Chicago Architecture

Question: For how many years did the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower hold the title of world’s tallest skyscraper?

Answer: Willis Tower, which was then known as the Sears Tower, held the place of tallest skyscraper in the world from 1974 until 1996, when the Petronas Twin Towers (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) replaced it.

Question: For which architectural style is Frank Lloyd Wright known?

Answer: Frank Lloyd Wright is associated with the Prairie School style of architecture, which is exemplified by strong horizontals on low-lying buildings and houses.

Question: Who designed Chicago’s first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Company Building?

Answer: William Le Baron Jenney invented an internal frame, or skeleton, of iron and steel rather than using load-bearing walls to build the first “skyscraper,” which was 10 stories high, in 1885.

Question: The iconic Marina City, two corncoblike towers on the Chicago River, were designed by whom?

Answer: Marina City was designed by Bertrand Goldberg in the early 1960s.

Question: Which Chicago museum’s building was built for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893?

Answer: The building that currently houses the Museum of Science and Industry was originally constructed as the Palace of Fine Arts for the 1893 World’s Fair. The building housed the city’s natural history museum from the end of the fair until 1920 and was then shored up with more-permanent materials and opened as the Museum of Science and Industry in 1933.

Question: Architect Daniel Burnham is famous for what?

Answer: In 1909 Burnham published his Plan of Chicago, which outlined his vision for the city’s built environment. Though much of Burnham’s plan was never realized, the park system lining the lakeshore—one of the things for which the city is known—came from it. Plan of Chicago has also served as inspiration for generations of urban planners.

Question: Which building is famous for having survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871?

Answer: The Water Tower was built in 1869 out of large limestone blocks. Along with the pumping station across the street, it was the only building in the area to survive the fire that razed the city.

Question: Which large building in downtown Chicago has statues of eight leaders of industry in front of it?

Answer: Eight busts of successful American merchants stand outside the enormous Merchandise Mart on the Chicago River: Frank Winfield Woolworth, Marshall Field, Aaron Montgomery Ward, Julius Rosenwald, Robert E. Wood, John Wanamaker, Edward A. Filene, and George Huntington Hartford.