Blair Kamin writes in the Trib of the new cornice crowning the Carson Pirie Scott building:

bq. From the 12th floor, behind windows that are now properly recessed, you witness firsthand Sullivan’s ability to create exquisitely layered spaces. There, just outside the windows, are the elements that form the layers: the rounded columns and their delicate bands, the lush column capitals and the dazzling ornament of the overhanging soffit. Here, precisely as Sullivan intended, the ornament seems to grow naturally out of the building rather than being slapped onto it like a postage stamp.

His next column offered a description of the Field Building (LaSalle Bank headquarters), my not-quite-daily shortcut to LaSalle Street:

bq. It is at once a visual feast and impeccably restrained. Signature Art Deco zigzags animate everything from the fluted columns that line the corridor to the outlines of the clocks accenting the bridges that join the north and south balconies.

Oh, and the principal architect of the Carson’s job, Gunny Harboe, has apparently separated from AECOM and will move in next door to my office. Odd thing is, the Marquette is a jewel of history surrounded by a bunch of (mostly) mediocre monuments to corporate Modernism. And surely he had an in on the “Sullivan Office Centre” space on the upper floors of the Carson’s building, where the views are undoubtedly better. (However, the full-block floorplates there are probably huge and the smaller spaces narrow-and-deep.)