The transformation of the London Guarantee and Accident Building at 360 North Michigan Avenue into the LondonHouse Hotel is well underway. For months we’ve been teased by scaffolding on its exterior, hinting at the magical demolition going on inside. Now we can see the new glass tower addition rising to the building’s west.
The glass tower, designed by friends-of-the-blog Goettsch Partners, fills the space between the historic building and the neighboring ClubQuarters Hotel. This was formerly a surface parking lot, going back to at least the 1940’s.
Hilton, the LondonHouse’s new lodging partner, describes the addition thusly:
The Chicago Architecture Blog’s Daniel Schell lurched by yesterday and as you can see in these pictures, found the steel quickly rising between the two buildings. It’s yet another gap filled in the architectural wall along the south bank of the Chicago River that for some reason doesn’t get the same adoration from architecture writers as the Michigan Avenue “streetwall.”