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David M. Schwarz Career Timeline

1941: Born in Los Angeles, California

Young David Schwarz

1974: Graduated from Yale University

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You may love it or hate it, but the Harold Washington Library is one of Thomas Beeby’s most well-known and controversial works. Located in downtown Chicago and measuring in at 760,000 square feet, the library is one of the city’s structural staples.

John Mills Van Osdel, architect of the first two of three Palmer House Hotel buildings, famously buried his architecture plans to save them from the Great Chicago Fire; he safely retrieved them later.

Both an accomplished modern architect and a champion of historic preservation, Harry Weese understood the importance of protecting the city’s older landmarks while building new ones.

In a city like Chicago, where our built environment boasts more than a century and a half of architectural significance, the ability to protect, preserve, and restore our civic landmarks is critical.

In 2008, architect Jeanne Gang, who heads up Chicago’s Studio Gang, told Metropolis magazine: “Architecture can really transform your life.”

It certainly has had an impact on hers. The talented innovator of Aqua Tower has been widely recognized for her groundbreaking thinking about form and materials. And in September 2011, Gang was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, a prestigious distinction bestowed on “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits.”

Part of the new guard of Chicago architects shaping the Loop in the 21st century, Jackie Koo and her firm, Koo and Associates, brought a bolt of energy to the North Loop in 2009 with the Wit Hotel at 201 North State Street.

Challenging the notion that a hotel should act as a respite from the urban environment, Koo chose instead to embrace the bustling theater district and “L” train activity around it with vast expanses of glass.

A champion of modern architecture early in his career, Philip Johnson was profoundly influenced by, and also collaborated with, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

After the 1950s, Johnson left Mies’ minimalist principles of modernism behind in favor of postmodernism, a movement that defiantly reintroduced some of the ornament and detail modernism had rejected — albeit with its own, often cheeky, twists and references.

The James R. Thompson Center on West Randolph Street, as with many a mold-breaking building before and since, has been alternately praised and criticized for its unique, curving presence in the midst of its more rectilinear neighbors.

The credit for the design driving this lively debate goes to German-born architect Helmut Jahn of Murphy/Jahn, who created a State government building like no other. Murphy/Jahn operates a global practice out of its Chicago offices.