A continued public response to the fourth edition of this collection of
architectural walking tours， combined with major additions to the
Downtown and Michigan Avenue areas of Chicago， has prompted its
update and revision.
The WALKS proposed here have been selected to present Chicago as
a great cosmopolitan city as well as a collection of local communities， tied
together by an intricate web of transportation that makes them accessible
to the pedestrian for a closer view.
Since Chicago is a vast outdoor museum of great architecture created
in about one hundred years， the major focus of the WALKS is architec-
tural. From 1883 to 1893 the \"Chicago school of architecture\" came into
being. During that decade a whole galaxy of buildings appeared， reaching
the unprecedented heights of 12， 14， 16， and 23 stories. The architects
of the Chicago school employed a new type of construction: the iron
skeleton， at that time called quite simply Chicago construction. They
invented d new kind of foundation to cope with the problems of the
muddy ground of Chicago: thefloatingfoundation. They introduced the
horizontally elongated window: the Chicago window. They created the
modern business and administration building. And around the turn of
the century， the so-calledlrairie house came into being here.
Of equal significance is the current work of Chicago architects， often
characterized as a continuation of the Chicago school. Its pure forms，
horizontally elongated windows， and rugged strength are still to be seen
in many of today s buildings. Architects of the present， however， have
not hesitated to experiment with their own designs and materials.
Though Mies van der Rohe s \"glass houses\" on North Lake Shore Drive
and Helmut Jahn s State of Illinois Building may be considered the
ultimate development of certain trends of the Chicago school， the
cylindrical towers of Marina City， with their concrete slab construction，
circular balconies， and pie-shaped rooms， bear little resemblance. Nor
does the facade of the Henry Hinds Laboratory for the Geophysical
Sciences Building at the University of Chicago--though the older school
of architects would approve the functional origin of the new features.
Complete coverage of buildings worth noting in Chicago cannot
possibly be attempted， especially in view of the size of the city. While
following the routes proposed here， the pedestrian will many times come
across other interesting or beautiful buildings. The frequency with which
this may happen is only another tribute to the endless vitality of this
tremendous city.
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