141 West Jackson Boulevard

Built and additions: 1930, 1982, 1997

Architects: Holabird & Root (1930); Murphy/Jahn, Shaw and Associates, and Swanke Hayden Connell (1982); Fujikawa Johnson and Associates (1997)

“The Chicago Board of Trade building is a powerful termination to the LaSalle Street canyon, achieving its force through the low entry pavilion containing trading pits over the entrance. Setbacks rise above this, and behind is the 45 story tower, whose pyramidal top is capped by John Storr’s statue of Ceres, all thirty-one aluminum feet of the goddess of grain. Alvin Meyer’s low-relief carvings of an Indian holding corn and a Mesopotamian holding wheat flank the clock over the entrance and indicate that two of the staffs of life form the basis of the frenzied activities within. Throughout Holabird & Root exploited the fluidity of Art Deco in the composition and ornament of the building.”

Chicago’s Famous Buildings (5th edition), Franz Schulze + Kevin Harrington