LANDMARK 1
OUTBOUND • STARBOARD

St. Regis Chicago

Jeanne Gang’s stacked, flowing skyline landmark

Three interconnected towers step rhythmically toward the sky, creating one of Chicago’s most distinctive silhouettes.

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Aqua

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ALL LANDMARKS

Explore the river

BEYOND THE LANDMARKS

Know Chicago

The stories and symbols that make the buildings, bridges and river fit together.

★ Chicago symbol

Know the Chicago flag

Two blue stripesRepresent Chicago's waterways: Lake Michigan, the Chicago River system and the great canal connection.
Four red starsFort Dearborn; the Great Chicago Fire; the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; and the 1933–34 Century of Progress.
Six points eachChicago deliberately uses six-pointed stars. Each star's points carry additional symbolic meanings.
Designed in 1917Wallace Rice designed the flag. It originally had two stars; two more were added later.
Chicago story

Why Chicago became Chicago

Water + rail + geography

  • Chicago sits near a low continental divide between the Great Lakes and Mississippi watersheds.
  • Early portage routes made the location strategically important before a major city existed.
  • Canals strengthened the water connection; railroads then multiplied Chicago's reach.
  • The city became a transfer point where goods, people, livestock, grain and mail changed transportation modes.
  • Much of the architecture along the river is a consequence of that economic geography.

Worth knowing: Chicago did not become huge simply because it sat on Lake Michigan. Its power came from connecting transportation systems.

Engineering

The river that changed direction

  • The Chicago River originally flowed toward Lake Michigan.
  • In 1900, Chicago completed the canal system that reversed the river's flow away from the lake.
  • Protecting Lake Michigan—the city's drinking-water source—was a major reason for the project.
  • The present Chicago Harbor Lock dates to the 1930s and helps control the lake-river connection.

The memorable part is not simply that Chicago cleaned its river. The city re-engineered the regional water system.

Look around

Chicago is a bridge city

  • Downtown street bridges are part of the city's navigation system, not just roadways.
  • The movable bridges let dense street grids coexist with a working river.
  • Bridge street names are one of the easiest ways to orient yourself as we move through downtown.
  • Watch how bridgehouses, steel trusses and skyscrapers form a layered streetscape visible only from the water.
Return trip

Don't repeat the tour—connect it

  • Compare River City with Marina City: same architect, radically different form.
  • Compare Aqua with St. Regis: same architect, two very different responses to form, site and wind.
  • At 150 North Riverside, look at the narrow base before looking up.
  • At Wolf Point, see if you can identify all three branches without the guide.
  • Compare older buildings that treated the river as infrastructure with newer buildings designed around river views and public space.
Take it home

Three big ideas

1. Chicago exists where it does because of water and transportation.

2. Its architecture is inseparable from engineering—wind, soil, railroads, bridges and tight sites shaped what was possible.

3. The Chicago River isn't scenery behind the city. It is one of the main reasons the city exists.