New life for Marina City sofas

Retirement was brief for two curved sofas that were a part of Marina City’s concourse level for decades. Residents had been fond of the tan leather sofas ever since the 1970s. In 2009 when new carpet was installed, the condominium association at Marina City, concerned with people supposedly sleeping or otherwise spending too much time on the sofas, gave them away.

They went to the south side of Chicago, to a business that builds and upholsters custom furniture. Mark Roe, part owner of The Furniture Shop on South Western Boulevard, says he was given the sofas as part of a barter arrangement for other work he was doing for Marina Towers Condominium Association.

(Left) Sofas on Marina City’s concourse level, circa 1977, photographed by Betty Hogeorges.

The sofas, which Roe says were “nicely made,” sat on end in a warehouse for at least a year until they were spotted by Todd Heiser, a fan of Marina City architect Bertrand Goldberg and the design director at Gensler, an architecture and design firm in Chicago.

“I have been going there forever,” recalled Heiser in 2013. “We were down there one day, and I said, oh my god, I love that sofa – it’s amazing.”

Though considered for other projects, the sofas were finally chosen for an interior space Gensler was designing at Merchandise Mart. 1871 is a 50,000 square foot facility for new tech companies.

(Right) Curved sofas that were part of Marina City’s concourse level for decades, reupholstered for office space at Merchandise Mart. Photographed on February 8, 2013.

Roe reupholstered the sofas using vintage textiles by Dutch designer Hella Jongerius and American furniture designer Florence Knoll, who was also an architect and studied under Mies van der Rohe.

“It breathed a fresh new life into it,” says Heiser. “People are nuts for that thing.”

The sofas were installed at 1871 in April 2012. Since then, Heiser says Roe has turned down numerous requests to repeat the design.

(Left) Close-up of one of the sofas.

Written by Steven Dahlman
Presented for nonprofit educational purposes

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