Lawrence Kenny
"Railway Station for Chicago" (MS 1968)
Advisor: Myron Goldsmith
Others acknowledged: Fazlur Khan, David Sharpe, Elliot Dudnik, George Jerick
Model Photographs: Richard Nickel
Material: Steel
Structural system: Cable stayed system
Maximum span: 150 ft.
“With increasing population and affluence, greater demands will be placed upon transportation facilities. It is apparent that the airplane and the automobile cannot continue much longer to completely absorb this increase in traffic.”
Lawrence Kenny projected that new technologies offering greater speed and comfort might reinvigorate local rail travel as sites for airport expansion became more limited and the cost of air travel increased. To accommodate current needs and project for future increase in high speed rail, Kenny proposed a new central rail station with ten suburban and ten local tracks, with protection from the elements for passengers, and clear and direct circulation.
The structure he proposed was a soaring cable-stayed hall -- 600 feet wide, 900 feet long, and 65 feet high, enclosed in glass. The main level would contain the main passenger concourse, the track level, (located 25 feet below), would contain the train platforms, and bus/taxi platforms, and the lower level, (20 feet below the track level), would contain a commuter concourse, baggage handling, parking and other services.
The roof is a two-way grid system with principle beams on 30 foot centers. A 4-foot square steel mast was located on 150 feet centers to support the roof from above with cables at every principle beam intersection. The roof was also restrained with 20 cables from below. Kenny also began studying other variations on the structure, including a 300 by 300 foot grid with beams at 60 foot intervals. According to Windhorst (2010), SOM adapted this concept for the Baxter International facility in Deerfield, Illinois, completed in 1975 and Kenny worked on the project for SOM.
