Russian Tea Time

Symphony Center is a music complex located at 220 South Michigan Avenue in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Chicago Symphony Chorus; Civic Orchestra of Chicago; and the Institute for Learning, Access, and Training; Symphony Center includes the 2,522-seat Orchestra Hall, which dates from 1904; Buntrock Hall, a rehearsal and performance space; Grainger Ballroom, an event space overlooking Michigan Avenue and the Art Institute of Chicago; a public multi-story rotunda; Opus restaurant and café; and administrative offices. In June 1993, plans to significantly renovate and expand Orchestra Hall were approved and the $110 million project resulting in Symphony Center began in 1995 and was completed in 1997. Designed by architect Daniel Burnham, Orchestra Hall was designated a National Historic Landmark on April 19, 1994. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978.

The Chapin and Gore Building is a historic building located at 63 East Adams Street in downtown Chicago, Illinois. The distilling company of Chapin and Gore had the building constructed in 1904 for their business; the original building consisted a first-floor bar and store and offices and warehouse space in the remainder of the building. Architectural partners Richard E. Schmidt and Hugh M. G. Garden designed the building, which has a functional plan but includes substantial ornamentation such as terra cotta and brickwork. The building's ornamental capitals and cornice were removed in the 1950s. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 27, 1979, and later designated as a Chicago Landmark on January 21, 1982. The Chapin and Gore Building is currently the home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra administration. It is part of the Symphony Center campus, attached in 1997 to Orchestra Hall. The Opus restaurant and café is on the ground floor, serving orchestra patrons and the public.

The Peoples Gas Building at 122 South Michigan Avenue on the corner of Adams Street in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois.

The Consulate General of the Philippines in Chicago is a diplomatic mission of the Republic of the Philippines in the United States, representing the country's interests in the state of Illinois. Opened in 1948, it is currently located on the 16th floor of the Peoples Gas Building in the Historic Michigan Boulevard District, part of the Loop community area in downtown Chicago, across from the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Municipal Courts Building, also known as the Lake View Building, is a skyscraper located at 116 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. The building was built from 1906 to 1907 to serve as a temporary home for Chicago's Municipal Court. Jacob L. Kesner built the building, which was originally 12 stories tall, on a strip of land only 40 feet (12 m) wide; Kesner was one of the few property owners willing to grant the Municipal Court of Chicago a short-term lease. The building was completed later than planned, had less square footage than promised, and charged a higher rent than a competing offer from a warehouse, prompting Mayor Edward Dunne to conduct an ethics investigation into the approval of the building contract. The court only used the building until 1911; after it moved out, Kesner added another five stories to the building.The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 29, 1985.

Mid-Continental Plaza is a 583 ft (178m) tall skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. It was completed in 1972 and has 49 floors. Shaw and Associates designed the building, which is the 62nd tallest building in Chicago. It was originally planned as two 40-story black glass towers. The top 10 floors have been converted to condominiums called The Park Monroe.

Lions is a pair of outdoor 1893 bronze sculptures by Edward Kemeys, installed outside the Art Institute of Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois.

National Louis University (NLU) is a private university with its main campus in Chicago, Illinois. NLU enrolls undergraduate and graduate students in more than 60 programs across its four colleges. It has locations throughout the Chicago metropolitan area as well as a regional campus in Tampa Bay, Florida, where it serves students from 13 counties in that state’s central region. Since its founding in 1886, NLU has played a historic role in the education sector. Its founders helped start the National Kindergarten Movement, helped inaugurate the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA), and promoted the importance of academic and professional training in early childhood education theory and practice. NLU has received more than $65 million in funding for applied research projects in urban development, childhood development, school improvement and teacher preparation. Its alumni have served in Illinois state government and received multiple James Beard awards; 76 alumni from its National College of Education have received honorary recognition by the Golden Apple Foundations of Chicago and Rockford.

Adams/Wabash is an 'L' station serving the CTA's Brown, Green, Orange, Pink, and Purple Lines. Until 1963, it also served interurban trains of the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad. It is the closest CTA station to Symphony Center, home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and school, SAIC has been accredited since 1936 by the Higher Learning Commission, by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design since 1944 (charter member), and by the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD) since the associations founding in 1991. Additionally it is accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board. In a 2002 survey conducted by Columbia University's National Arts Journalism Program, SAIC was named the “most influential art school” in the United States. Its downtown Chicago campus consists of seven buildings located in the immediate vicinity of the AIC building. SAIC is in an equal partnership with the AIC and shares many administrative resources such as design, construction, and human resources. The campus, located in the Loop, comprises chiefly five main buildings: the McLean Center (112 S. Michigan Ave.), the Michigan building (116 S Michigan Ave), the Sharp (36 S. Wabash Ave.), Sullivan Center (37 S. Wabash Ave.), and the Columbus (280 S. Columbus Dr.). SAIC also holds classes in the Spertus building at 610 S. Michigan. SAIC owns additional buildings throughout Chicago that are used as student galleries or investments. There are three dormitory facilities: The Buckingham, Jones Hall, and 162 N State Street residencies.

The Ryerson & Burnham Libraries are the art and architecture research collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The libraries cover all periods with extensive holdings in the areas of 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century architecture and 19th-century painting, prints, drawings, and decorative arts. A variety of materials important to scholarly research includes architects' diaries, correspondence, job files, photographs, sketchbooks, scrapbooks, articles, transcripts, and personal papers.

The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 million people annually. Its collection, stewarded by 11 curatorial departments, is encyclopedic, and includes iconic works such as Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Pablo Picasso's The Old Guitarist, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, and Grant Wood's American Gothic. Its permanent collection of nearly 300,000 works of art is augmented by more than 30 special exhibitions mounted yearly that illuminate aspects of the collection and present cutting-edge curatorial and scientific research. As a research institution, the Art Institute also has a conservation and conservation science department, five conservation laboratories, and one of the largest art history and architecture libraries in the country—the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries. The growth of the collection has warranted several additions to the museum's 1893 building, which was constructed for the World's Columbian Exposition. The most recent expansion, the Modern Wing designed by Renzo Piano, opened in 2009 and increased the museum's footprint to nearly one million square feet, making it the second-largest art museum in the United States, after the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Art Institute is associated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a leading art school, making it one of the few remaining unified arts institutions in the United States. In 2017, the Art Institute received 1,619,316 visitors, and was the 35th most-visited art museum in the world. However, in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum was closed for 169 days, and attendance plunged by 78 percent from 2019, to 365,660.