From south to north, this walking tour covers the most architecturally innovative street in the world. It begins at the Manhattan Building (1891) by William Le Baron Jenney: the first tall building to use skeleton construction throughout; and continues to the Chicago Federal Center (1959-1974) by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; the Marquette Building (1893) by Holabird & Roche; the Inland Steel Building (1954-1958) by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; First National Bank of Chicago (1969), by Perkins & Will, C.F. Murphy Assocs.; and the Chicago Civic Center (1965) by C.F. Murphy Assocs., Loebl Schlossman & Bennett and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

Rolf Achilles is an independent Art Historian who has devoted his life to documenting, writing, talking, teaching, and preserving interiors and their decorative arts in the US and abroad. He serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Historic Preservation Program at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was the Founding Curator of the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, 1999-2014.  Currently, he is a consultant to the cities of Prague, Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, London and to Sotheby’s and Christies.  He is on the Board of to Glessner House, The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, and the Hegeler Carus Mansion.