53 Best Sights in The Loop, including the West Loop and South Loop, Chicago

Taking you on a journey through the stars to unlock the mysteries of our galaxy and beyond, the Adler tells amazing stories of space exploration through high-tech exhibits and immersive theater experiences. Artifacts and interactive elements bring these fascinating tales of space and its pioneers down to earth. The Grainger Sky Theater gives an up-close view of stunning space phenomena, and the magnificent imagery is so realistic that it might only be surpassed by actual space travel. The newest permanent exhibit is "The Universe: A Walk Through Space and Time." A spectacular projection showcases the enormity of the universe, and touch screens let you investigate diverse and beautiful objects from deep space. Journey through space in the Definiti Space Theater, or don 3-D glasses to view celestial phenomena in the Samuel C. Johnson Family Star Theater.

Come for the sterling collection of old masters and impressionists (an entire room is dedicated to Monet); linger over the extraordinary and comprehensive photography collection; take in a number of fine American works; and discover paintings, drawings, sculpture, and design spanning the ancient to the contemporary world.

With its flanking lions and marble lobby, the Michigan Avenue main building was once part of the World's Columbian Exposition. It opened as the Art Institute on December 8, 1893. While the collection is best known for its impressionist and postimpressionist pieces, visitors will find works from a vast range of periods and places, including Greek, Roman, Byzantine, European, Asian, African, and Native American art. Such iconic works as Grant Wood's American Gothic and Edward Hopper's Nighthawks can be found in the American galleries. Chicago favorites like the Thorne Miniature Room and Chagall's stained-glass American Windows are must-sees as well.

After the Renzo Piano–designed Modern Wing opened in 2009, the Art Institute became one of the largest art museums in the country. The 264,000-square-foot building contains the finest 20th- and 21st-century art in many mediums.

Hunkered down across from Grant Park, this 110,000-ton granite-and-limestone behemoth was an instant star when it debuted in 1899, and it didn't hurt the careers of its designers, Dankmar Adler and Louis H. Sullivan, either. Inside were offices, a 400-room hotel, and a 4,300-seat state-of-the-art theater with electric lighting and an air-cooling system that used 15 tons of ice per day. Adler managed the engineering—the theater's acoustics are renowned—and Sullivan ornamented the space using mosaics, cast iron, art glass, wood, and plaster. During World War II the building was used as a Servicemen's Center. Then Roosevelt University moved in and, thanks to the school's Herculean restoration efforts, the theater is again one of the city's premiere performance venues. Tours are offered on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

After more than 25 years flying under the radar inside the Railway Exchange Building a few blocks south, the Chicago Architecture Foundation opened this sparkling new home in 2018. The 20,000-square-foot facility features interactive exhibits about the city's built environment, and it sits right above the dock where the center's indispensable river cruise tours board. Tours by bus and on foot also depart from the facility, which houses a terrific gift shop as well.

Built in 1897 as the city's original public library, this huge building houses the Chicago Office of Tourism Visitor Information Center, as well as a gift shop, galleries, and a concert hall. Designed by the Boston firm Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge—the team behind the Art Institute of Chicago—it's a palatial affair notable for its Carrara marble, mosaics, gold leaf, and the world's largest Tiffany glass dome.

More than 400,000 square feet of exhibit space fill this gigantic museum, which explores cultures and environments from around the world. Interactive displays examine such topics as the secrets of Egyptian mummies, the art and innovations of people living in the Ancient Americas, and the evolution of life on Earth. Originally funded by Chicago retailer Marshall Field, the museum was founded in 1893 to hold material gathered for the World's Columbian Exposition; its current neoclassical home opened in 1921. The museum holds the world's best dinosaur collections but the star of the show is 65-million-year-old "Sue," the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever found.

Don't hesitate to take toddlers to the Field. In the Crown Family PlayLab, kids two to six years old can play house in a re-created pueblo and compare their footprints with a dinosaur's.

