Providing panoramic views of Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline, this revolutionary skyscraper was carried out by George D. Schipporeit and John Heinrich, students and colleagues of landscape architect Alfred Caldwell and architect Mies van der Rohe from the Illinois Institute of Technology. The 70-story residential tower was designed and constructed between 1965 and 1968; Lake Point Tower was the tallest residential building in the world until 1993.
Among the earliest roof gardens in the city that actively promotes them today, Caldwell’s Prairie Style landscape for Skyline Park takes the form of a private, second-story, roof garden atop the tower’s parking garage. The 2.5-acre park includes many of the signature elements found in other Midwestern commissions by Caldwell, such as his lily pool in the city’s Lincoln Park and also Eagle Point Park in Dubuque, Iowa. These landscape features include a kidney-shaped lagoon, cascades, a clearing known as a “sunroom,” rocky outcrops, a stepping-stone path, and native plants appropriate to the Prairie Style. Other essential residential amenities such as a swimming pool, playground, and barbecue area were also integrated into Caldwell’s design. In 2010 Hitchcock Design Group Iandscape architects prepared a master plan for the rehabilitation of the garden. Today the original design intent is largely intact.
