December 7, 2008 – With less than four weeks left in the year, gloating by Marina City Online that its book project would be completed in 2008 may be premature.

A rough draft of City Within A City: The Biography of Chicago’s Marina City is being constructed in web form first. It covers the history of the famous mixed-use complex from the early 1800s, when the only structure on the site was a log cabin, to present day.

More than 56,000 words have been written, filling 58 web pages. By comparison, a typical novel contains at least 75,000 words.

785 images are currently in use. More than 80 information sources are credited. More than 2,000 newspaper articles have been studied, along with countless other sources in print and on the web. Research material in digital form consumes 4.5 GB of hard disk space.

Interviews of original residents have started, but key interviews remain with people involved with the construction of the complex. Important images still need to be tracked down, and time needs to be invested at area research libraries.

Almost exactly one year ago, Washington University in St. Louis awarded a grant to a faculty member to produce a book that examines “the history and impact of Marina City.” Igor Marjanovic, assistant professor of architecture, is co-authoring Bertrand Goldberg’s Marina City with Dr. Katerina Ruedi Ray, director of the School of Art at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

It is scheduled to be published in 2009 by Princeton Architectural Press.

Katerina Ruedi Ray, Ph.D., who lived at Marina City from 1996 to 1999, wrote a chapter about Marina City in a 2005 book about Chicago architecture that she co-edited.

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