St. Regis Chicago

Gang's tallest statement yet

St. Regis Chicago is Jeanne Gang returning to the sculptural language she introduced at Aqua Tower and pushing it dramatically further, both in height and in formal ambition. The building's silhouette resolves into three distinct, stacked volumes of decreasing size as it rises, each twisting slightly against the ones below and above it — a shape closer to a sculptural composition than a conventional tower, and one that reads differently depending on the angle you're viewing it from. It topped out structurally in 2020 and opened fully to residents and hotel guests in 2023, becoming one of the most talked-about additions to the skyline in a generation.

At its completion, the tower was widely reported as the tallest building in the world designed by a woman-led architecture firm — a genuinely significant milestone for a profession that has historically been dominated by men at the highest levels of skyscraper design, and a distinction directly tied to Gang's own practice, Studio Gang. New supertalls complete regularly around the world, so it's worth verifying the current standing of that specific superlative before repeating it as a permanent fact, but the underlying achievement — a building of this scale and ambition led by a woman-owned firm — stands regardless of where the ranking sits on any given day.

Aqua Tower

Gang's earlier, smaller-scale statement nearby — the direct predecessor to this building's design language.

Millennium Park

A short walk from St. Regis Chicago's Lakeshore East location.

Visiting, and where it sits on the skyline

Unlike most of the towers on this site, St. Regis Chicago is one you can actually stay inside — the building combines private residences with a full St. Regis-branded hotel occupying its lower floors, meaning a stay here is a legitimate (if inevitably expensive) way to experience the building from within rather than just photograph it from the street. For visitors not staying at the hotel, the lobby and any public-facing amenity spaces are the extent of the interior access; there's no observation deck here, and the building's appeal for most people remains primarily about its exterior silhouette.

It stands in Lakeshore East alongside Aqua Tower, close enough that the two can be visited on the same walk and compared directly as two stages of the same architect's evolving idea. Both are also visible from a distance on the architecture river cruise and from several of the city's skyline viewpoints, where the twisting three-volume shape of St. Regis picks out clearly against the flatter towers around it.

• Combines residences with a St. Regis hotel — one of the few Chicago supertalls a visitor can book a room in.
• No public observation deck; the building's draw for most visitors is its exterior silhouette.
• Verify the current "tallest woman-led-firm building" ranking — new supertalls complete regularly worldwide.

Best Chicago Skyline Viewpoints

St. Regis Chicago's twisting silhouette is one of the more distinctive recent additions to the skyline.

Streeterville

Just across the river from the tower's Lakeshore East location.