Hey! It’s the Chicago skyline!
No it isn’t.
Architecture critics often fantasize about rearranging downtown’s high rises like pieces on chessboard to suit their tastes. But an advertisement last week for the new movie “The Truman Show” actually did it, moving skyscrapers to create a dramatic image for Hollywood’s publicity machine. Among other distortions (several buildings appear twice), the ad takes three skyscrapers located near the bend of the Chicago River and puts them several blocks east of where they really stand.
In this make-believe cityscape, the curving green wedge of 333 West Wacker Drive (used here to display the image of Jim Carrey) has been moved northeast of 360 N. Michigan Ave., a classical skyscraper with a crowning belvedere whose location hasn’t been altered.
Another high rise at the river’s bend, 225 West Wacker Drive (which has a rounded roof) is just to the east of 333 Wacker, or on the left in the ad (the two buildings are neighbors). In a final bit of fantasy, the last of the river-bend trio — the pointy-topped 123 North Wacker Drive office building — has been placed south of and across the street from 333 Wacker (actually, they are two blocks apart).
The arrangement doesn’t look half bad, with the convex curve of 333 Wacker playing off the concave curve of 360 N. Michigan. Just one problem. The people crowded onto the flag-decorated “plaza” in front of 333 Wacker are standing where the river is. As usual, Hollywood is all wet.
