As you drive north on Du Sable Lake Shore Drive, approaching Grant Park and the Museum Campus, two awesome structures immediately come to your attention, Soldier Field on the right and Aqua Tower on the left. Located at 225 North Columbus Drive, in the new and thriving Lakeshore East community, the 82-story Aqua Tower is a community of its own--hotel, offices, rental apartments, condominiums, parking. What? No restaurant? Acknowledged as one of the most influential buildings of the decade, Aqua Tower is the creation of noted architect Jeanne Gang and her Studio Gang. Completed in 2009 at a cost of $300 million, Aqua Tower's design was inspired by the stratified limestone outcroppings common in the Great Lakes region. The building was imagined as a vertical landscape made up of hills, valleys and pools. The mixed-use residential tower is 819 feet tall with 55,000 square feet of retail and office space. It has 215 hotel rooms from floors 1 to 18, 476 rental residential units from floors 19 to 52 and 263 condominium units and penthouses from floors 53 to 80. The building also features six levels of underground parking and an eight-story base with an 82,550-square-foot terrace with gardens, gazebos, pools, hot tubs, walking/running track and fire pit. The rooms are luxurious with an expansive terrace that allows residents to communicate with neighbors. Oh, did I mention the view? Talk about sitting on the 50-yard-line for a Bears game. Chicago's lakefront never looked so good.

My husband and I were on a long walk to the Art Institute and HAD to stop and photograph this building in the daytime. We had seen it in the evening on the Sunset Architecture Boat Cruise a couple of years ago, but now we could admire it from across the street. Designed by Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects, the balconies are designed to look like waves with no two alike. It opened in 2010 and is 859 feet high.