Mary Chandler's goal was to research 400 buildings in and around Denver, put her comments into book form and get the whole thing published before the American Institute of Architects met in Denver last summer. The task was made more complicated by an ever-changing cast of characters who served on a succession of advisory committees from the Denver Foundation for Architecture, the group that sponsored the book. Then there was the on-again-off-again funding, which came through just weeks before the AIA meetings. But the result, Guide to Denver Architecture, published by Westcliffe Publishers, was worth the wait and the effort. The result is an indispensable handbook that's at least as valuable to our skyline as some of the buildings constructed in the past year.