The Palette and Chisel will be having an open house during the architecture tour this weekend, I hope to see anyone in the area there! I've lived in Chicago for 6 years and I've still not gone on an architecture tour. I've planned on it a few weekends but life gets in the way I guess, or you don't realize what you have at you fingertips until you move.
Luckily, The Museum of Science and Industry is not too far away and it is beautiful. The building was originally built for Chicago's World Fair to exhibit fine art, which I learned from watching EXPO: Magic of the White City. If you haven't seen it I'd recommend it. Plus it's narrated by Gene Wilder and who doesn't love him? I could probably work from the museum every day and still find little details I didn't notice before.
Here is a drawing of one the reliefs going along the building.
The framed drawing, with my tiny little house plants.