Lake Shore Drive Apartments

building, Chicago, Illinois, United States

Written by

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last updated

June 30, 2026

Quick Summary

The 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments are a pair of 26-story residential towers in Chicago, Illinois, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Completed in 1951, they were the first of their kind and are considered a realization of Mies van der Rohe's long-held ambition for a lightweight, skeletal skyscraper. The towers are known for their simple appearance, achieved through meticulous design and engineering, featuring steel frames and cantilevered floors with floor-to-ceiling glass skins. Nonstructural I-beams were added to the facades to express the underlying structure, a detail Mies van der Rohe also used in the Seagram Building in New York. These buildings have become one of the most copied designs globally and represent a significant achievement in modernist architecture.1

Summary created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

4 Britannica Sources

Ask Britannica AI about this topic

Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Mies in America
…Apartments in Chicago (1949), the Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1949–51) in that city, and the Seagram Building (1956–58) in New York City, a skyscraper office building with a glass, bronze, and marble exterior that Mies designed with Philip Johnson. These buildings exemplify Mies’s famous principle that “less is more” and…
Read More
…Apartments in Chicago (1949), the Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1949–51) in that city, and the Seagram Building (1956–58) in New York City, a skyscraper office building with a glass, bronze, and marble exterior that Mies designed with Philip Johnson. These buildings exemplify Mies’s famous principle that “less is more” and…
Read More

skyscraper
…New York City and the Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1951) in Chicago. The stark verticality and glass curtain walls of this style became a hallmark of ultramodern urban life in many countries. During the 1970s, however, attempts were made to redefine the human element in urban architecture. Zoning ordinances encouraged…
Read More
…New York City and the Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1951) in Chicago. The stark verticality and glass curtain walls of this style became a hallmark of ultramodern urban life in many countries. During the 1970s, however, attempts were made to redefine the human element in urban architecture. Zoning ordinances encouraged…
Read More