Alta vista: take a tour of Chicago’s latest high rise by Jeanne Gang

Chicago's recently announced skyscraper, the Vista Tower, is inspired by gemstones, explains its architect Jeanne Gang.
The award-winning Windy City native revealed that the project's form 'has been created to reflect the geometric properties of the "frustum," a shape often found in crystals and gemstones,' allowing the tower to twist and pivot in order to capture views towards to the city and the water. And this is not the only feature that makes this project stand out.
When the scheme completes, it will be Chicago's third tallest skyscraper. Including 406 units – and over 20 penthouses among them – Vista Tower will include a significant residential element, spanning levels 13-93. Interiors are designed by Hirsch Bedner Associates, who have created a selection of finished packages for prospective buyers to choose from. The lower floors will be dedicated to the Wanda Vista Hotel and its 191 guest rooms.
Rich amenity spaces will accompany the residences, including a private dinning room, wine storage and wine tasting rooms, massage, sauna and fitness areas, outdoor terrace, concierge service and valet parking. The development's residents will also be able to use the hotel's amenities, which is unusual for its kind, adding an extra level of luxury.
The sales gallery for this striking development will open the doors to its 10,000 sq ft on 345 East Upper Wacker Drive on April 4 and to mark the occasion the developers, the Magellan Development Group and the Dalian Wanda Group, have revealed unseen imagery of the much awaited scheme's carefully crafted interiors.
Completion at the moment is expected by 2020.
The project will include residences and a hotel
Vista Tower's 406 residential units will occupy the structure's top levels, designed by Hirsch Bedner Associates
The 95-storey tower will be the third tallest skyscraper in Chicago upon completion in 2020
The tower's lush amenities include wine storage (pictured here) and wine tasting rooms
The project's sales gallery is being launched on the 4 April
The space, available by appointment, includes interactive floorplan displays, a view room and models
INFORMATION
For more information on Jeanne Gang visit the website
For more information on the sales visit the Vista Tower website
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
-
Seven kitchens, one fire: inside LA’s hottest new food market
At Maydan Market, chef Rose Previte turns global street food and layered design into a vibrant, fire-lit experience
-
Zegna’s exclusive new perfume is legacy in a bottle
Il Conte, of which only 300 (refillable) bottles exist, evokes the early 20th-century office of company founder Ermenegildo Zegna, still preserved in an Alpine mansion
-
A new American airline hopes to bridge the worlds of private aviation and business class
Magnifica Air’s Airbuses have acres of space, private suites and white-glove treatment for your precious luggage, coming soon to a route near you
-
The most important works of modernist landscape architecture in the US
Modernist landscapes quite literally grew alongside the modern architecture movement. Field specialist and advocate Charles A. Birnbaum takes us on a tour of some of the finest examples
-
Jeanne Gang’s single malt whisky decanter offers a balance ‘between utility and beauty’
The architect’s whisky decanter, 'Artistry in Oak', brings a sculptural dimension to Gordon & MacPhail's single malt
-
An idyllic slice of midcentury design, the 1954 Norton House has gone on the market
Norton House in Pasadena, carefully crafted around its sloping site by Buff, Straub & Hensman, embodies the Californian ideal of the suburban modern house embedded within a private landscape
-
Herzog & de Meuron and Piet Oudolf unveil Calder Gardens in Philadelphia
The new cultural landmark presents Alexander Calder’s work in dialogue with nature and architecture, alongside the release of Jacques Herzog’s 'Sketches & Notes'. Ellie Stathaki interviews Herzog about the project.
-
Meet Studio Zewde, the Harlem practice that's creating landscapes 'rooted in cultural narratives, ecology and memory'
Ahead of a string of prestigious project openings, we check in with firm founder Sara Zewde
-
The best of California desert architecture, from midcentury gems to mirrored dwellings
While architecture has long employed strategies to cool buildings in arid environments, California desert architecture developed its own distinct identity –giving rise, notably, to a wave of iconic midcentury designs
-
A restored Eichler home is a peerless piece of West Coast midcentury modernism
We explore an Eichler home, and Californian developer Joseph Eichler’s legacy of design, as a fine example of his progressive house-building programme hits the market
-
How LA's Terremoto brings 'historic architecture into its next era through revitalising the landscapes around them'
Terremoto, the Los Angeles and San Francisco collective landscape architecture studio, shakes up the industry through openness and design passion