Chicago has a distinguished history of great architecture. The city’s contemporary architecure has difficulty competing, so a set of annual awards teases out some of the best. “Do the awards reflect great originality, or even the presence of geniuses among us? Maybe not, but they’re limited by the fact that they honor projects that have been executed; if you’re an architect and your last name isn’t Gehry, many of your best and most original designs are likely to remain unbuilt. And sure, the awards paint a collective portrait of architects who are primarily extending, refining and reinterpreting the tropes of modernism, rather than founding new movements or styles. But they’re doing so with a confident panache that virtually swaggers.”