FLANKED BY TWO TOWERING SCREENS, Johns Hopkins University civil engineering department chair Ben Schafer whisks his class through a slide-show tour of iconic Chicago structures. Here's the ornate 1893 Columbian Exposition hall, he says, built when money was no object. Now note the "wonderfully interesting external bracing" of the argyle-patterned 1970 John Hancock Center, designed by the "Einstein of skyscrapers," Fazlur Khan. Its 1976 Boston namesake, by contrast, kept popping windows because the frame was too flexible, causing years of delay. "As a piece of architecture, I love it," observes Schafer, who once lived nearby. "As a piece of structural art, it's a disaster."
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