[image]
[title]Sure, our list of Chicago's most beautiful buildings is riddled with the Loop's skyscrapers, but we wanted to see what else these structures might have in common. We crunched the numbers to see how they stacked up against each other, from when the buildings were completed to which neighborhood they're located in.
RECOMMENDED: The 50 most beautiful buildings in Chicago
Yes, we are suckers for Art Deco. They don't make 'em like they used to, certainly not as ornate as they used to. Our nostalgia runs even deeper, too, back to the 19th century. But that's what makes Chicago architecture so awesome—we kind of invented this whole skyscraper thing.
Bigger is better? The bulk of our list tops out at over 200 feet tall. Topeka only has one building over 200 feet. Yeah, take that, Topeka! That's okay, at just 18 feet in height, S. R. Crown Hall is just as impressive as Trump Tower. We think Derrick Rose could dunk over that.
Though we are known for the clean lines of our Mies van der Rohe minimalism and Prairie School, and our modern structures are stunning, our hearts and eyes are still drawn to the detailed antique looks. This goes hand in hand with the decades graphic above.
There is no surprise that downtown is home to the bulk of our 50 most beautiful buildings. But the sleeper architectural location in the city might be Hyde Park. The two newest structures on our list—the Logan Center and Mansueto Library—are both part of the University of Chicago. Two outlying houses of worship, the Bahá'í Temple and Unity Temple, are not within city limits, but still sit just off the Purple and Green Lines, respectively.