By Phil Berger

The new millennium has been a good time for residential architecture in Chicago. After decades of banality, dictated either by developers’ notions of marketability or stagnation within the architecture community, the streetscape has benefited greatly from a slew of interesting new buildings.

The project that has generated the most buzz among architecture cognoscenti is 600 North Fairbanks, designed by the firm of Murphy / Jahn. The German-born Helmut Jahn is one of the world’s most celebrated architects, but he’s taken his share of critical abuse in his adopted hometown, mostly by virtue of his first significant commission, the State of Illinois’ Thompson Center in the Loop. When it was completed twenty years ago, it was vilified for its cost overruns and its ambitious design, which was wholly unlike anything built in the Loop before or ever since. Subsequently, he’s done dazzling work – primarily in Europe – but even his later Chicago projects, such as 120 South LaSalle, the United terminal at O’Hare, and Oakbrook Terrace Tower, couldn’t quite erase the stigma of his debut.

While it’s unlikely 600 North Fairbanks will change that, it’s certainly one of the most dynamic additions to the skyline in years. Jahn’s solution to the parking structure dilemma is to face it in the same clear curtain wall as the rest of the building, so that the structure is a unified whole. But what’s probably best about the building is its strong, curving shape. Architects often say one of their most difficult design challenges is how the building turns the corner, and 600 North Fairbanks does it very well.

As cool as Jahn’s building is, it’s not even the most interesting of the new crop of high-rises. Probably the most prominent tower in terms of location is One Museum Park at 1215 S Prairie Ave, which comes from the drawing board of Pappageorge / Haymes.

It’s hard to say many good things about towers that Pappageorge / Haymes has designed for The Enterprise Companies over the past several years, but One Museum Park is another animal entirely. Jeff Renterghen, a senior associate at Pappageorge / Haymes, explains that the firm “has always pushed for a more modern statement,” and they’ve certainly made it here. As an object in the landscape, it’s breathtakingly bold and a little retro-futuristic: The building, sheathed in reflective blue glass, spreads out in wing-like flanges from a central ovoid column, like something out of a Buck Rogers two-reeler.

Sales have been strong enough at One Museum Park that the core of One Museum Park West – a smaller tower located just to the west – is already rising. It’s a little deflating to realize that all the units facing west in One Museum Park are going to have their views obstructed – except that none of its units actually face west. The distinctive aspect of the building’s design is its crescent shaped plan: The south and west sides of the building house circulation spaces or structural and mechanical components, and their reflective “windows” are really glass skins mounted to a concrete frame. So while the gleaming, streamlined form is arresting from all perspectives, the clear orientation of the building is toward the north and the east. The result is that “there’s really no ‘back’ to the building, and no ‘bad’ units,” Renterghen says.

Maybe the most successful and exciting of all the new towers is ParkView at Illinois Street and McClurg Court, which couldn’t be more of a departure MCL Companies’ disappointing offerings at the neighboring River East. The emergence of modernism has given rise to many variations on the glass and steel window wall. At ParkView, architects Solomon Cordwell Buenz go in a different direction, with plenty of glass but also copper-anodized aluminum panels and punctuations of yellow balconies that turn the whole thing into a powerful piece of form, texture and color. What’s also great about the building is its fine sense of scale from the ground level. The difference between ParkView and almost everything else is that its parking levels are primarily underground, which makes an enormous difference in establishing a connection between the building and the street.

Devon Patterson, a design principal at Solomon Cordwell Buenz, says that the aim was to do something “sculptural and artistic” with the design. As built, it’s all that and more. Solomon Cordwell Buenz investigated several different materials for the curtain wall, with the intention of echoing the groundbreaking Time-Life building just a block away, which used Cor-Ten steel and bronze reflective glass to great effect. While ParkView is subtler in its surfaces, it makes a similarly strong statement.

Although most of the architectural excitement is about high-rise towers, at least one lower-density project deserves attention. With a few notable exceptions, multi-family developments from the past two decades have been pretty appalling, leaving a plague of red-brick “traditional” monstrosities throughout the city.

