Located off Chicago’s Elston industrial corridor, the 24,000 sqm expansion of Midtown Athletic Club and Hotel transforms what was the largest indoor tennis club in the country to the largest lifestyle center in the country. The backdrop of the lobby at Midtown comprises large blocks of Absolute Black Granite that made their journey from the Telangana mountains of southern India.

While looking for stone to use at Midtown, we noticed quarry scraps of Absolute Black granite cut with deep grooves from drilling and splitting, typically seen as blemishes and discarded. The rough surface held a powerful beauty revealing the extraction process, forming the design vision for the lobby.

An installation of this magnitude was an ambitious undertaking and a huge challenge in sourcing the granite from the quarries within U.S. The team located a quarry in Southern India that was willing to engage in this unusual experiment. Blocks split from mountain were carefully selected and cut to panels that varied in thickness from 5 to 36 cm.

There were other challenges to overcome such as erecting these massive panels within an already finished space, and engineering a support for these panels with a heavily reinforced backup wall. Blocks were also used for a 3 m reception desk that had to be hand carved to nest a desk into. With 14 panels, 12 m long, 3 m tall and 15 tons in total, the entire installation transpired the design vision, spanning and bridging geographical boundaries.