P/A Inquiry
Convention Centers

Wayne Cable

## CHICAGO

With the completion in 1986 of the annex designed by a joint venture of architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and engineers Lester B. Knight & Associates, both of Chicago, McCormick Place became the world's largest complex for nonpermanent exhibits. Although its stacked halls, the product of a tight site, are not considered ideal by exhibitors, the 1.6-million-sq-ft, $195 million annex is nevertheless a distinguished addition, with its cable-suspended roof truss system—whose pylons double as mechanical ducts—and gray aluminum skin. Inside, the use of Y columns in the 375,000-sq-ft lower hall cut the span from 60 to 30 feet, thereby saving steel.

LOWER FLOOR PLAN

SECTION AA

SECTION BB

## MINNEAPOLIS

Designed by a joint venture of Setter, Leach & Lindstrom, The Leonard Parker Associates—both of Minneapolis—and Loschky, Marquardt & Nesholm, Seattle, the new Minneapolis Convention Center replaces an older facility on its downtown site one block from Nicollet Mall. Its plan, designed with an eye to expansion, is composed of three repetitive increments, each with an exhibition hall sandwiched between arrival, registration, and meeting rooms facing the city and service and loading docks along the freeway. Each hall is capped by a structural steel dome, 210 ft in diameter. Circular rotundas mark the entrances to the $103 million, 800,000-sq-ft facility, whose first phase opens in May with completion due in April 1991.

Shin Koyama

Jerry Tannen

GROUND FLOOR PLAN

Progressive Architecture 2:89