An eventual solution though probably not one that will happen on Mr MacGregor's watch would be to send the marbles back to Athens on loan and accept the Greek offer to provide a series of temporary exhibitions of classical art to fill the gallery.

ECONOMIST: A new tribute to the Parthenon

And though the city's monumental examples of the beaux arts and art deco movements are well documented in civic buildings dressed up in a mixed bag of Classical Roman and Greek elements, the city actually received its greatest modern architectural contribution in the years after WWII, when Ludwig Mies van der Rohe pioneered the new "International Style".

BBC: The infamous architecture of Chicago