Explore Chicago

The Chicago Cultural Center is a neoclassical building of 1897 on Michigan Avenue, built as the city's first central library and a Civil War memorial hall. Run by the city since 1978 as an arts centre, it holds exhibitions, concerts and talks, and visitors see Preston Bradley Hall with its Tiffany glass dome and the G.A.R. Hall and Rotunda.

The Chicago Theatre on State Street opened in 1921 as a movie palace for Balaban and Katz, designed by the architects Rapp and Rapp in French Baroque style; its vertical CHICAGO sign marks the Loop. Today it hosts concerts and comedy. Guided tours lead through the grand lobby, the auditorium, onto the stage and backstage, where performers have signed the walls.

The Medieval Torture Museum is a private museum on State Street in the Loop, housed in the Page Brothers Building of 1872. In about 6,000 square feet of dimly lit rooms it shows more than 100 torture and punishment devices from medieval and early modern Europe, with interactive displays explaining how they were used.

The Art Institute of Chicago is an art museum in Grant Park, founded in 1879; its Beaux-Arts building, guarded by two bronze lions, opened on Michigan Avenue in 1893. Renzo Piano's Modern Wing was added in 2009. The collection spans five millennia and includes Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Wood's American Gothic and Hopper's Nighthawks.

Millennium Park is a park in the Loop, in the north-west corner of Grant Park, opened in 2004 on top of former rail yards and parking garages. It contains the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, an open-air concert stage designed by Frank Gehry, the BP Bridge, the Lurie Garden, the Crown Fountain and Anish Kapoor's sculpture Cloud Gate.

Willis Tower is a 110-storey skyscraper in the Chicago Loop, completed in 1973 as the Sears Tower to a design by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Its observation deck, Skydeck Chicago, is on the 103rd floor, some 412 metres up. Glass boxes called The Ledge project from the facade, so visitors can stand above the street below.

The Chicago Riverwalk is a public promenade about 2 km long on the south bank of the main branch of the Chicago River, running from Lake Street to Lake Michigan. Built in stages from 2001, it passes under the downtown bridges and has terraces, a Vietnam veterans memorial plaza, cafés, boat landings and kayak rental.

The Wrigley Building is an office skyscraper of 1920 to 1924 at the north end of the Michigan Avenue bridge, built as the headquarters of the Wrigley chewing gum company. Its two towers are clad in white glazed terracotta, and the taller south tower has a clock on each side. Visitors see the exterior from the bridge and the Riverwalk, and the open plaza between the towers.

Buckingham Fountain stands at the centre of Grant Park and was dedicated in 1927, a gift from Kate Buckingham in memory of her brother Clarence. Designed by Edward H. Bennett in pink Georgia marble, with bronze sea horses by the French sculptor Marcel Loyau, it runs water displays in season, when a central jet rises 46 m.

The Chicago Water Tower is a 56 m castellated tower of yellow limestone on Michigan Avenue, designed by William W. Boyington and built in 1869 to house a standpipe for the city's waterworks. It was one of the few buildings in the burned area to survive the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. It stands in the small Jane M. Byrne Plaza, opposite the old pumping station.

Chicago Children's Museum is a hands-on museum for young children, founded in 1982 and housed at Navy Pier since 1995. Its three floors of exhibits let children dig for dinosaur bones, build with tools in a tinkering lab, play with water and climb a rope schooner, always accompanied by an adult.

Shedd Aquarium is an aquarium on the Museum Campus by Lake Michigan, opened in 1930 with a gift from the retailer John G. Shedd. Its Beaux-Arts building holds galleries of fish, reptiles and amphibians from around the world, and the Abbott Oceanarium, added in 1991, houses beluga whales, dolphins and sea otters.

The Field Museum of Natural History grew out of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and moved in 1921 into its neoclassical marble building on Chicago's Museum Campus by Lake Michigan. Its halls cover dinosaurs, ancient Egypt, gems and cultures of the world. SUE, one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons found, is on display.

Soldier Field is a stadium on Chicago's lakefront, opened in 1924 and dedicated to the men and women of the armed forces. Its Doric colonnades now frame a seating bowl rebuilt in 2002–2003. It is home to the Chicago Bears and Chicago Fire FC, hosts concerts, and offers guided tours of the locker rooms, the field and the colonnades.

The Adler Planetarium on the Museum Campus opened in 1930 as the first planetarium in the United States, founded by the businessman Max Adler. Its twelve-sided Art Deco building by Ernest Grunsfeld Jr. holds dome theatres with sky shows and exhibitions on astronomy, space flight and historic scientific instruments.

Navy Pier is a pier about a kilometre long on Lake Michigan, opened in 1916 as Chicago's Municipal Pier and renamed in 1927 to honour Navy veterans of the First World War. It holds shops, restaurants, a theatre, a children's museum and boat departures. The Centennial Wheel, opened in 2016, carries enclosed gondolas almost 60 metres high.

The Chicago History Museum is the museum of the Chicago Historical Society, founded in 1856, and has stood in Lincoln Park at Clark Street and North Avenue since the 1930s. Its exhibitions cover the city's history, from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 to its neighborhoods and civil rights struggles, and include the Pioneer, Chicago's first locomotive.

The United Center is an indoor arena on Chicago's Near West Side, opened in August 1994 to replace the Chicago Stadium across Madison Street. Seating up to 23,500, it is home to the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago Blackhawks and hosts concerts and other events; its atrium, added in 2017, holds statues of Michael Jordan and Blackhawks players.

Lincoln Park Zoo, founded in 1868, lies in Lincoln Park on the lakefront about 4 km north of the Loop and is one of the oldest zoos in North America. On about 14 hectares it keeps animals of some 200 species, among them gorillas, lions, polar bears and penguins, and it includes the Farm-in-the-Zoo.

The Garfield Park Conservatory is a large public greenhouse in Garfield Park on Chicago's West Side, built in 1906 to 1907 to a design by the landscape architect Jens Jensen, whose glass roof recalls a haystack. Its rooms show plants from around the world as naturalistic landscapes, including the Palm Room, the Fern Room and a children's garden.