Chicago, once a world powerhouse of manufacturing, literature, film, music, and video games can now add architecture firms to its list of industries in which it was once a leader.

The city of Burnham, Sullivan, Mies, and occasionally Wright is barely a blip in the Architectural Record annual ranking of the world’s Top 300 Architecture Firms.

Chicago-based Perkins+Will is saddled with the task of waving the flag for the Windy City. It comes in at number four. The next firm on the list is NORR, way down at number 26.

Privately, some Chicago architects say they don’t believe the list is reflective of the real state of architecture, or Chicago’s place in it. They cite two reasons primarily. First, some of the highest-ranking firms tally revenue not just from their architecture business but also their engineering wings and other related divisions and disciplines.

Also, they cite a recent spate of mergers and acquisitions with allowing large firms to get even larger, even though the core they started from hasn’t increased output. This is evident in the alphabet soup at #5: ARCADIS/Callison RTKL.

Still, here’s a look at the carnage:

Overall Top Ten

Gensler — San Francisco
AECOM — Los Angeles
Jacobs — Pasadena, California
Perkins+Will — Chicago
ARCADIS/Callison RTKL — Highlands Ranch, Colorado
CH2M Hill/IDC — Englewood, Colorado
HDR Architecture — Omaha
HOK — Saint Louis
HKS — Dallas
Skidmore Owings & Merrill — New York

The good news is that seven of the nine Chicago firms that made the list showed improvement. One was flat, and the the remaining one made its first appearance.