The city that invented the skyscraper, with one of the great encyclopedic museums in America and artists who never felt the need to move to either coast.
Behind the two bronze lions on Michigan Avenue: Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Hopper's Nighthawks, Grant Wood's American Gothic, and Renzo Piano's Modern Wing (2009).
Founded in 1967 by collectors who wanted the city to show living artists; since 1996 in Josef Paul Kleihues's building a block from the lake.
Founded in 1982 in the neighbourhood that was the heart of Mexican Chicago, with a collection running from ancient Mesoamerica to now, and one of the largest Day of the Dead exhibitions in the country.
The University of Chicago's museum: small, free, and a good reason to come south, five minutes' walk from the Robie House.
Rooms, ruins and curiosities: the city's other museum.
The city's first central library (1897), now a free arts centre, with a Tiffany glass dome 38 feet across over Preston Bradley Hall, and a second, Renaissance-style dome at the other end.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie house of 1910: long low roofs, Roman brick and leaded windows, a house built to hug the ground. By guided tour.
A garden cemetery where the architects of Chicago lie: Louis Sullivan's Getty Tomb, and Mies van der Rohe under a plain granite slab.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Home and Studio and his concrete Unity Temple, half an hour on the Green Line.
Santiago Calatrava's pavilion on Lake Michigan, with wings that open and close, about 90 minutes north.
Art Institute at opening → Millennium Park → the Cultural Center dome → MCA → an architecture boat tour on the river at the end of the day.