Chicago has long been known to be the maker of the world's tallest buildings. The world's current tallest building was designed there and now the city's architects will add even more towers to their list due to a relationship with China.

In a report called Designed in Chicago, Made in China (if you're not a subscriber try this link), the Chicago Tribune's Blair Kamin and photographer John J. Kim explore how urban China is being designed in Chicago.
The Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where Adrian Smith once worked, designed the Jin Mao Tower, which reigned for nearly a decade as China's tallest skyscraper and remains one of its most iconic. SOM's Chicago office also shaped the tallest building in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing and was involved in the design of the tallest towers in Beijing and Tianjin, a major northern Chinese city.

Chicago stars like Helmut Jahn have their own striking Chinese towers. And the Chicago office of Gensler, a global firm headquartered in San Francisco, contributed 10 architects to the team that designed the twisting 2,073-foot-tall Shanghai Tower, which, when completed next year, will become the world's second-tallest building after the SOM-designed Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
As China continues to emerge as a supertall superpower, Chicago's architects will have the opportunity to design more of the world's tallest skyscrapers.

Read the article here: [Chicago Tribune via Market Urbanism]