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When Kim Jones went hunting for an apartment to buy last fall, she wanted to find something that was "vital and sophisticated."
An administrative assistant with a small law firm, she wanted a home that would reflect the firm -- a young, aggressive group of attorneys with an active trial practice.
"I do a lot of business entertaining and I wanted a place that would reflect Chicago in its best sense," she explained.
After scouring the Streeterville area last October, Ms. Jones purchased a unit in the cooperative building at 880 N. Lake Shore Drive. Her decision to buy there was influenced by her confidence that the unit could easily be resold. But there was a more compelling factor: "You tell anybody what your address is and they say, 'Oh, that's a Mies van der Rohe building.'"
That recognition has catapulted a handful of Chicago buildings to celebrity status. And though most of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's buildings are at least 30 years old, they remain as notable as the new kids on the block.
This year already has seen a glut of exhibitions and articles commemorating the 100th birthday of the master architect. When he died in 1969, he'd put his stamp on the Chicago skyline with the towers along Lake Shore Drive, the IBM building, the Federal Center, the campuses of the University of Chicago and Illinois Institute of Technology and apartment buildings in Hyde Park and Lincoln Park.
But beneath all the hoopla, what keeps Mies buildings so popular? Is it the prestige or the product?
The architectural and design community is celebrating a year of tribute to the master, but what about the people who live in his apartments and work in his buildings? Do they revere Mies' work as much as architects and critics?
Those who live or work in Mies buildings express a range of opinion. His School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago is compared by some staffers to an auto dealership, with its huge showroom-like lobby and cubicle offices. One resident of 900 Lake Shore Drive glowingly compares its lobby to a "quietly elegant...