Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A saved house, a Mies van der Rohe building and a city of towers offer several ways into the story of the Chicago Architecture Center.
On this page
A campaign to save a house
The organisation was founded in 1966 to save H. H. Richardson’s Glessner House, one of Chicago’s oldest residences.
From 1971 it offered public lectures and volunteer-led tours, the work it is still known for today.
A home on Wacker Drive
Since August 2018 the Center has been at One Illinois Center, 111 East Wacker Drive, a building designed by Mies van der Rohe beside the Chicago River.
Inside, nearly 10,000 square feet of exhibition space is given to models and views of the city’s skyscrapers.
A change of names
It began as the Chicago School of Architecture Foundation, became the Chicago Architecture Foundation in 1979 and the Chicago Architecture Center in 2018.
This history belongs to the organisation, its volunteers and the city it interprets. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
