Chicago Architecture Tour

Our Chicago Architecture Tour will lead you along the Riverwalk and through the history of the industrial landscape that is home to the world’s first skyscraper. Beginning at the country’s second tallest building, the former Sears Tower, and concluding at Frank Ghery’s Pritzker pavilion and Crown Fountain in Millennium Park, this tour will take you along the river and to the waterfront through a path of historically monumental and internationally recognized works of architecture in the downtown loop of Chicago.

This tour will transpose the skyline into a thorough history of Chicago and its people. Guests will discover a wide range of works by streetlight, including one the few remaining buildings designed by the father of urban geography, Louis Sullivan and the Modernist pioneer Mies Van der Rohe. The tour is colored with the personal stories, lore and legends of the turn of the century’s most celebrated and often scandalous architects including the infamous Frank Lloyd Wright. Learn about the trauma of the Chicago fire and how it has left its mark even on Chicago’s most contemporary architecture. Experience all of Chicago’s monuments to the fine arts, such as the Chicago Civic Opera House and the Chicago Theatre. This is a night tour that concludes after dark in the lively Millennium between Michigan Avenue and Lake Michigan.

Sights we cover on the Chicago Architecture Tour:

• Willis/Sears Tower
• CME Center (the exchange)
• Civic Opera Building
• N. Riverside Plaza
• 33 West Wacker
• Merchandise Mart
• Trump Tower
• Leo Burnett Building
• NBC Tower
• Marina City
• 35 East Wacker Drive
• Tribune Tower
• Crain Communications Center
• Cloudgate (actual title of “the bean”)
• Crown Fountain
• 1 W Washington (Atwood Café/Hotel Burnham)