Pocket Guide to Chicago Architecture

It’s normally a pretty good sign when a book has reached its third edition, and the Pocket Guide to Chicago Architecture is no exception. Though smaller that a normal book, it’s still pretty big for a pocket – but worth lugging round as it’s packed full of interesting profiles of Chicago’s most famous and striking buildings.

The book has one page per building, with a sketch diagram and accompanying text, all organised in several geographic areas. Where a building fits into more than one area, its page is reproduced. This means you get slightly fewer buildings in total but in return you get the convenience of all the buildings you might be passing on one route all together.

The large sketches of each building constrain the space for the accompanying text, which also means that the book isn’t quite for the absolute beginner. Although there is a glossary, and it covers such basic concepts as a “bearing wall”, the text that goes with the buildings often assumes at least a moderate degree of architectural knowledge by the reader. In my case, I first went on an excellent architectural boat trip before breaking out the book, but without the trip I suspect the book would have left me missing some relevant points.

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Buy Pocket Guide to Chicago Architecture (Third Edition) by Judith Paine McBrien here.