Escape winter's cold or revel in summer sunshine inside this huge "landscape art under glass" structure, which houses tropical palms, spiny cacti, and showy blooms. A children's garden has climbable leaf sculptures and a tube slide that winds through trees. The "Sugar from the Sun" exhibit focuses on the elements of photosynthesis—sunlight, air, water, and sugar—in a full-sensory environment filled with spewing steam, trickling water, and chirping sounds. Don't miss the historic Jens Jensen–designed Fern Room with its lagoon, waterfalls, and profusion of ferns. On-site events include botanical-theme fashion shows, seasonal flower shows, and great educational programing.

With Anish Kapoor's giant, polished-steel Cloud Gate sculpture (affectionately known as "The Bean"), the fun fountains, and a Disney-esque music pavilion—all the pieces of this park quickly stole the hearts of Chicagoans and visitors alike when it opened 2004. The showstopper is Frank Gehry's stunning Jay Pritzker Pavilion. Dramatic ribbons of stainless steel stretching 40 feet into the sky look like petals wrapping the music stage. The 1,525-seat Harris Theater for Music and Dance provides an indoor alternative for fans of the performing arts.

In the park's southwest corner, the Crown Fountain features dozens of Chicagoans' faces rotating through on two 50-foot-high glass block–tower fountains. When a face purses its lips, water shoots out its "mouth." Kids love it, and adults feel like kids watching it. More conventional park perks include the lovely Lurie Garden (a four-season delight) and the seasonal McCormick Tribune Ice Rink, which opens for public skating each winter.

One of the most popular aquariums in the country, the Shedd houses more than 32,500 creatures from around the world. "Amazon Rising" houses piranhas, snakes, and stingrays in an 8,600-square-foot exhibit that resembles a flooded forest and re-creates the rise and fall of floodwaters. A shark-filled 400,000-gallon tank is part of "Wild Reef," which explores marine biodiversity in the Indo-Pacific. The exhibit also has colorful corals, stingrays that slide by under your feet, and other surprising creatures, all from the waters around the Philippines. Whales and dolphins live in the spectacular Oceanarium, which has pools that seem to blend into Lake Michigan. The aquatic show here stars dancing belugas, leaping dolphins, and comical penguins. Be sure to get an underwater glimpse of the dolphins and whales through the viewing windows on the lower level, where you can also find a bunch of information-packed, hands-on activities.

Lines for the Shedd often extend all the way down the neoclassical steps. Buy a ticket in advance to avoid the interminable wait, or spring for a CityPASS.

This 11-story structure, with its eclectically ornamented facade, got its name from the pigeons and politicians who roosted at the temporary city hall constructed on this site after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871; the structure didn't last long, and the Rookery replaced it. Designed in 1885 by Burnham & Root, who used both masonry and a more modern steel-frame construction, the Rookery was one of the first buildings in the country to feature a central court that brought sunlight into interior office spaces. Frank Lloyd Wright, who kept an office here for a short time, renovated the two-story lobby and light court, eliminating some of the ironwork and terracotta and adding marble scored with geometric patterns detailed in gold leaf. The interior endured some less tasteful alterations after that, but it has since been restored to the way it looked when Wright completed his work in 1907.

Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1974, the former Sears Tower was the world's tallest building until 1996. The 110-story, 1,730-foot-tall structure may have lost its title and even changed its name, but it’s still tough to top the Willis Tower's 103rd-floor Skydeck—on a clear day it offers views of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Enter on Jackson Boulevard to take the ear-popping ride up.

Check the visibility ratings at the security desk before you decide to ascend.

Video monitors turn the 70-second elevator ride into a thrilling trip. Interactive exhibits inside the observatory bring Chicago's dreamers, schemers, architects, musicians, and sports stars to life; and computer kiosks in six languages help international travelers key into Chicago hot spots. For many visitors, though, the highlight (literally) is stepping out on the Ledge, a glass box that extends 4.3 feet from the building, making you feel as if you're suspended 1,353 feet in the air.

