There is no shortage of architectural masterpieces that define Chicago’s skyline. But Viceroy Hotel Group and local developer Convexity Properties wanted something that felt fresh and modern for the brand’s Windy Cindy debut. Local architecture firm Goettsch Partners answered that request with an 18-story glass tower set behind the revamped brick and terracotta exterior that once housed the circa-1920s Cedar Hotel for a “dramatic contemporary contrast,” says Todd-Avery Lenahan, founder and principal of TAL Studio, the Las Vegas firm responsible for the interiors of the 180-room property, including Devereaux, the indoor-outdoor rooftop pool bar from Boka Restaurant Group. (The local company is also behind the ground-floor restaurant Somerset, designed by New York firm and frequent collaborator AvroKO.) Lenahan was inspired by flâneur, an 18th and 19th-century literary figure known for his “free spirit and eye for exploration,” he notes, with the arrival living room and lobby boasting commanding bronze sculptural reception desks that are backed by a vibrant art piece depicting a Venetian carnival music recital from South American cubist painter Badi. In addition, midcentury furnishings stand in front of a more than 30-foot-high tableau wall of author Marcel Proust’s writings done in blue and gold.

In the residentially informed guestrooms, similar shades of sand and teal reflect “an artist’s palette before colors are incorporated into a larger painting,” he says. The hues blend with eye-catching headboard wallcoverings that are digital recreations of a work by London-based artist Tim Modus, chosen to celebrate, Lenahan says, “an iconic, endearing, and enduring period of Chicago’s architectural past.”