One of the most respected and popular galleries in America, the Art Institute of Chicago houses a permanent collection of 300,000 artworks and hosts innumerable temporary exhibitions, workshops, talks and performances. Helping visitors to get the most out of their visit to this vast attraction, the institute's director Douglas Druick elaborates on its most illuminating works and unique attributes.

How should first-time visitors structure their visit?We are a large museum with thousands of works on view at any given time. We’ve put considerable effort into helping visitors find their way around on their first time here. Our gallery maps list 12 of our most iconic works, so if you have a short period of time to spend at the museum and want to zero in on our highlights, that map is a great place to start. We also launched, earlier this year, a free app that has 50 different tours of the museum with indoor navigation and turn-by-turn directions. With these tours you can organise exactly the visit you want.

What should visitors ensure they see?We certainly have our fair share of iconic works of art to see - Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Grant Wood’s American Gothic, Rembrandt’sOld Man with Gold Chain, the Kuba Mukenga mask, as well as the beautiful Taddeo Ando gallery. But we would also encourage visitors to see our collections of prints and drawings, photography, Asian art, Indian art of the Americas, and architecture and design, the latter particularly for understanding the role of architecture in Chicago, a city known for its role in architectural history.

When are the best times to visit?Many people enjoy scheduling their visit around lunch time, so they can take advantage of our dining options, or on Thursday evenings, when our outdoor sculpture terrace, with beautiful views of downtown, is particularly alluring.

Which works best give insight into your country?We have a wonderful collection of American art, including many of the works recognised as being emblematic of the artistic traditions of the United States: Grant Wood’sAmerican Gothic; Edward Hooper’sNighthawks; many works by Georgia O’Keeffe and also rich holdings of 19-century American art. We also have a great collection of American folk art, American design, photography, prints and drawings, and contemporary American art. I think we represent very well the diversity that is the American character.

Which artwork has the most interesting history?Most of them! One example is an early landscape by the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian. Mondrian had given the work, framed, to his dentist in lieu of payment.  In fact, the dentist even painted the frame, himself! The work then passed along to the dentist’s daughter, who later donated it. We have a monumental El Greco altarpiece that we acquired in 1906 when the American artist Mary Cassatt convinced the museum to purchase this painting—now considered one of the artist’s masterpieces—after the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Philadelphia Museum turned it down. It’s really impossible to answer your question.

What’s your favourite artwork?Another impossible question! My background is in 19-century French art, so I suppose I am partial to our Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection. But I equally enjoy Chinese ceramics, contemporary photography, Japanese wood block prints, sculpture from India and Southeast Asia. I really can’t play favourites here.

What is the Institute’s greatest strength?I think that we are one of the very few art museums in the world that have been, and remain, simultaneously committed to both an encyclopaedic collection as well as to contemporary art. One of the reasons our Impressionism collection is so strong is because Impressionism as a movement was emerging just as we were founded in the second half of the 19 century. To us now, Impressionism is “historical” art. But at the time it was as contemporary or avant-garde as an art work created in 2013.

What is its greatest weakness?We are built over a set of railroad tracks that have run through downtown Chicago since the 19 century. It lends a certain idiosyncrasy to our footprint, and you can still hear and see the trains run underneath us.

What is unique about the Institute?Certainly the dual focus I mentioned about being an encyclopaedic museum that is also a modern and contemporary museum. But also I would say that we are very much a museum in the spirit of our hometown, Chicago, perhaps the quintessential American city. Chicago was destroyed by the Great Fire in 1871 and rebuilt itself to be an even better city, hosting the 1893 Columbian Exposition about 20 years after most of the city was reduced to a pile of smoking rubble. Chicago is a city that has always looked optimistically to the future, and the Art Institute also has that belief in renewal and forward-thinking in its DNA.

What else do you recommend visitors visit in the city?Chicago is uniquely known for its architecture, its music, and its food scene. So I would definitely recommend - weather permitting - one of the architectural river cruises that the Chicago Architecture Foundation runs. It’s an amazing way to see the city and learn about Chicago’s place in the history of architecture. Musically, we have everything from a world-class symphony and opera to historic jazz clubs to small bars that feature up-and-coming indie bands. And I would certainly encourage anyone visiting Chicago to get out into individual neighbourhoods to sample amazing cuisine from all over the world.