Some wags have pointed out that this building, with its diamond-shape top, looks like a giant pencil sharpener. Built in 1984 as the Smurfit-Stone Building and later known as the Crain Communications Building, it has a slanted top that carves through the top 10 of its floors. In the plaza is Yaacov Agam's Communication X9, a painted, folded aluminum sculpture that was restored to some controversy and reinstalled in 2008. You'll see different patterns in the sculpture depending on your vantage point.

This 40-story postmodern office building, resembling a supersized château, was designed by John Burgee and Philip Johnson in the mid-1980s. The grand, gold-leaf vaulted lobby is spectacular.

This structure, designed in 1904 by Daniel Burnham, who later moved his office here, was once known as the Railway Exchange Building and the Santa Fe Building, for a "Santa Fe" sign on its roof that has since been removed. The Chicago Architecture Foundation uses the building's atrium for rotating exhibits about the changing landscape of Chicago and other cities. The organization also offers a variety of tours via foot, bus, and boat.

The first of three towers intended for the site, this pale pink edifice is the work of Kohn Pedersen Fox, who also designed 333 West Wacker Drive, a few blocks away. The 1990 building's most distinctive feature is its Gothic crown, brightly lit at night. During migration season so many birds crashed into the illuminated tower that management was forced to tone down the lighting. An inviting atrium has palm trees and a splashy, romantic fountain.

This green-glazed beauty doesn't follow the rules. Its riverside facade echoes the curve of the Chicago River just in front of it, while the other side is all business, conforming neatly to the straight lines of the street grid. The 1983 Kohn Pedersen Fox design, roughly contemporary to the James R. Thompson Center, enjoyed a much more positive public reception. It also had a small but important role in the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off as the location of Ferris's dad's office.

At 48 stories, this modern high-rise is no giant, but it more than makes its mark on South Wacker Drive with a bold elliptical shape, a glass-faced street-level lobby rising 36 feet, and a pedestrian-friendly plaza. It displays a noticeable tweaking of the unrelieved curtain wall that makes many city streets forbidding canyons. Designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, the Hyatt Center was completed in 2004.

With the open space of Millennium Park at its doorstep, the Aon Center really stands out. Originally built as the Standard Oil Building, the 83-story skyscraper (first referred to as Big Stan) has changed names and appearances twice. Not long after the building went up in 1972, its marble cladding came crashing down, and the whole thing was resheathed in granite. Plans to add an observation deck on the 82nd and 83rd floors have met with delays, and likely won't be completed until 2024.

With its undulating concrete balconies suggesting rippling liquid, Aqua’s addition to the skyline in 2009 made Jeanne Gang a household name in architectural circles; the building was not just a critical hit, it was also the world’s tallest building designed by a woman. Aqua recently lost that designation to another Gang design, the nearby St. Regis Chicago, which is currently the third-tallest building in the city. It's a residential tower, so it's not open to the public.

Designed in 1929 by Daniel and Hubert Burnham, sons of the renowned architect Daniel Burnham, this is arguably the jazziest skyscraper in town. A deep-green terra-cotta tower rising from a black-granite base, its upper reaches are embellished with gold leaf. The original public spaces are a luxurious composition in marble and bronze. The story goes that the brothers Burnham got their inspiration from a gold-foiled bottle of champagne. The building is now home to the swanky Pendry Chicago hotel.

This building's graceful swoop—a novelty when it went up—continues to offer an eye-pleasing respite from all the surrounding right angles; and its spacious, sunken bi-level plaza, with Marc Chagall's mosaic The Four Seasons, is one of the most enjoyable public spaces in the neighborhood. Designed by Perkins & Will and C.F. Murphy Associates in 1969, Chase Tower has been home to a succession of financial institutions. Name changes aside, it remains one of the more distinctive buildings around, not to mention one of the highest in the heart of the Loop.

