Best Architecture Walking Tour for Design Lovers for UChicago Alumni

Best Architecture Walking Tour Overview

This creative tour for curious people connects architectural styles to other elements of design, art history, and popular culture. In an action-packed 90 minutes, this tour covers Chicago’s vast architectural history, from fur-trappers of early America to Mies van der Rohe’s modernism to contemporary developments. This is not your grandma’s architecture tour! 

What does Michael Jackson’s Thriller have to do with the design of a post-modern skyscraper? Or Andy Warhol’s soup cans with modernism? You will learn about architectural styles through their connections with technology and pop culture. Styles in creations like architecture, graphic design, fashion design, and pop culture have similar qualities when they come from the same era. In order to learn how to contextualize and identify architecture, this tour compares buildings with works from other media like these.

You’ll look at lots of gorgeous buildings while expanding your understanding of architectural styles and Chicago history, right in the heart of downtown Chicago. Tour starts at the Michigan Avenue Bridge, where the city began, and finishes at the new Maggie Daley Park. 

Why is this the “best” architecture walking tour for design lovers? The fun and creative educational approach makes this unlike any other architecture tour in the city. The tour appeals to people looking for an introduction to Chicago architecture, as well as guests who are well-versed in art history

Walking Tour Highlights

• Chicago’s underground layers
• Michigan Avenue Bridge
• The gold-topped Carbide and Carbon Building
• The massive Mies van der Rohe’s Illinois Center
• The Diamond Building and its anatomical nickname
• Jeanne Gang’s famous Aqua Tower
• The new Maggie Daley Park

Stories and Ideas

• Fort Dearborn and the “simple life”
• Chicago School of Architecture
• Art Deco and the Roaring ’20s
• Mechanization and the spirit of modernist architecture
• The fun shapes of post-modern forms
• The latest trends in city evolution and living

Walking Tour Tickets Include

• Shared iPads with historic photos and video clips
• Engaging tour guide commentary
• Special gifts
• Discounted flat-rate parking at Grant Park North Garage ($15)