The Kinetic Condos at Rainbo Village, however, are an astonishingly fresh take on a standard Chicago building type: flats above stores. At Rainbo Village, located at 4836 N Clark St in Uptown, Pappageorge / Haymes used red brick, but in such a crisp, modern fashion – detailed with silver screens and canopies – that it’s really the best of its kind. Its proportions and scale are ideal for its location, and the materials offer the correct context. It boldly says that it was built in the 21st century, and it’s an excellent sign of good things to come.

It’s dangerous to pass judgment on buildings before they’re mostly completed, it’s tough to resist comment on at least two works-in-progress.

The Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago is so much bigger than anything else around it. People must have said the same thing about the John Hancock Center decades ago, but the Hancock’s positioning at its site – on a full city block, well behind the allowable setback line – made it a singular event, a “landmark” in the most literal sense. Although Trump takes advantage of its riverside location, it will never be the Hancock, but its slick skin and curved form are nicely executed. Overall, it looks as if it will be more pleasing than most of the buildings that bear its developer’s name.

Aqua, the new tower at Magellan Development Group’s Lakeshore East project, generated lots of attention when Studio Gang Architects unveiled its design. Some observers thought the building wouldn’t match the “wow” factor of Jeanne Gang’s graphic presentation, but they may be surprised. When you look at the building from a distance it reads as a simple, articulated rectangle – a typical Miesian expression. But it’s only when you get close to Aqua that you sense its impact. The gently undulating swoops and swerves of the balconies change with kinetic energy as you approach. There’s an illusory element to the experience of riding or walking past it, as if you’re passing a computer-generated image. It also suggests a highly refined variation on the skeletal masterpieces of the great Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi. Aqua is still under construction, and it’s still unclear what the building will be like at street level, but so far, so good.

By Dana Dubriwny

Driving south along Lake Shore Drive, commuters travel through a landscape of varying architectural quality.

Execs at Kargil Development LLC determined to improve that landscape with X/O Condominiums at 1700 S Prairie Ave. The $300 million project will comprise 271 condominiums in the north tower, 215 units in the south tower, and a row of 10 townhomes fronting the development. In February, 40 percent of the condos had been pre-sold, and buyers can expect occupancy in 2010.

“We saw the market was changing; the go-go days were coming to an end, and we wanted to differentiate ourselves, so we started with the architecture of it,” says Brian Giles, vice president of Kargil Development. “The South Loop has become the busiest and biggest market in the city. To sell these units, we needed something different, so we gave Lucien the ability to do his best work.”

Lucien Lagrange, known for his designs of the Pinnacle, Elysian Hotel and Residences, and Ritz-Carlton Residences, sketched up two contemporary glass high-rises. According to Lagrange, his vision for shaping X/O was to create an attraction and tension between the 46-story north tower and 34-story south tower, which was executed with floor plates incrementally increasing and decreasing in size.

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If there’s one thing prospective buyers appreciate, it’s the chance to walk around a finished home. Model units are an essential tool for buyers, and most developments are lucky to have two or three furnished units to show buyers.

CMK Companies’ 1720 S. Michigan, a 33-story high-rise in the South Loop, took this trend a step further, adding 15 fully furnished residences to help buyers visualize their new homes.
“They’re finished units that we opted to furnish,” explains Scott Hoskins, president and managing broker with CMK Realty Corp. “We wanted to represent the different unit types that we have in the building.”

This gives the high-rise an entirely new appeal to prospective buyers, he says.

“When buyers can come in and actually see the furniture and see how things are placed, it makes a huge difference.”

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The Sears Tower, which for more than three decades was the tallest building in the world, stands 1,450 feet and, depending on how you count them, 108 stories tall. These are good facts to have tucked away as you try to appreciate the enormity of Shelbourne Development Ltd.’s proposed Chicago Spire. At 2,000 feet and 150 stories, the Santiago Calatrava-designed Spire would be 38 percent taller than the tower that for years was the undisputed giant of the world.

