God this one is even more bonkers than I realized. It’s wonderful. Chicago industrialist Robert Ilg built his employees a 22-acre countryside ‘pleasure park’ in the suburbs and–since a regular old water tower would be inelegant–had it disguised as a half-size replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Interested in living in one of the first racially-integrated churches in Chicago? A developer is working on converting this striking Gothic church into 29 rental apartments and a small co-working space…a slightly unusual one, but a preservation and housing win nonetheless.

A powerful work of utilitarian architecture, a pioneering use of reinforced concrete and a postcard featuring a never-built tower–this is a good one.

One of Jens Jensen’s least favorite works, he called Humboldt Park’s sunken formal garden “a folly of my youth”–and that was before half a century of neglect filled in the water court and ripped up the flower beds.

Built as an exuberant Art Deco sausage factory in 1931, the Richter's Food Products Building in West Loop is an illuminating stand-in for the last 90 years of the neighborhood.