At his passing in 2019, Stanley Tigerman had been one of the city’s most influential architects for almost 60 years. The Chicago native worked for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and George Fred Keck during the 1950s before nabbing two architecture degrees in as many years from Yale’s School of Architecture and then putting out his own shingle in 1962. A new book recently published by his alma mater, “Stanley Tigerman: Drawing on the Ineffable,” presents drawings from every phase of his career chosen from among more than 2,000 items donated by the architect to Yale.

For those of us who knew Stanley — and he seemed to know everybody — he could be an exasperating force of nature. But three things were never in doubt: his devotion to Chicago, his dedication to architecture and his sense of humor that extended to all things architectural and otherwise. The book captures this sensibility well.

In the years following Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s death in 1969, large offices like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Perkins & Will dominated the Chicago architectural scene. But Tigerman led a small office revolution during this period, spawning a group of young practitioners including Larry Booth, Jim Nagle, Tom Beeby and Stuart Cohen who transformed architectural culture and practice in the city. While building was always of paramount importance, drawing played a crucial role in this endeavor, shown in galleries and publications that brought attention to these then-young architects and their ideas.

Tigerman began sketching cartoons in his youth and continued this mode of drawing until his final days. Dubbed “Architoons,” these were a genre uniquely his own, spinning narrative tales about his projects, the places he visited and his philosophical musings. Idiosyncratic and highly personal winged soldier/angel characters fly through many of his imagined landscapes that often incorporate his varied projects, built and unbuilt.

Drawing has always had an important role in the creation of........

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