Perkins+Will stacks a dense program into a school building that rivals its lofty downtown-Chicago neighbors.

Four years ago, the quarter-mile-long stretch of land along the Fox River, about a block from downtown Green Bay, Wisconsin, was mostly a simple path and a large empty space behind a mall parking structure.

An old meatpacking plant abutting Manhattan's celebrated High Line park could soon be replaced by what promises to be one of the most talked-about buildings in New York, if all goes according to plan.

Though it focuses on the work of Chicago architect Jeanne Gang, Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects at the Art Institute of Chicago is not a retrospective.