Rebelling against the oppressive institutionalized predominance of the doctrine of modernism, as represented by the followers of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the Chicago Seven architects were looking for new forms, a semantic content and historical references in their buildings.
The organizers put such an exclusive emphasis on the role played by Mies, his predecessors and followers, that it distorted the historical reality.
This aroused the criticism of Tigerman, Cohen, Booth and Weese who simultaneously mounted a counter-show in the Time-Life Building which attracted nationwide attention.
[2] The name stuck even after they were joined by Helmut Jahn for the 1978 project "the exquisite corpse" which produced variations on the Chicago townhouse to "demonstrate the harmonious variety of a cityscape allowed to develop through minimally controlled 'accident'.
"[3] These townhouses were characterised by their abandoning the modernist rules, the modification of the structural grid, the introduction of barrel vaults and historical references.