860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments
| 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
 Sea side view |
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| location | Chicago , Illinois | ||
| Coordinates | 41 ° 53 '56 " N , 87 ° 37' 8" W | ||
| Built | 1951 | ||
| architect | Ludwig Mies van der Rohe | ||
| Architectural style | Modern , international style | ||
| NRHP number | 80001344 | ||
| The NRHP added | August 28, 1980 | ||
The 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments are two high-rise buildings on Lake Michigan in Chicago . They were built in 1951 by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and are today considered to be groundbreaking structures in modern and international style architecture .
history
In 1947, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe received the order from project developer Herbert Greenwald and property owner Robert Hall McCormick to plan two high-rise buildings with condominiums on Lake Michigan in Chicago.
In 1921, with his competition design for a high-rise building on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin, Mies van der Rohe gave a decisive impetus for the further development of high-rise buildings in general by proposing large-area, variable-use interiors and fully glazed façades using a modern steel structure that dispenses with all floor plan and façade conventions .
With the Lake Shore Drive Apartments, thirty years later, he implemented what he called “skin and bones” (= glass facade and steel structure) - architecture and technically innovative construction for the first time. In doing so, he was the first architect to succeed in glazing almost all of the façades in the high-rise building, keeping the apartments free from constructional restrictions and creating a completely new perception through consistent technical construction and subtle design, in which the technical means themselves develop the aesthetic effect.
After their completion in 1951, the apartment buildings were mostly received very positively by the trade press and subsequently became the basis for Mies van der Rohe himself and numerous other architects to plan their high-rise buildings, whereby the use of offices came to the fore (e.g. Lever House by Gordon Bunshaft , Mile High Center by Ieoh Ming Pei , John Hancock Center by Bruce J. Graham ).
The 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since August 28, 1980 . Since 1996 they have been part of the "Chicago Landmarks".
description
The two almost identical skyscrapers stand on an almost triangular piece of land on the shores of Lake Michigan in the north of Chicago, directly on the busy shoreline (Lake Shore Drive). They are aligned parallel on the two short sides of the property and are at right angles to each other so that they open towards Lake Michigan.
About 380 condominiums spread over 26 floors result in building heights of 266 feet (82 m). Around the access cores with stairs and elevators in the middle of the building is a square column grid of 21 × 21 feet (6.47 × 6.47 m) with three fields on the narrow side and five fields on the long side. To stiffen the building, the steel columns are partially connected with reinforced concrete wall panels (statics with Frank Kornacker). The entire steel structure is clad in a fire-proof manner.
The apartments are accessed through a hallway that cuts through the access core in the longitudinal axis in the middle of the building . With the exception of an installation wall that accommodates all sanitary pipes, they can be freely subdivided and glazed room-high on the facade side. The aluminum windows can be opened in the lower area and opened completely above as rotating sashes. In the initial equipment, all walls were painted white and the floor was covered with black linoleum.
The silver frames of the aluminum windows, both inside and out, remained untreated. They were preassembled over several floors, lifted to the installation site and fixed to the outer supports and ceiling edge beams. This process enabled rapid construction progress. All frame posts and supports were reinforced by double-T rolled profiles, which are blinded to the construction building-high and continuously on the outside and optically slim the facade structure.
On the ground floor, with a height of two standard floors, the facade is withdrawn behind the outer row of columns, so that a colonnade-like approach is created. Here, too, the walls are completely glazed, with around 60 percent of the glasses being opaque. In addition to a large entrance hall, there are various function rooms and a property management office and a small grocery store in this zone.
Both inside and outside, the standing areas of the two buildings and the connecting part between them are covered with travertine panels. In the two basement floors, which take up almost the entire area of the property, there is an underground car park with around 115 parking spaces. On the surface, about half of the property is planted with lawn and trees.
literature
- Yilmaz Dziewior : Mies van der Rohe. Look through the mirror. Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-88375-864-7
- Franz Schulze: Mies van der Rohe. Life and work. Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-433-02249-6
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Buildings at 860-880 Lake Shore Drive on the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed August 9, 2017.