For the first time, the work of one of America's most prolific architects, AIA Gold Medal winner Howard Van Doren Shaw, can be seen in its majority. Shaw designed over 200 buildings and projects (many of which appear on the National Register of Historic Buildings) in a career that stretched from 1894 to 1926.

Shaw's talents were surprisingly wideranging - he designed sprawling country houses, modern skyscrapers and townhouses, innovative apartment buildings and industrial plant complexes, and enduringly beautiful churches, collegiate structures, and civic spaces. His work represents an aspect of the Chicago School seldom explored - how European influences and eclecticism transformed the midwestern prairie and the Arts and Crafts movement in America.

Some of his well-known projects include The Goodman Memorial Theatre; McKinlock Court at the Art Institute of Chicago; the cloister and courtyard of the Fourth Presbyterian Church; Market Square, the first outdoor shopping mall in America; Marktown, a planned community in Indiana; and the innovative Lakeside Press building for R. R. Donnelley & Sons.

More than 200 historic photographs and plans provide a rare glimpse of Shaw's buildings, projects, and interiors in their original form. Also included is a complete list to date of all the buildings, and projects, designed by Shaw, whether extant or demolished, as well as area maps to many of his existing buildings.