Chicago gets punishing winters, but occasionally the conditions align into something genuinely surreal. These photos from the Chicago Tribune show what happens when the city’s architecture meets extreme temperature swings: steam rising off frozen Lake Michigan, ice formations on the lakefront, fire and fog mixing over the skyline. The photographers nailed the timing.

CT ct-met-bridgeport-fire-rekindled-216.jpg

An awesome collection of photos from the Chicago Tribune. Via Colossal:
Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire ice fire Chicago
Robert R Gigliotti

Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire ice fire Chicago
David Schalliol

Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire ice fire Chicago
David Schalliol

Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire ice fire Chicago
David Schalliol

Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire ice fire Chicago
David Schalliol

Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire ice fire Chicago
David Schalliol

Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire ice fire Chicago
Robert R Gigliotti

Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire ice fire Chicago
Robert R Gigliotti

Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire ice fire Chicago
Darek Szupina

Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire ice fire Chicago
Darek Szupina

It seems like just a few days ago Chicago had huge ice news, and now this. For the past few weeks things have been pretty darned frigid here in the windy city with temperatures dropping down to the single digits, and just when we couldn’t take it anymore things started to warm up, in a massive-abandoned-warehouse-bursting-into-flames sort of way. Nearly 200 firefighters were on the scene in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood to battle the blaze and incredibly nobody was injured. Temperatures were so low during the fire that water sprayed on the building froze almost instantly leaving behind a spectacularly beautiful ice-encrusted wonderland. Photographers Robert R. GigliottiDavid Schalliol, and Darek Szupina stopped by yesterday and snapped these extraordinary photos. You can see much more over on the Chicago Tribune.


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Author

Ben VanderVeen is the founder and editor of Moss & Fog, one of the web’s longest-running visual culture destinations. Since 2009, he’s been finding and framing the most beautiful, surprising, and thought-provoking work in art, architecture, design, and nature — reaching over 325,000 readers each month. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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