Chicago has a wealth of iconic buildings — there are Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, Eero Saarinen’s Law School at The University of Chicago, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s 860-880 Lake Shore Drive and Bertrand Goldberg’s Marina City, to name a few. However, many modern Chicago designers are quick to point out that the Windy City often gets ignored as being too conventional for an urban region with more than 2.7 million people. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
I reached out to eight design pros in Chicago to find out more about this city’s unique design style. “Chicago might be Midwestern in place, but its design has global influence, like all cities full of immigrants and influences from other areas. Like every big city, every neighborhood has its own flavor and feel, and also the people who live there imbue it with additional personality and style,” designer and contributor Rebekah Zaveloff states. “There seems to be some disagreement about whether Chicago has 100, 183 or 237 areas, so that you can imagine that Chicago has more than a couple styles: tasteful and tailored Gold Coast apartments, converted loft living in the West and South Loops, vintage modern mixing in Wicker Park/Bucktown, merely to mention a couple.”
Really, as a world class city whose inhabitants travel frequently across the globe, bringing back diverse ideas and fashions, Chicago is at the forefront of forward-thinking design. What’s more, breathtaking views of Lake Michigan and the striking urban skyline heavily influence its insides. And Chicago’s high-rises enjoy way more square footage than their similar New York counterparts; this has assisted the third most populous city in the nation explode with its distinctive brand of style that unifies traditional, modern and contemporary looks.
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1 benefit Chicago has over a number of the other major cities at the U.S. is much more square footage normally. “We’re lucky in Chicago that the majority of the rooms at our clients’ houses are decently sized when compared to other cities like New York,” states Tom Riker of James Thomas Design. “We now have the luxury of specifying pieces that are on a grander scale than many residences in other cities.”
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The spacious houses have lacked invention, also. “The long, narrow lots that differentiate typical Chicago residences present certain proportion and layout difficulties,” says interior designer Lisa Wolfe. “Our ordinary three-flat condos and single-family houses are usually just 20 to 30 feet wide and can feel like one long hallway. We find ourselves producing many custom pieces to accommodate this, most often dining banquettes.”
The designs also encourage opening up the floor plans. “Kitchens and living areas tend to be open to one another, and families practically live in such busy, streamlined locations,” Wolfe explains. “Squeezing multiple functions into a tiny space while keeping that main walkway throughout the house requires some severe editing and smart design.”
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“Chicagoans do not equate square footage with luxury,” Wolfe continues. “They have learned to appreciate practical, bright and gorgeous design over a McMansion feeling of scale. We’ve been ditching the established notions of formal rooms such as blended, multifunctional zones. Living and dining rooms are often one shared space, delineated by cleverly placed furniture.”
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“Due to space limitations in Chicago, we find ways to creatively repurpose spaces for optimum impact,” Wolfe says. “For instance, at a one-bedroom condo, we knocked down a wall to make a functional and decorative bookcase. This opened the boxy room layout and created a welcoming hallway between the entry and living room.”
A good deal of the residential space in Chicago is many stories above street level. “A enormous misconception about Chicago design is that designing at a high-rise is tough,” says Emily Mackie of Inspired Interiors. “I actually think planning a remodel at a high-rise is extremely straightforward and ordered. There are more rules and reqirements, but they help direct your overall design for the distance.”
Mia Rao Design
Interior designer Mia Rao agrees. “The urban view is identifying. We often design high tech spaces with urban and high-rise views, which can be typical in other major cities. Nonetheless, in Chicago, there’s often focus paid to Lake Michigan,” she states. “Many high tech condos have some sort of lake view, and individuals play the water concerning color scheme and design.”
The lake perspectives inspired the condo design seen here. “We worked with grays and cool peacock-green tones, which can be both colours that are often present in the color of the lake depending on the weather and daylight,” Rao says. “Along with all the lakefront, many high tech houses focus on another distinctive natural element to Chicago: Lincoln Park. We like playing these topics and bringing the outside in with our interior designs.”
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This is a brand new take that honors the past in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s iconic International style apartment buildings at 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, which enjoy sweeping views of Lake Michigan. The designers employed iconic Miesian furniture. A well-placed Barcelona sofa keeps the opinion open whilst emphasizing low-slung horizontal lines.
Michael Abrams Limited
“While the Midwest in general is much more conservative than either coast, the design community in Chicago is as talented if not more than our seaboard counterparts.” says interior designer Michael Abrams. “While we are not a city known for the of-the-moment appearance, we are a city of designers with enormous talent that has continually produced a number of the best interiors throughout the nation.”
