860 I 880 N. Lake Shore Drive by Mies Van der Rohe, Chicago

Apr 21

Apr 21 860 I 880 N. Lake Shore Drive by Mies Van der Rohe, Chicago

Mies Van Der Rohe, Architect, USA, Case Study Home

860-880, which was built between 1949 and 1951, consists of two 26-story, exposed steel and glass apartment towers set at right angles on an irregular travertine plaza. Based on ideas and theories Mies had been perfecting since his earliest days as an independent architect in 1920s Berlin, the buildings redefined highrise living for the post-war generation.

Designed as a prototype for postwar urban housing, these apartment buildings by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe served as a model not only for his own subsequent skyscrapers, but for those of many architects throughout the world. Appearing as the heroic culmination of Chicago Frame, this pair of buildings also demonstrates the subtlety of Mies’s approach. Their structural frames, for example, do not appear directly on the facade, but are represented there through supplemental steel members. Striking enough by day in their understated elegance, the towers are stunning at night, when their dark steel grids appear to float above cubes of frosted glass lit from within.