Chicago

Chicago is a major city in Illinois on Lake Michigan. Its commercial growth, steel-frame buildings, and architectural institutions made it a center of modern architecture and a major base for Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Great Chicago Fire: The 1871 fire that destroyed much of central Chicago and accelerated the city’s rebuilding. Reconstruction created demand for new buildings and helped reshape the city’s architectural history.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: A German-American architect and educator known for precise steel-and-glass modernist buildings. Chicago became the center of his later career, including his work at Illinois Institute of Technology.
Monadnock Building: A Chicago office building completed in two phases from 1891 to 1893, combining load-bearing masonry and iron-frame construction. Its contrasting construction methods capture a pivotal transition in the city’s tall-building history.
Plan of Chicago: A 1909 urban plan by Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett proposing a more ordered and civic-minded Chicago. The plan translated the city’s growth into a lasting vision for boulevards, parks, and public spaces.
Chicago School (architecture): A late nineteenth-century architectural movement associated with Chicago’s commercial buildings and structural innovation. Its architects developed forms that made Chicago a landmark in the history of tall buildings.
Louis Sullivan: An American architect whose writings and buildings helped shape modern architecture in the United States. His Chicago skyscrapers and ideas influenced generations of architects.
Reliance Building: A Chicago skyscraper completed in 1895, noted for its large areas of glass and slender structural frame. Its design shows how Chicago architects made tall commercial buildings appear lighter.
World's Columbian Exposition: A world’s fair held in Chicago in 1893 to mark the four-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. Its architecture and planning made Chicago a stage for national debates about urban design.
Steel-frame construction: A building method in which a steel skeleton supports floors and exterior walls. Chicago’s early skyscrapers relied on steel frames to rise beyond masonry load-bearing limits.
Daniel Burnham: An American architect and urban planner who directed the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and co-authored the Plan of Chicago. His planning work helped define Chicago’s civic ambitions and urban form.

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