The State of Illinois is celebrating its 200th birthday this year, and architects from all corners of the Windy State have contributed noteworthy examples of the built environment in honor of the Bicentennial. An AIA Illinois selection committee picked the final list of 200 Great Places, all of which are accessible to the public and hold significance for their respective local communities. This new, updated 2018 list builds upon the 150 Great Places project from 2007 and includes a host of recently realized, contemporary buildings.

The historic range of featured Great Places goes all the way back to approximately the year 1000 with the Cahokia Mounds in Collinsville, then advancing to post-colonial buildings like Springfield's Old State Capitol (1837), early modernists such as the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio in Oak Park (1889) and the Paul Schweiker Home & Studio in Schaumburg (1937), iconic landmarks like Mies van der Rohe's Illinois Institute of Technology Campus (1940), Bertrand Goldberg's Marina City (1959), SOM's Willis Tower/Sears Tower (1974), Helmut Jahn's James R. Thompson Center (1985) in Chicago, all the way to contemporary favorites including Millennium Park by SOM & Gehry Partners (1999), Chicago Riverwalk Heald Square (2000), Aqua Tower by Studio Gang (2009), and the Washington/Wabash Loop Elevated Station by EXP (2017) as the newest project.

See all 200 Great Places featured at illinoisgreatplaces.com and at @ilgreatplaces on Instagram.