Walking along the Chicago Riverwalk, it’s easy to question how the modern Trump Tower ended up next to the Spanish Colonial Revivalist Wrigley Building. The idea of having a contemporary building next to one that is 90 years older seems unexplainable, but local guides would argue otherwise.
Luckily, as much as Chicago is known for its architecture and the rich history surrounding it, it’s known for its many architectural tours — by foot or on a boat — that can offer answers into how Chicago’s streets became a host for such radically different forms of architecture.
Starting at Michigan Avenue, the Chicago Architecture Center’s 90-minute boat tour guides passengers down the three main branches of the Chicago River, providing insight and history behind each building and its role in Chicago’s history. Additionally, the walking tours offer many routes and varying topics, CAC docent Prasanna Narayanan explained.
“They can focus on specific neighborhoods, cemeteries, maybe even learning about a particular style of architecture, and they’re all very well done,” Ms. Narayanan said. “But that’s in contrast to the boat tour, which is a 90-minute tour. It takes the exact same route every time. And it just gives you a good glimpse of different parts of downtown and gives you a general lay of the land if you’re not familiar with the area.”
Docents like Ms. Narayanan, who graduated from a six-month training program at the CAC last year, are required to cover at least 30 buildings, the river’s reversal, the Great Chicago Fire, sustainability and indigenous people in her tour.
“I hope that I give people a different perspective about looking at buildings, and I hope they take away that every building has a story to tell and a reason why they’re here, just like all of us,” Ms. Narayanan said.
In addition to the boat and walking tours, the CAC also has a building on Wacker Drive with a museum dedicated to architecture.
“They have a scale model of about 4,000 buildings in the downtown area, they have a replica of Wrigley Field,” Ms. Narayanan said. “They have a lot of rotating exhibits, so I think that would be a really great place for someone to start, and that’s actually how I started.”