Take the Sears Tower and stack another 40-story high-rise on top of it, and you’re still not quite to the top of the twisting, corkscrew-like Spire, planned for 420 E. North Water St., in Streeterville.

Trump International Hotel & Tower will be just 88 feet shorter than The Sears Tower when it tops out at 92 floors, and across the Chicago River from Trump, Waterview Tower’s 90 stories put it just a few hundred feet under The Donald’s Chicago high-rise.

Building tall is in vogue for Chicago’s residential developers like never before. (more…)

In 2003, architecture critic and local blogger Lynn Becker wrote a cover story in the Chicago Reader calling on developers to “stop the blandness.”

Incredibly, they listened. At least many of them did.

As Becker was writing, there already were hints of serious changes afoot in local residential design. A number of builders had been steadily creating track records for progressive projects, and dissatisfaction with a series of terrible towers in neighborhoods like River North was taking its toll.

The vast bulk of major developments, however, were not especially well-designed, this at a time when a building boom was remaking the city’s skyline. But in just four short years, Chicago has seen a sea change in residential design. (more…)

For a high-rise to be successful, it must have three elements in harmony: location, architecture and layout.

So says Lucien Lagrange, the French-born architect with a range of high-profile Chicago buildings to his credit. For his latest design, Ten East Delaware, he aims to combine Gold Coast cache, neoclassical architecture and floor plans that respond to buyers’ lifestyles.

The 35-story high-rise underway at 10 E. Delaware Place has a sandy-colored French limestone facade with a pre-cast cornice, a style that evokes Chicago architecture of the 1920s. The detailing extends to the exterior of the ground-level garage.

"A building has to touch the ground in a very graceful way, so as you come down to ground, there’s a lot of detail," he says. "You want to design a building so it doesn’t hit the ground – it sits on the ground." (more…)

If you’re about to drop half a million dollars on a new condo, chances are you’re hoping for a room with a view.

Prospective homebuyers shopping the market in River North have plenty of high-end options, but not many of them have the kinds of sweeping views buyers tend to want downtown. The neighborhood’s stock of older loft buildings is mostly mid-rise, and on many blocks, zoning has capped new buildings around 14 stories. Superior 110, a glass-and-steel tower by JFJ Development Co. underway at the northwest corner of Superior and Clark streets, is an exception, clocking in at 27 stories.

The mechanics of Chicago’s zoning ordinance allowed JFJ to build tall on the former site of a police station. Because the buyer of the northern piece of the site constructed a building of just four stories, JFJ essentially was able to borrow the allowed height (or “floor area ratio”) not used by the other project. (more…)

Trump brand, Skidmore design raise giant profile on prominent river perch

An awed "whoa" was Dana Sindha's gut reaction to Trump International Hotel & Tower, under construction at 401 N. Wabash Ave. in River North. The 27-year-old medical student was visiting from her home in Ohio for the first time in five years. The last time she was here, the squat, metallic Sun-Times building blighted this prominent spot on the Chicago River. "This looks like it's going to be pretty awesome. I love the blue," she said quickly, the sharp breeze off the river hustling her along. (more…)

CMK combines cutting-edge design with affordable prices in South Loop

On a recent January afternoon, a young woman in slim gray pants and a white fur-trimmed parka passed through a hallway at 1620 South Michigan, the sleek high-rise completed late last summer in the South Loop. She looked as if she might have been designed to go with the building, to match its white walls, clean lines and slabs of exposed concrete. (more…)

Story by Alison Soltau 

Six top Chicago architects discuss residential design, hot trends, pet peeves and buildings they love

For a while there, it was no fun talking to Chicago's top residential architects. It's not that they bored us – they're among the most interesting people you'll ever meet – but they were prone to complaints. They complained about developers who refused to build anything interesting, about the buyers who settled for bland buildings, about the bankers who wouldn't finance anything perceived as risky and about the brokers who promoted the idea that only vintage-looking designs could sell in Chicago. (more…)