Museum Of Contemporary Art Chicago

This guide to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago traces why critics nicknamed Josef Paul Kleihues's 1996 building a fortress, despite fifty-six feet of glass rising above just sixteen feet of stone. It follows the German architect's first American commission, from the thirty-two step entrance modeled on the Acropolis in Athens to the cast aluminum panels that nod to Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler. Count the steps as you climb them; Kleihues borrowed their exact geometry from Berlin and Athens.