Loop skyscraper that replaced Louis Sullivan masterpiece heads toward landmark protection

When architect Louis Sullivan’s famed Chicago Stock Exchange Building was wrecked in 1972 to make room for a 44-story office tower, it caused an outrage that made national headlines and birthed the city’s modern preservation movement.

In an ironic twist 53 years later, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks next month will weigh granting preliminary landmark status for 30 N. LaSalle St., the nondescript building for which Sullivan’s masterpiece was sacrificed.

A draft report by the Landmarks Division of the city’s Department of Planning calls the building “exemplary” architecture that “displays all the character-defining features of an International Style high rise, while incorporating New Formalist elements that broke with strict Miesian tradition.”

The report also details the tower’s fra