The Chicago Cultural Center, opened in 1897, is a

Chicago Landmark Chicago Landmark is a designation by the Mayor and the City Council of Chicago for historic sites in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, archit ...

building operated by Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events that houses the city's official reception venue where the Mayor of Chicago has welcomed presidents and royalty, diplomats and community leaders. It is located in the Loop, across Michigan Avenue from

Millennium Park Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago, operated by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The park, opened in 2004 and intended to celebrate the third millennium, is a prominent civic center ne ...

. Originally the central library building, it was converted in 1977 to an arts and culture center at the instigation of Commissioner of Cultural Affairs

Lois Weisberg Lois Weisberg (May 6, 1925 – January 13, 2016) was the first Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for the City of Chicago, from 1989 until January 2011. She was profiled by writer Malcolm Gladwell in a 1999 ''New Yorker'' essay, "Six Degrees of Lois ...

. The city's central library is now housed across the Loop in the spacious, postmodern

Harold Washington Library Center The Harold Washington Library Center is the central library for the Chicago Public Library System. It is located just south of the Loop 'L', at 400 S. State Street in Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is a full-service library and is ...

opened in 1991. As the nation's first free municipal cultural center, the Chicago Cultural Center is one of the city's most popular attractions and is considered one of the most comprehensive arts showcases in the United States. Each year, the Chicago Cultural Center features more than 1,000 programs and exhibitions covering a wide range of the performing, visual and literary arts. It also serves as headquarters for the

Chicago Children's Choir Chicago Children's Choir is a non-profit organization, founded in 1956 at First Unitarian Church of Chicago. Organization Founded in Hyde Park in 1956, CCC has grown from one choir into a network of in-school and after-school programs serving near ...

. MB Real Estate provides events management for the center.

Architecture of the Chicago Cultural Center

The building was designed by Boston architectural firm

Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge was a successful architecture firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, operating between 1886 and 1915, with extensive commissions in monumental civic, religious, and collegiate architecture in the spirit and style of Hen ...

for the city's central library, and

Grand Army of the Republic The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army (United States Army), Union Navy (United States Navy, U.S. Navy), and the United States Marine Corps, Marines who served in the American Ci ...

(GAR) meeting hall and memorial in 1892. The land was donated by the GAR and the building was completed in 1897 at a cost of nearly $2 million (equivalent to $ million in ). It is organized as a 4-story north wing (77 East Randolph entrance) and a 5-story south wing (78 East Washington entrance), 104 feet tall, with masonry walls faced with Bedford Blue Limestone on a granite base, and designed in a generally neoclassical style with Italian Renaissance elements. It is capped with two stained-glass domes, set symmetrically atop the two wings. Key points of architectural interest are as follows: * Randolph Street entrance and stairway - Entrance with

doric column The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of co ...

s, mahogany doors, and entry hall with

coffered ceiling A coffer (or coffering) in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, als ...

and walls of green-veined Vermont marble. The curving stairway is faced with Knoxville pink marble, and features mosaics and ornate bronze balusters. * Washington Street entrance, lobby, and grand staircase - Arched portal, bronze-framed doors, and a 3-story, vaulted lobby with walls of white

Carrara Carrara ( , ; , ) is a city and '' comune'' in Tuscany, in central Italy, of the province of Massa and Carrara, and notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some west-northwest of Florence. Its mo ...

marble and mosaics. The staircase is also of white Carrara marble, set with medallions of green marble from

Connemara Connemara (; )( ga, Conamara ) is a region on the Atlantic coast of western County Galway, in the west of Ireland. The area has a strong association with traditional Irish culture and contains much of the Connacht Irish-speaking Gaeltacht, ...

, Ireland, and intricate mosaics of

Favrile Favrile glass is a type of iridescent art glass developed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. He patented this process in 1894 and first produced the glass for manufacture in 1896 in Queens, New York. It differs from most iridescent glasses because the col ...

glass, stone, and mother of pearl. The stairway to the 5th floor was inspired by Venice's

Bridge of Sighs The Bridge of Sighs (Italian: ''Ponte dei Sospiri'', vec, Ponte de i Sospiri) is a bridge in Venice, Italy. The enclosed bridge is made of white limestone, has windows with stone bars, passes over the Rio di Palazzo, and connects the New Priso ...

