The Esplanade Apartments, located at 900 and 910 N Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, are the work of one the most influential architects in history, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The Esplanade Apartments are two of the four buildings designed by Mies van der Rohe and built by Herbert Greenwald on Lake Shore Drive between Chestnut and Walton Streets. Initially completed in 1955 as rental apartments, the buildings were converted to condominium ownership in 1979. The structure and integrity of the buildings remain the same today.

The Esplanade Apartments were the first high-rise buildings designed by Mies to fully implement a continuous exterior curtain wall that was articulated separate from the building’s structural frame. This technology was used by Mies in all his future high-rise projects, including the celebrated Seagram Building completed in 1958, and has become the standard in modern high quality high-rise construction.