As the birthplace of the skyscraper, it seems almost fitting that plans were announced this week heralding a proposed 115-story skyscraper on Chicago’s lakefront. The team behind the project includes Christopher Carley, a local developer, and the renowned “starchitect”, Santiago Calatrava. Renderings of the proposed skyscraper (which would be the tallest in the United States) indicate that the...

As one of the foremost Chicago-based architects in the post-WWII period, Bertrand Goldberg designed iconic buildings such as Marina City and the Hillard Homes for the Chicago Housing Authority. The Art Institute of Chicago has crafted this great collection of over 330 images documenting his various accomplishments from the 1940s to the 1980s. Visitors can search the items by keyword or by date and...

From the artistic statements of Louis Sullivan to the brutally Modern statements of Walter Netsch, architecture in Chicago is nothing if not eclectic. Given the important legacy of those architects practicing in and around Chicago, it is refreshing to note that the Art Institute of Chicago has been collecting the oral histories of these men and women since 1983. With substantial financial support...

The city of Chicago has many hundreds of wonderful architectural landmarks and this helpful website is a great resource for anyone with an interest in such matters. On the site, visitors can start by checking out the Landmarks Tours to get started. There over a dozen tours here, including Mansions Tour, Art Deco Tour, and Pre-Fire Chicago Tour. Moving on, visitors may also wish to look over the...

The Magic of America is an early (2007) e-publishing effort from the Art Institute of Chicago, to create a digital version of a memoir by Marion Mahony Griffin. An architect and designer, Griffin was the wife and partner of architect Walter Burley Griffin. The unpublished manuscript is over 1,400 typewritten pages, and includes more than 650 illustrations, all faithfully reproduced by the Art...