Chicago Board of Trade Building (Chicago, Illinois)

 office building, sculpture, skyscraper, trade, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, Art Deco (architecture), 1930_construction, chamber of commerce, historic landmark, historical building

The 605 ft (184 m), 44-floor building was designed by Holabird & Root and opened in 1930, having cost $11,300,000. The height to its roof is 574 ft (175 m). The 31 ft (9.4 m) statue on the top represents Ceres, the Roman goddess of grain, and recalls the Board's founding as a commodities exchange. The building has 23 elevators and its floor area is 750,000 sq ft (69,677 sq m). An earlier building for the Board of Trade stood on this site from 1885 until 1929.

Architect Helmut Jahn designed a 275 ft (84 m), 23-floor expansion south of the original building which was constructed from 1980 to 1983. Another, shorter wing (with 5 floors) was added to the east from 1995 to 1997. The southern addition is a postmodern complement to the original building's art deco/art moderne design. The area of the south building is 550,000 sq ft (51,100 sq m) and the area of the east building is 60,000 sq ft (5,570 sq m). The Board of Trade Building underwent a $20,000,000 renovation in 2005.

The building, originally developed for the Chicago Board of Trade (which has operated on the 12th floor since its opening), is now the primary trading venue for the CME Group (formed in 2007 by merger of CBoT and CME). The Chicago Board of Trade Building was the city's tallest building until the Daley Center opened in 1965.

Two statues at front have a very interesting story. The plaque as seen the the middle of the stautes reads: "These two statues, one symbolozing agriculture and the other industry, once stood at the main entrance of the Board of Trade Building built in 1885. The statues greeted commodity traders and the public for 45 years. Thought lost forever when the building was demolished in 1929 to make way for the exchange's current Art Deco structure, in 2005, the statues were graciously returned to their origins through the generosity and goodwill of DuPage County Forest Preserve District." These statues were uncovered from the Lake Preserve forest.

The Board of Trade Building was designated a Chicago Landmark on May 4, 1977, designated a National Historic Landmark on June 2, 1978, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 16, 1978.

usmodernist.org/AM/AM-1932-02.pdf
archive.org/details/architecturalrec68octnewy/page/n187...