Lake Point Tower

Lake Point Tower is situated on North Lake Shore Drive in downtown Chicago, just north of the Chicago River. The foot of its Y-shape points northwards and overlooks the city (west) and Lake Michigan (east). With its undulating glass structure, the 197-m, asymmetrical tower block is based on two Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designs: an office building on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin (1919) and a 30-storey skyscraper for an imaginary location (1920-1921). The two tower designs were conceived along similar lines: stacked, level floor constructions, a free floor plan and a glass shell. It was the first commission for Mies’s former students and colleagues at the Illinois Institute of Technology, George Schipporeit and John Heinrich…