. *

Memorial - A large hall and rotunda in the north wing. The hall is faced with deep green Vermont marble, broken by a series of arches for windows and mahogany doors. The rotunda features 30-foot walls of Knoxville pink marble, mosaic floor, and a fine, stained-glass dome in Renaissance pattern by the firm of Healy and Millet. * Sidney R. Yates Gallery - replica of an assembly hall in the

Doge's Palace The Doge's Palace ( it, Palazzo Ducale; vec, Pałaso Dogal) is a palace built in Venetian Gothic style, and one of the main landmarks of the city of Venice in northern Italy. The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice, the supreme au ...

, Venice, with heavily ornamented pilasters and coffered ceiling. *

Preston Bradley Preston Bradley (1888 – June 1, 1983) was an American clergyman, author, and lecturer. He believed that ethics, religion, and economics could not be separated. As a follower of Henry George, he believed that ministers must be concerned with socia ...

Hall - A large, ornately patterned room of curving white Carrara marble, capped with an austere 38-foot

Tiffany glass Tiffany glass refers to the many and varied types of glass developed and produced from 1878 to 1933 at the Tiffany Studios in New York City, by Louis Comfort Tiffany and a team of other designers, including Clara Driscoll, Agnes F. Northrop, an ...

dome designed by artist J. A. Holzer. The Cultural Center states this to be the largest Tiffany dome in the world.

Renovation

* The Chicago Cultural Center underwent an extensive renovation in 2021 - 2022 with the goal of unearthing the original beauty of the building. The meticulous restoration of the art glass dome and decorative finishes in the Grand Army of the Republic rooms, a Civil War memorial, was made possible by a generous grant of services valued at over $15 million to the City of Chicago. The Chicago Cultural Center is home to two magnificent stained-glass domes. Chicago-based Harboe Architects, a leading firm in historic preservation, was awarded the project. * The scope of the project included recreating long-lost light fixtures, cleaning and polishing old marble, restoring mahogany doors, installation of new glass, and restoration teams performed many meticulous hours removing layers of paint in the historic rooms. Also included in the scope was the complete restoration of the 40 foot diameter Tiffany-designed stained glass dome which had become covered in grime and paint. The dome contained over 60,000 individual pieces of glass to be restored.

Daprato Rigali Studios Daprato Rigali Studios (formerly Daprato Statuary Company) is a nationally-recognized interior restoration and renovation company in Chicago. It was founded in 1860 by the Daprato brothers, Italian immigrants from the town of Barga. The compan ...

of Chicago, IL performed the stained-glass dome restoration.

Past exhibitions

Richard Hunt Steel Bloom, Number 10, 1956 Chicago Cultural Center

''Crossroads: Modernism in Ukraine, 1910-1930'' was a display of art by Ukrainian artists, such as Sukher Ber Rybak, Vsevolod Maskymovych, and Oleksandr Bohomazov to name a few. ''Crossroads'' was organized by the Foundation for International Arts and Education with the

National Art Museum of Ukraine The National Art Museum of Ukraine ( uk, Національний Художній Музей України) is a museum dedicated to Ukrainian art in Kyiv, Ukraine. History The National Art Museum of Ukraine, which was the first museum in Ky ...

. It is presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Kyiv Committee of the Chicago Sister Cities International Program. The exhibition ran from July 22, 2006 - October 15, 2006. Richard Hunt: Sixty Years of Sculpture was a major exhibition of sixty sculptures spanning Hunt's career. The exhibition drew primarily from his extensive “self-collection,” lent to the center for the show. This exhibition ran from December 6, 2014, through March 29, 2015

"Rush More"

In 2017,

Kerry James Marshall Kerry James Marshall (born October 17, 1955) is an American artist and professor, known for his paintings of Black figures. He previously taught painting at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2017, Marshall ...

was commissioned to produce an inaugural mural entitled “Rush More”. Located on the west façade of the cultural center, the piece is an homage to women who have contributed to the culture of Chicago. Portrayed are: Washington painted the mural on a scale rendering of the building. The piece was then transposed to the actual façade by the muralist Jeff Zimmerman. Financing for the project was made possible by the non-profit, Murals of Acceptance and through philanthropic donations from David Arquette, Patricia Arquette, Marc Benioff, and Lynne Benioff.

References

External links