Abrams cites this penthouse duplex flat as a fantastic example of Chicago’s “clean, urban, transitional design,” as he puts it.
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Riker concurs. “We believe that there’s a misconception that design in Chicago is timid or conservative as compared to L.A. or New York. We discover that in our clinic, this isn’t all accurate,” he states. “Many of our clients travel internationally for both pleasure and work, and are therefore open to new ideas and concepts. Among our most popular requests is that our clients want their houses to be unique and not cookie cutter. They’re willing to experiment to push the envelope concerning design.”
Mia Rao Design
This is one of Rao’s bedroom interpretations of Chicago’s slick urban style.
Rebekah Zaveloff | KitchenLab
Many designers also notice Chicagoans’ willingness to incorporate and define their city’s emerging trends. “While lots of the houses in Chicago lean toward the traditional, I see an increasing number of clients eager to take risks with mixing modern furnishings in conventional houses,” Zaveloff states. “People are more receptive to having fun with mixing eras and styles rather than being rigid. I also have more clients willing to utilize vintage pieces and, more importantly, willing to watch for the time necessary to find the perfect piece.”
Rebekah Zaveloff | KitchenLab
“A little bit of bling, tempered with a bit of industrial edginess on a conventional base, is also something Chicagoans appear to be more receptive to those days,” Zaveloff states. “Many of my clients aren’t searching for secure and transitional; they’re searching for something that expresses who they are or who they want to be.”
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A new trend in kitchen design in Chicago is refrigerator-freezer columns, based on Mackie. In this kitchen a separate fridge and freezer anchor the cabinet wall. “Separating the ordinary, enormous refrigerator into two parts makes symmetry and balance much more achievable from the interior space program,” she states. “There is not any longer a massive whopping refrigerator visually disrupting your lovely new kitchen design.”
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“We’re definitely seeing brass — notably antique brass — coming back strong,” Riker says. “We’re using it for everything from light fixtures to door and cabinet hardware. It’s very classic and timeless. Polished brass is somewhat harsh and feels a little ’80s, but we love the appearance and feel of aged, antique brass.”
Rebekah Zaveloff | KitchenLab
Zaveloff is discovering the exact same popularity in the material. “A willingness to mixing metal finishes and other substances in kitchens is on the upswing. I don’t become wide eyes and nervous twitches anymore when I propose antique brass lighting fixtures over an island when the hardware is nickel, appliances are stainless steel and the bar stools are chrome,” she states.
Watch more about how to mix metal finishes at the kitchen
Jennifer Harris Interiors
“When designing a Chicago house, I discover that many people prefer to mix up things, using modern bits along with crude bits,” says interior designer Jennifer Harris. “Antiques get a fair play also, whether they have sentimental value or are merely a bit that a client simply fell in love with.”
Harris often freshens up antiques with a coating of semigloss paint or by reupholstering them at a wild, funky or cultural fabric.
Jennifer Harris Interiors
And Chicagoans are going bold too. Harris has discovered a fearless, anything-goes attitude toward interior color palettes. “I’ve seen bright colors, neutral colours and even pastels utilized as color schemes in Chicago houses. It’s all in how it’s put together that makes a gratifying statement,” she states.
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Meanwhile, the Wolfe is hearing a lot of requests for cocktail bars. “More and more clients want a pub in their public living spaces — for both function and form. They’re a fun architectural attribute to perform up, and they often set the tone of a room, be it funky or tasteful,” she states. “In a Chicago three-flat, our client wanted to flip their plain, utilitarian living room into a daybed sofa for entertaining in addition to everyday living. We turned two underused closets with cheap, ugly doors to the focal points of this room: a glamorous pub and also a decorative bookcase that rolls away to expose the electrical panel.”
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Trends aren’t confined to just living spaces, either. Mackie points to the growing demand for boat baths in bathrooms. “Who needs ugly tile tiling around a whirlpool bathtub when you can have a gorgeous compact vessel bathtub with air tub and chromatherapy features? This tendency saves space while appearing supersexy,” she states.
Learn about coloured bathroom lighting
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Finally, rooftops and outside spaces are a trend that won’t ever die in Chicago. “We get more than our fair share of winter, so come springtime outside spaces are Chicago’s most coveted property, and if you’ve got a opinion of our world class skyline, even better,” Wolfe says. “Chicago rooftop culture is city living at its very best. From our roofs we all watch our baseball, cook our dishes in outside kitchens and watch the sunset over cocktails.”
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