The Art Institute of Chicago guards its entrance with two bronze lions that have stood since 1894, their green patina the work of oxidation, much like the Statue of Liberty. Sculptor Edward Kemeys, a self-taught artist and America's first great animal sculptor, positioned one lion on the prowl and the other in an attitude of defiance. They have barely moved since.

Inside, over 260,000 works span millennia, from an ancient Egyptian mummy case to Grant Wood's American Gothic and Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. Much of the celebrated Impressionist collection arrived thanks to Bertha Palmer, queen of Gilded Age Chicago, who bought Monets and Renoirs from Parisian dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in the years before the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use the Art Institute as a lens on Chicago's resilience, connecting the Beaux-Arts building, designed for the 1893 World's Fair, to the city's journey from post-fire ruin to cultural powerhouse.