angles and their oppressive implications.The architect chose reinforced concrete instead of steel as this was the only material he could use to create the petal shapes of the apartments.Now look at the 17th floor of the west tower, the one close to the river. Imagine a car falling down from that floor. That really happened. Have you ever watched the movie “The Hunter” ?In the 1980 Paramount Pictures film The Hunter, Steve McQueen plays a bounty hunter who chases a fugitive up the spiral parking ramp on Marina City’s west tower before the villain loses control and drives off into the Chicago River.The stunt was performed on Friday afternoon, September 21, 1979. McQueen kept mostly to the parking ramp that day, venturing out once but returning when spectators got too close. About 1,500 people gathered near Wacker Drive to watch the stuntPhoto Chicago - Marina City & George Washington by David Ohmer is licensed under CC BY 2.0