Chicago is an amazing city to live in, as most residents will tell you, but Chicago apartments have a notorious reputation for being difficult to find one that is in a good neighborhood with the necessary amenities and square footage for a price that is within one’s budget. However, in this age of the World Wide Web, there are search features on numerous web sites that make it easier than ever before if you want to rent apartment. Chicago is one of the largest cities in the United States, meaning there are plenty of options for anyone looking for an apartment, from the vintage buildings in Wrigleyville by the historic Wrigley Field to Chicago luxury apartments along Lake Shore Drive.

One of the more fabled high-rise apartment buildings in the city of Chicago are the 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments, consisting of two glass and steel towers on North Lake Shore Drive, along Lake Michigan in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago. These towers were designated as Chicago Landmarks on June 10, 1996 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 28, 1980, making them a familiar site to locals and a great place to visit for tourists. The twenty-six floor towers were designed by the famed architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who has designed and overseen the construction of building around the globe, including the United States, Germany, Canada, and Spain. The towers were soon dubbed the “Glass Towers” during the construction process, which was orchestrated by Chicago real estate developer Herbert Greenwald and the Sumner S. Sollitt Company. The Glass Towers are now renowned as a model of modern international architecture as well as modern high-tech architecture.

However, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive was not always considered the landmark that it is today. The project was considered to have a design scheme that was too extreme, making the search for funding difficult. The mullions, or structures to divide adjacent window units, used in the architecture of the buildings were quite controversial among the pure minimalist community, despite Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s architectural philosophy that “less is more.” Supporters of the towers rightfully argued that the mullions reflect the inner structure, granting truth to the buildings’ designs, which is the view that has been adopted by most architecture enthusiasts today, since the glass and steel design has been celebrated around the world as the epitome of modern architecture. But do not forget, that these towers are still apartment, and any Chicagoan can be living in one before he or she knows it, thanks to the easy apartment search process!