Since the lamentable closing of Prairie Avenue Books, whose reading room was full but whose till was empty, there have been few contenders to its mantle. (After Prairie closed its doors for good, artist Theaster Gates preserved some 14,000 volumes.) Chicago Architecture Foundation’s shop on Michigan Avenue still stocks mostly Chicago-centric fair, like lavishly published editions of Burnham and Bennett’s Plan of Chicago. More obscure and brainy titles from around the world are carried inside the Graham Foundation. Perhaps the most accessible selection of books on all manner of design, beckoning would-be readers with glossy vistas, is at Powell’s Bookstore in University Village. There, expect to find standard texts on architecture alongside the kinds of “archiporn” tomes that very hip hotels display on coffee tables.
