Chicago Landmarks 3D Crystal

The Chicago skyline engraved inside a block of optical crystal, the towers standing at different depths within the glass, the city’s name across the top. Most chicago gifts flatten the skyline into a silhouette on a mug or a print, and a silhouette is exactly what a skyline is not. The whole point of standing on the lakefront is that the buildings are at different distances from you.

The Subject Depth Engraving Was Made For

A laser firing at many levels inside a block can put the Willis Tower further back than the building in front of it, and keep the gap between them as actual space rather than as overlapping outlines. Move your head and the towers shift against each other the way real buildings do when you walk along a street. No print can do that, and no flat engraving can either. Of everything in this range, a skyline is the subject where the extra cost of a three dimensional engraving buys the most visible difference.

Several Buildings Rather Than One

This is the piece for somebody whose attachment is to the city rather than to one spot in it: people who lived there and moved away, students finishing a degree, a colleague relocating after years in the Loop. The Cloud Gate crystal in this group takes the opposite approach and gives the whole block to a single sculpture, which suits a specific memory rather than a general one. As chicago skyline art goes this is also unusually small, so it works on a desk where a canvas would need a wall.

Sizes, Light and Ordering

Three sizes are made: 1.97 inches square and 3.15 tall at 1.09 pounds, 2.76 by 3.94 at 2.28, and 3.15 by 4.72 at 3.14. On a design with this much detail the medium is the most commonly chosen, because the small one asks the towers to share very little width. An LED base lights the buildings from below, which is close to how a city looks at night and is the configuration most owners end up with. The design is ready made, so nothing is uploaded and no proof is approved. Gift wrapping, a pop up card and a cleaning kit can be added. Gift box included, made in 1-2 business days, US delivery in 3-5.