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While out on a walk around Streeterville on Monday, we decided to go check out 860-880 Lake Shore Drive. Completed between 1949 and 1951, Mies van der Rohe’s twin 26 story glass and steel towers at 860 and 880 Lake Shore Drive were very significant for their time. It is said that Chicagoans called the towers “glass houses” at the time they were completed.
These two towers along with a pair across the street as well as several others up and down the lake shore give Chicago the most prolific collection of Mies vision to be found anywhere. But it was these two that set the future of architecture for the next couple of decades. They were the first Mies buildings designated as Chicago Landmarks (June, 1996).
If you have ever had the pleasure of actually walking around them (not just passing them while whizzing by on the outer drive), you would be able to see how groundbreaking they are for their time. Nobody had seen apartment buildings like these before, they were way out there stylistically. (Note the oddity of the reflection of a tourists horse and carriage in the window.)
The buildings sit in a sea of grass (very, very green grass I might add) with their signature arcaded first floors.
The entrance to the underground parking garage in the back is nice and subtle, but still interesting. His later 900 Lake Shore Drive is visible in the back on the left, the window frames changed from silver aluminum to black anodized aluminum.
