This illustrated map features 70+ building icons — from the Carbide & Carbon Building to projects by leading architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano, SOM, Jeanne Gang, Morris Adjmi, John Ronan, and many more — plus a QR-linked pin map with building descriptions and links to Google Maps.
It was really useful but had less information on the architecture than I expected. I wish there were more facts around each building and more buildings explained!
While the map includes architectually rich suburban destinations such Oak Park and Evanston, it should also go a little farther to the south side in the city to the Pullman neighborhood and the architecture of Solon Spencer Beman in the Pullman planned company town.
I was expecting and want it to be in more of a laminated format. It feels very fragile and I want to be able to use it and carry it with me...feels like it'll get beaten up very easily.
It took a little over a couple of weeks to get it, depending on where you live (so if you are planning on using it on an upcoming trip, be aware of that). Aside from that, the information on the maps is great, and I recommend it to all architecture lovers.
The idea behind this guide is great, and the price is reasonable. However, I found the print quality thinner than expected and the content somewhat minimal. It’s primarily a map without much detail about the buildings or architects, so I didn’t feel especially motivated to visit the sites. I was hoping for more context or storytelling to bring the architecture to life.
Store owner replied:
Hi Lisa, thank you for your kind words and review. Since you posted your review, we've updated the QR codes for all of our guides to include more information about each of the pinned buildings including the architect, year of completion, type, materials and design overview.
Rather disappointed. The text is so small that the maps are virtually useless.
Store owner replied:
Hi Luc,
Thank you for the feedback and I’m sorry you had a negative experience of our maps. You’re absolutely right, some of the text on our maps is really small. The size of the cities we feature range from incredibly large (like Mexico City, LA and Tokyo) to very small (like Oslo or Lisbon, for example), which can lead to drastic fluctuations in text/road size. Due to the limits of the brochure size, it’s something we’ve reluctantly had to live with in order to capture as many building locations on our maps as possible. It’s why we introduced a QR code on the back of the guides that you can scan with your phone to access a pin map with Google Map directions, so you can easily access the precise locations of each building on your phone and plan out your movement while visiting.
Thank you for trying our guides in any case.
Karl, founder of Avontuura
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