SOM, previously Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, is a Chicago-based architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings. In 1939, they were joined by engineer John O. Merrill. The firm opened its second office, in New York City, in 1937 and has since expanded, with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., London, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seattle, and Dubai.
The Tribune Tower is a 463-foot-tall (141 m), 36-floor neo-Gothic skyscraper located at 435 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The early 1920s international design competition for the tower became a historic event in 20th-century architecture. Built for Chicago Tribune owner Robert R. McCormick, since 2018 it has been converted into luxury residences and in 2023 won a Driehaus Prize for architectural preservation and adaptive reuse from Landmarks Illinois.
Helmut Jahn was a German-American architect, known for projects such as the Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany; the Messeturm in Frankfurt, Germany; the Thompson Center in Chicago; One Liberty Place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Suvarnabhumi Airport, in Bangkok, Thailand, among others.
The buildings and architecture of Chicago reflect the city's history and multicultural heritage, featuring prominent buildings in a variety of styles. Most structures downtown were destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.
The Trump International Hotel and Tower is a skyscraper condo-hotel in downtown Chicago, Illinois. The building, named for Donald Trump, was designed by architect Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Bovis Lend Lease built the 100-story structure, which reaches a height of 1,388 feet (423.2 m) including its spire, its roof topping out at 1,171 feet (357 m). It is next to the main branch of the Chicago River, with a view of the entry to Lake Michigan beyond a series of bridges over the river. The building received publicity when the winner of the first season of The Apprentice reality television show, Bill Rancic, chose to manage the construction of the tower over managing a Rancho Palos Verdes–based Trump National Golf Course & Resort in the Los Angeles metro area.
Sofitel Hotels & Resorts are a French hotel chain of luxury hotels based in Paris, France, and owned by Accor since 1980. Founded in 1964 in France, Sofitel quickly developed worldwide to reach more than 200 properties. In 2008, Sofitel became a brand of luxury hotels only, downsized its property count to 89, and created new brands. Sofitel had 130 properties by January 2023.
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) is an American architectural firm based in New York City that provides architecture, interior, programming and master planning services. They engineer different projects including civic and cultural spaces, commercial office buildings, transportation facilities, residential and hospitality developments, educational and institutional facilities, and mixed-use commercial developments.
Harry Mohr Weese was an American architect who had an important role in 20th century modernism and historic preservation. His brother, Ben Weese, is also a renowned architect.
Marina City is a mixed-use residential-commercial building complex in Chicago, Illinois, United States, North America, designed by architect Bertrand Goldberg. The multi-building complex on State Street on the north bank of the Chicago River on the Near North Side, directly across from the Loop, opened between 1963 and 1967. Portions of the complex were designated a Chicago Landmark in 2016. The towers' symbolic similarity to rural Illinois corncobs has often been noted in media.
Lake Point Tower is a residential skyscraper located on a promontory of the Lake Michigan waterfront in Chicago, just north of the Chicago River at 505 North Lake Shore Drive. Completed in 1968, it is in the Streeterville neighborhood on the Near North Side. Located adjacent to Navy Pier, the building is the only skyscraper in the city east of Lake Shore Drive.
The Carbide & Carbon Building is a 37-story, 503 feet (153 m) landmark Art Deco high rise built in 1929, located on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. It is clad in black granite, green and gold terra cotta, with gold leaf and bronze trim. It was converted to a hotel in 2004.
Aqua is an 82-story mixed-use skyscraper in Lakeshore East, downtown Chicago, Illinois. Designed by a team led by Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects, with James Loewenberg of Loewenberg & Associates as the Architect of Record, it includes five levels of parking below ground. The building's eighty-story, 140,000 sq ft (13,000 m2) base is topped by a 82,550 sq ft (7,669 m2) terrace with gardens, gazebos, pools, hot tubs, a walking/running track and a fire pit. Each floor covers approximately 16,000 sq ft (1,500 m2).
The architecture of metropolitan Detroit continues to attract the attention of architects and preservationists alike. With one of the world's recognizable skylines, Detroit's waterfront panorama shows a variety of architectural styles. The post-modern neogothic spires of One Detroit Center refer to designs of the city's historic Art Deco skyscrapers. Together with the Renaissance Center, they form the city's distinctive skyline.
Blair Kamin was the architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune, for 28 years from 1992 to 2021. Kamin has held other jobs at the Tribune and previously worked for The Des Moines Register. He also serves as a contributing editor of Architectural Record. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1999, for a body of work highlighted by a series of articles about the problems and promise of Chicago's greatest public space, its lakefront. He has received numerous other honors, authored books, lectured widely, and served as a visiting critic at architecture schools including the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
The Palmer Mansion was a large private home constructed 1882–1885 at 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois. Once the largest private residence in the city, it was located in the Near North Side neighborhood, facing Lake Michigan. It was designed by architects Henry Ives Cobb and Charles Sumner Frost of the firm Cobb and Frost and built for Bertha and Potter Palmer, a prominent local businessman responsible for much of the development of State Street. The construction of the mansion established the "Gold Coast" neighborhood, still one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Chicago. The home was demolished in 1950.
Sofitel New York is a boutique hotel on West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, owned and managed by the Sofitel corporation. It is two blocks north of Bryant Park and the New York Public Library Main Branch and next to the New York Yacht Club Building. The hotel is inspired by French traditions in furnishings and theme, and the hotel staff are bilingual in French and English. Completed in 2000, the limestone and glass building is 358 feet (109 m) tall with 30 stories and 398 guest rooms.
Jacques André Fouilhoux was a French-born architect active in the United States from 1904 to 1945. He is most well known for his work on Tribune Tower in Chicago; Rockefeller Center; early skyscrapers such as the Daily News Building and 30 Rockefeller Plaza; and the 1939 New York World's Fair, for which he designed the central Trylon and Perisphere. Many of his early works are also listed in the National Historic Register, including 705 Davis Street Apartments and Wickersham Apartments in Portland, Oregon. According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, Fouilhoux has received less attention than partners such as John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood, but was "known as an astute engineer and a painstaking supervisor and his work gained the respect of his collaborators."
The Northwest Tower, later popularly known as the Coyote Building, and Robey Hotel since 2017, is a 12-story Art Deco building at the corner of North Avenue and Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago. It was designed by Perkins, Chatten & Hammond and built between 1928 and 1929.
Jean-Paul Viguier is a French architect. He is considered one of the world's leading architects and one of the few French ones to work extensively outside of Europe.
The St. Regis Chicago, formerly Wanda Vista Tower, is a 101-story, 1,198 ft (365 m) multi-use supertall skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. Construction started in August 2016, and was completed in 2020. Upon completion it became the city's third-tallest building at 1,198 ft (365 m), behind the Willis Tower and Trump Hotel and Tower, and surpassing the Aon Center. It is the tallest structure in the world designed by a woman. It forms a part of the Lakeshore East development and overlooks the Chicago River near Lake Michigan.
