River City

River City should have been the culmination of Goldberg's vision of "a city-within-a city," but politics and power-brokering prevented the plan from being realized. BGA envisioned a high-density site of mixed-use skyscrapers 72-stories tall, linked by skybridges and containing everything from schools to shopping centers. Bending to political pressure about density and unable to get the zoning variance needed to proceed, the design was modified extensively over a ten-year planning period. As Goldberg described it, he unfolded the towers and laid them on their end.

Planning for River City began in 1968 when Goldberg sat down with Harris Ward, CEO of Commonwealth Edison, to "describe a new city center...Harris wanted to help rebuild or build a new concept of a city." Harris was stricken with cancer and the project was reassigned to Tom Ayres, who eventually hired SOM to develop the site Goldberg had chosen for River City. However, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, who actually owned the land, approached Goldberg and planning got underway in earnest.

QUOTE: "And finally, in River City he has the chance to affect the future course of Chicago by integrating his ideas in curving mega structure half-a-mile long, sinuously following the river southward into the decayed industrial tundra of the old city of smoke and steel which is being replaced by the new city of microchips, services and social democracy."
- Allan Temkosho, "Bertand Goldberg" in 15O Years of Chicago Architecture