Art Deco in Chicago, six buildings in the Loop

A decade compressed into a few streets

Chicago rebuilt its Loop at the end of the 1920s, and then the Depression stopped the work. That accident is the reason the district is so coherent: a group of towers designed within a few years of each other, by architects who were all reading the same manuals, built along the same two streets. The walk below takes six of them and stays inside the Loop; the whole route is four kilometres, and it can be walked in either direction.

Over the tracks and up LaSalle

Start at Riverside Plaza on West Adams, finished in 1929 by Holabird & Root. It was the first American skyscraper built over railway air rights and the first with an open-air plaza, and from the river side you can still see how the building sits on its platform. A block away, the Bankers Building (1927) is the quieter neighbour: stone, vertical piers, a base built to hold a bank.

LaSalle Street is the set piece. The Field Building (1934) was the last major tower before the crash stopped construction, and the Board of Trade (1930) closes the canyon at the far end: 44 storeys, and on top a faceless aluminium goddess of grain, who has watched over the markets since the building opened. Stand in the middle of the street and look south; that is the photograph.

Across the river

The Main Post Office of 1932 stretches along Van Buren Street on the far side of the river, a long low block that was built to handle mail in bulk and looks like it. It is not a tower and it does not want to be: walk along the river front to see the whole length, then come back into the Loop for the last stop.

One North LaSalle (1930) is 49 storeys by Vitzthum & Burns, a setback tower at Madison Street with the formula at its most refined: a base, a shaft, a crown, and no wasted ornament. The lobby is worth a look if it is open.

If you have another hour

The Loop has more Art Deco than any single walk can carry. The Jewelers Building on Wacker Drive, with its dome and its car park inside, the Civic Opera House on the river, the Carbide & Carbon Building on Michigan Avenue: each is five minutes from the route. The four kilometres of the itinerary are the spine; the rest is what you add on the day.

The full route, with the order of the stops, is on the Art Deco in Chicago walking tour page. Weekdays are better than weekends: several lobbies close on Saturday, and the streets are emptier after nine in the morning.