“The Story of Earth at the Museum of Science & Industry’s Giant Dome Theater” by S.M. O’Connor

The Australian documentary The Story of Earth (2018) debuted at the Museum of Science and Industry’s Giant Dome Theater on Friday, May 25, 2018. It will play the Museum of Science and Industry (M.S.I.) through the spring of 2019. Rachel Ward, a Golden Globe-nominated Australian model-turned-actress, director, and screenwriter, best known for co-starring in The Thorn Birds, narrated the forty-minute-long short film.

According to a press release from the M.S.I., “The film…highlights the work of geologists traveling the globe to piece together clues of Earth’s history. Audiences will join this research team as they explore Australia and Iceland to gather evidence on the extraordinary chain of events that made life not only possible, but sustainable.” Produced by December Media, the film “uses simulations based on scientific data to create visually stunning recreations of Earth from billions of years ago, including revealing the convection of Earth’s inner mantle. Guests are fully immersed as they witness how, over billions of years, Earth transformed from an inhabitable ball of molten rock into a paradise covered with oceans of water.”

It is screened daily at 10:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m., 1:00 p.m., and 3:00 p.m. On days with extended hours, it is also screened at 4:00 p.m.

The film is not covered by Museum Entry (general admission) and requires an additional timed-entry ticket. For more information on The Story of Earth, visit www.msichicago.org/giantdometheater.

Figure 1 Credit: Museum of Science and Industry Caption: With The Story of Earth (2018) viewers journey through the reconstruction of Earth created by violent collisions in space.

Figure 2 Credit: Museum of Science and Industry Caption: The Story of Earth (2018) highlights the work of geologists traveling the globe to piece together clues of Earth’s history.

Figure 3 Credit: Museum of Science and Industry Caption: Guests watching The Story of Earth (2018) are fully immersed as they see a simulation of how, over billions of years, Earth transformed from an inhabitable ball of molten rock into a paradise covered with oceans of water.

This year, the Museum of Science and Industry is celebrating the 75^th anniversary of its first opening ceremony, during Chicago’s second World’s Fair, A Century of Progress International Exposition (1933-34). It opened in three stages between 1933 and 1940. The building that houses the Museum of Science and Industry, is the Palace of Fine Arts. Designed by Charles B. Atwood (1849-1896), it was built to house a temporary art museum for Chicago’s first World’s Fair, the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893), and afterwards it housed the Columbian Field Museum, which evolved into The Field Museum of Natural History, until 1920, when it moved into its new quarters, where it opened in 1921. Consequently, this year the Museum of Science and Industry is celebrating the 125^th anniversary of the building and The Field Museum of Natural History is celebrating the 125^th anniversary of its foundation.

Through Labor Day (Monday, September 3, 2018), the M.S.I. is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day except Saturday, August 11^th. On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, the M.S.I. will revert to regular hours (9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.). On Sunday, September 23, 2018, the M.S.I. will be open from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; on Saturday, October 6, 2018, will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.; and on the weekend of Saturday, November 17, 2018 and Sunday, November 18, 2018, the M.S.I. will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Museum of Science and Industry will be closed on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 22, 2018) and the First Day of Christmas (Tuesday, December 25, 2018). Extended hours (9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.) will be in play again from Friday, November 23, 2018 to Sunday, November 25, 2018; Saturday, December 1, 2018 and Sunday, December 2, 2018; Saturday, December 8, 2018 and Sunday, December 9, 2018; Saturday, December 15, 2018 and Sunday, December 2016; Saturday, December 22, 2018 and Sunday, December 23, 2018; and Wednesday, December 26, 2018 through Sunday, December 30, 2018. Check this Webpage and the Museum of Science and Industry’s social media for updates.

Often stylized as the “Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago” or the “Museum of Science + Industry” the institution is located at the northern end of Jackson Park, on the south side of 57^th Street, between Lake Shore Drive to the east and Cornell Drive to the west, in the East Hyde Park neighborhood of the Hyde Park Community Area (Community Area #41) on the South Side of Chicago. The address is 5700 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60637. The M.S.I. is open every day of the year with two exceptions: Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. On most days, it is open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., but during peak periods it is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Website is https://www.msichicago.org/ and the phone number is (773) 684-1414.

The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.