Horwitz & Co. has committed itself since its earliest days to innovative urban real estate development. The only sin is imitation; openness and imagination are our counselors. The audacious early loft renovations took industrial space in down-at-the-heels neighborhoods north of the river and created energetic communities featuring generous, light-filled spaces where a generation of  architects, designers, and illustrators could live, work and dream. These "incubator" buildings for Chicago's creative community became the centerpieces of neighborhoods like River North, Clybourn Avenue, South Michigan Avenue, North and Larrabee, the West Loop — to name a few.

Residential, commercial and retail developments followed — the creation of space to contain and nurture the vital life of a vital city. Whether a development seeks social importance, architectural excitement or classical endurance, the goal has been in every case to look at the world in which we live with newly-opened eyes and to embrace the unexpected opportunity. More than once we have been able to anticipate the site of the action to come. There are no repeat performances in this body of work. Many projects became prototypes for the next generation of developers. With each project the effort is to reach beyond the ordinary to create space where the imagination can dwell, where people can love and work and flourish. Yes, and spend too.

It has always been safer to follow a market than to create one. The risk is real, no matter how well you structure the deal, and the dangers are legion. Recessions and market migrations, community unrest, the Kafkaesque machinations of urban politics — the obstacles are unending. Sometimes you succeed beyond your wildest hopes; then again a sure-fire idea can fail for a small slip in the timing. But the beat goes on. The compulsion to create is undiminished — the next project beckons.