I'm looking for a down-loadable, brief introduction to Chicago's famous buildings. The general 'loop' area is most practical for my brief visit, but the inclusion of other neighborhoods would be fine. This is for a self-guided tour, in effect.

Googling "architecture" produces lots of information but all the web sites I found want to you click around on specific buildings, when I'm looking for something more like a walking tour that puts them all together in brief compass. Googling "walking tour" produces tour companies and a few Amazon book ads.

For what it's worth, I had great success finding this kind of info for Tokyo recently. Thanks for any Chicago ideas!

Start by checking the Chicago Architecture Foundation's website.

+1 on CAF.

CAF's ArchiCenter is a great first stop for orienting oneself with its scale model of downtown, displays about the history and evolution of local architecture, a brochure with a map of notable buildings (not sure if that's online), tour catalog (buildings which get their own tours are all quite notable), and obviously tours -- which I highly recommend. They also have an on-site bookstore, of course. The "core" tours for beginners (offered several times daily) are the River Cruise, Historic Skyscrapers, and Modern Skyscrapers, but I think there are about 100 others on offer on a rotating basis; no other American city has such a resource.

For books, I trust the AIA Guide to Chicago (2nd edition), but it's kind of hefty -- and deservedly so. It was effectively my tour guide to the city for several years. There's a whole lot to see here...

Another good site (with an excellent bibliogrophy) is the Archinforum site:

http://eng.archinform.net/ort/1820.htm

It has extensive coverage of one of my favorite Chicago architectural areas, the IIT campus (the Mies van der Rohe buildings and the recent additiona by Rem Koolhaas).

As a CAF member, I highly recommend the ArchiCenter and any CAF tour, especially the boat tour on the Chicago River. I agree that the AIA guide is excellent.