Fantastic Rem Koolhaas building

I've been to Chicago maybe 11 times since 1997, but took me until 2004 to finally get round to going on an architecture tour.

I'm just going through some old photos and uploading them to Flickr and I found these pictures of an amazing Rem Koolhass building I saw on that tour.

The pictures are from the McCormick Tribune Campus Center which is already pretty special because the original campus was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

There's no trickery in that photo above it really is that orange. On the right hand side are a series of  orange glass panels which producing that gorgeous effect. The whole building is exciting, colourful, playful and clever.

This picture is of some stairs that are designed to be easy to access by wheelchairs and prams. A simple, elegant way to solve the 'badly designed stuck on ramp after thought' problem.

From certain angles they look like 'normal' stairs. It's a nice visual trick. In this day and age we should be designing buildings with things like access ramps built in automatically. It shouldn't be an after thought or a problem.

The outside of the building has pictures of famous architects. When you get closer the pictures are made up of great little graphics like this.

Fantastic. A few more pictures in this Flickr set here.

Comments

[lauren]

the 'mosaic' of that flickr set is a work of art in itself! nice documentation of a properly brilliant piece of architecture - you know, one that not only looks good, but works properly.

[John Dodds]

Visually reminds me a little of the pictures I've seen of the Heatherwick staircase in Paris, but this is much more practical.

[Simon]

This is fantastic! - I'm especially liking the architect portraits/mini pictograms. As much as I really like the look of the stairway with the ramp incorporated, is it easy to climb? It looks like it'd be all too easy to trip up because there isn't enough of the most shallow steps visible? I really hope I'm wrong on this, I just hope it's not another 'Phillippe Starck Juicer' design! Also, you wouldn't want to push a wheelchair up that ramp, it'd take 10mins a time! ;)

[Gael]

I think the portrait / pictograms, and all graphics were designed by 2x4. More images on their website: www.2x4.org

[Debbie Smith]

You should check out the stairs outside Exchange Square in London (Behind Liverpool Street Station). The stairs there are similar to the ones you found.

[Debbie Smith]

You should also Google: La Maison Unique. A staircase designed by Heatherwick Studio for Longchamp's flagship store at 132 Spring Street, New York, NY 100012

[Owen]

The stairs are a little wierd the first couple times you go up them, but after once or twice you figure them out. They are actually quite fun, especially when you get to go up them every day.