Home of the thriving financial district, relatively narrow LaSalle Street earned the moniker "The Canyon" (and it feels like one) because of the large buildings that flank either end. This one was designed by Holabird & Root and completed in 1930. The streamlined, 45-story giant recalls the days when art deco was all the rage. The artfully lighted marble lobby soars three stories, and Ceres (the Roman goddess of agriculture) stands atop its roof. Trading is no longer done here, but it's worth a look at what was the city's tallest skyscraper until 1955, when the Prudential Center topped it.

The Gothic-inspired headquarters of the First United Methodist Church of Chicago, built in 1923 by Holabird & Roche, comes complete with a first-floor sanctuary, 21 floors of office space, a sky-high chapel (free tours are available), and an eight-story spire, which is best viewed from the bridge across the Chicago River at Dearborn Street. Outside, along the building's east wall at ground level, stained-glass windows relate the history of Methodism in Chicago. Joan Miró's sculpture Chicago (1981) is in the small plaza just east of the church.

When it opened in 1921, the grand and glitzy Chicago Theatre was tagged "the Wonder Theatre of the World." Its exterior features a shrunken version of the Arc de Triomphe, and its lobby is patterned after the Royal Chapel at Versailles with a staircase copied from the Paris Opera House. Murals decorate the auditorium walls and ceiling. The seven-story, 3,600-seat space has served as a venue for films and famed entertainers ranging from John Philip Sousa and Duke Ellington to Ellen DeGeneres and Beyoncé. Tours let you stand on the stage where they performed, go backstage, and peruse its autographed walls.

On Monroe, near State Street, the ornate CIBC Theatre (formerly the Bank of America Theatre and before that the LaSalle Bank Theatre and the Shubert Theatre) stages major Broadway plays and musicals. It was the tallest building in Chicago when it opened in 1906.

The handsome home of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Joffrey Ballet is grand indeed, with pink-and-gray Tennessee-marble floors, pillars with carved capitals, crystal chandeliers, and a sweeping staircase to the second floor. Designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, the second-largest opera house in North America combines lavish art deco details with art nouveau touches. Tours are given a few times a year.

Part of Printers Row, this is Chicago's oldest-standing passenger train station, designed in the Romanesque Revival style in 1885 by New York architect Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz. Now filled with offices and stores, it has a wonderful 12-story clock tower and a red-sandstone and redbrick facade ornamented with terra-cotta. Striking features inside are the marble floor, wraparound brass walkway, and arching wood-frame doorways.

This center is spread over three separate buildings: the Everett McKinley Dirksen Building; the John C. Kluczynski Building (230 S. Dearborn), which includes the Loop's post office; and the Metcalfe Building (77 W. Jackson). Designed in 1959, but not completed until 1974, the severe constellation of buildings around a sweeping plaza was Mies van der Rohe's first mixed-use urban project. Fans of the International Style will groove on this pocket of pure modernism, while others can take comfort in the presence of the Marquette Building, which marks the north side of the site. In contrast to this dark ensemble are the great red arches of Alexander Calder's Flamingo. The area is bounded by Dearborn, Clark, and Adams streets and Jackson Boulevard.

This creaky building was constructed in 1895 to house the showrooms of the Studebaker Company, then makers of carriages. Once counting architect Frank Lloyd Wright among its tenants, the building today provides space for more than 200 musicians, visual artists, and designers. Take a look at the handsome exterior; then step inside the marble-and-woodwork lobby, noting the motto engraved in marble as you enter: "All passes—art alone endures." The building has an interior courtyard, across which strains of piano music and sopranos' voices compete with tenors' as they run through exercises. Visitors can get a peek at the studios and hear live music during "Open Studios" events, held on the second Friday of each month between 5 and 9 pm.

Built in 1888 as the home of the Franklin Company, one of the largest printers at the time, this building has intricate decoration. The tile work on the facade leads up to The First Impression—a medieval scene illustrating the first application of the printer's craft. Above the entryway is a motto: "The excellence of every art must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose." The building was turned into condos in 1989.