Architectural Tours (FREE to conference registrants)

Saturday, August 7   Tours leave at 8 a.m., 9 a.m., and 10 a.m.

Join volunteer docents from the Chicago Architecture Foundation for a complimentary tour of Chicago's amazing architecture. Tours will depart from the entrance to the Empire Room in the Palmer House lobby:

8:00am: Architecture of Culture & Commerce

2-hour walking tour. Ends at Michigan & Monroe (2 blocks from Palmer House).  This tour explores the buildings that represent Chicago's growth from a sparsely-populated 19th-century prairie outpost into a world-class city. The finest historic works of Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan are featured, including the Carson Pirie Scott Department Store, Marshall Field's and the Reliance Building.

9:00am: Modern Skyscrapers

2-hour walking tour. Ends at 190 S. LaSalle (4 blocks from Palmer House). Chicago reinvented itself after World War II by building sleek, dynamic buildings under the guidance of the most pre-eminent architects of the 20th century, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Skidmore Owings and Merrill and Helmut Jahn. See how modernism has changed from the rigid lines of Mies in the 1950s through the more fluid contemporary forms of the 21st century.

10:00am: Architecture of Culture & Commerce

2-hour walking tour. Ends at Michigan & Monroe (2 blocks from Palmer House).  This tour explores the buildings that represent Chicago's growth from a sparsely-populated 19th-century prairie outpost into a world-class city. The finest historic works of Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan are featured, including the Carson Pirie Scott Department Store, Marshall Field's and the Reliance Building.

*The Chicago Architecture Foundation offers a wide range of tours to fit any interest or schedule. Please visit its website for complete information about public tours offered during the conference: www.architecture.org.