Esplanade Apartments Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1953–57
The two apartment buildings at 900–910 Lake Shore Drive continue Mies’ series of lakeside buildings. On a site immediately north of the existing towers at 860–880 Lake Shore Drive, Mies planned two further high-rise buildings that adhere to the same urban concept: the buildings are placed as freestanding elements in space and do not align with the massing of the historical urban grain of the city. While the Esplanade apartment buildings also stand on a trapezoidal site, the two buildings are not identical in size. The southernmost of the two buildings is shaped like a monumental slab and the two buildings are placed closer to each other than their counterparts at 860–880. Mies’ client, Herbert Greenwald, paid the highest amount ever paid at that time for a site for residential use in Chicago.1 The consequent need to make optimal use of the site was achieved by significantly increasing the size of the building vol umes and by reducing the storey height. A new design for the ceil ing construction made it possible to reduce the structural height of the ceilings. This made it possible to incorporate three additional storeys and at the same time to slightly reduce the overall height of the building. Although the fundamental concept of the buildings – that of fully glazed rectangular prisms – is identical to that of their predecessors, technical advances in the few years between the buildings’ construction meant that the construction and the materials used changed. While the buildings at 860–880 were prototypes, the Esplanade Apartments are optimised both technologically as well as economically. The problems revealed by the prototypes were tackled in the second pair of buildings not only by making modifications in detail but also through the choice of a different material. The structural frame is again completely fronted by a glazed skin, but this time the façade is made of anodized aluminium mounted on a concrete frame. The façade itself is articulated as a curtain wall construction, this time with continuous, equally-sized large windows. To resolve the overheating experienced in the earlier buildings, tinted panes and air-conditioning were installed. While the construction was previously left exposed on the façade, the reinforced concrete columns are now set back from the edge of the building to provide a cavity between the columns and the external skin for air-conditioning. The dark grey tint of the glaz ing heightens the impression of the curtain wall as an independent element and emphasises the volumetric sculptural quality of the building. For the characteristic vertical mullions applied to the outer face of the façade, a custom extrusion made of a luminium was now used instead of the continuous lines of steel I-beams used at 860–880, which were made of two standard T-profiles welded together. Because aluminium is more susceptible to thermal expansion than steel, the mullions are separated by small gaps at each storey to accommodate thermal expansion. A low-lying building was constructed to house a car park with a flat roof that served as a communal sun deck. This however, compromises the expansive sense of space at ground level that characterises the earlier buildings as well as the transition from outdoors to indoors, achieved in the earlier building by using continuous uniform travertine paving. The entrance lobby is instead paved with terrazzo flooring while the inner core is clad with marble. The glaz ing at ground floor level is partially transparent and partially translucent, transforming the walls into illuminated objects at night. Unlike the buildings at 860–880, lamella can be seen beneath the first floor ceiling that serve as vents for the air-conditioning. Later alterations to the building After the transfer of the apartments into private ownership at the end of the 1970s, many residents made alterations to their apartments, some combining several units into one. The building’s design was, however, conceived to accommodate this kind of flexibility. Since then, the building has been extensively renovated.
162
Site plan