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Loop as Lab: The Walking Tour

  • Bridge over a river that is partially lifted from the left side to create room for boats underneath

    DuSable Bridge

Experience Chicago’s urban planning history with a tour that reveals the city’s growth and the impact of visionary designs on the Loop’s landscape.
  • Bridge over a river that is partially lifted from the left side to create room for boats underneath

    DuSable Bridge

Chicago was a planned city from its very beginnings. Loop as Lab: the Walking Tour provides a street-level view of how city planning has shaped Chicago's growth from 1909 through to the downtown plan currently in development.

Duration
1.5 hours
Site Type
Neighborhoods
Location
Downtown
Meet

Chicago Architecture Center, 111 E. Wacker Dr.

What do the DuSable Bridge, Illinois Center, and Block 37 have in common? They all began as part of a city plan. The Loop as Lab tour walks you through six different city plans, showing the successes and failures, what resulted and what never came to be. What has city planning done for Chicago? Take this tour and decide for yourself.

Know before you go:

  • Guests climb short flights of stairs during the tour.
  • Tour route differs slightly between weekday and weekend departures due to weekend closures of sections of the Pedway.


  • Woman in red jacket points across the street to a theatre with a red sign utside that says Goodman. She is speaking to a tour group

    Goodman Theatre. Photo by Anna Munzeshemier

  • Tall black steel building on the riverfront

    111 E. Wacker Drive. Photo by Eric Masi.

  • Tall slim black building covered in glass

    Block 37

Buildings on This Tour

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Skyscraper GallerySkyscraper Gallery

Free Center Entry with Your Ticket

Ticket price includes entrance to the Chicago Architecture Center within 7 days of your walking or bus tour.

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