A colorful photo of downtown Chicago buildings at night in 2014.

Prominent in the foreground is 301 South Wacker Drive, completed in 1989 in a postmodern style, identifiable by its green pyramidal roof and vertical glass grid patterns that reflected late-20th-century corporate architectural design in Chicago. Just to the right are the Marina City towers, completed in 1967 by architect Bertrand Goldberg as one of the earliest large-scale mixed-use residential developments intended to draw residents back into the urban core during a period of downtown population decline.

Farther north, the tall dark building with twin antenna masts is the John Hancock Center, completed in 1969 using innovative bundled-tube engineering developed in Chicago, a system that allowed greater height and wind resistance while reducing material use. Beyond it, the Lake Michigan shoreline reveals Chicago’s growth toward the lakefront, where residential high-rises expanded throughout the 1970s and 1980s to serve tourism, business housing, and dense urban living. The view illustrates the evolution of Chicago’s skyline as a center of architectural experimentation and urban redevelopment.

The 35 West Wacker building in downtown Chicago.

Inside O'Hare International Airport in Chicago.

Trains at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago.

The O'Hare Train Station in Chicago.

Smith and Wollensky on the Chicago River in downtown Chicago.

Lake Street and Dearborn in downtown Chicago in December 2012.

A security sign warning of video security, guards and guard dogs at the abandoned Brach's candy factory in Chicago. The factory has since been demolished and replaced with a parking lot.

Brach's Candy Factory in Cicero Chicago Illinois. The massive factory was demolished and replaced with a parking lot for trucks.

Brach's Candy Factory in Chicago before it was demolished. After demolition the land became a semi truck parking lot.