Since 2003, Chicago financier and philanthropist Richard Driehaus – with the School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame – have awarded the Driehaus Prize to an internationally acclaimed practitioner in either traditional or classical architecture. This year, the 2009 Laureate breaks new ground – Egyptian-born Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil’s work is rooted in his native soil of the Middle East. Eight Forty-Eight architecture contributor Ed Keegan talks with El-Wakil about his work in relationship to Chicago, the birthplace of modern architecture, at the Monadnock Building at the corner of Jackson and Dearborn.