“What is Open House Chicago?” by S.M. O’Connor

Sunday, October 14, 2018 is the second and last day of the eighth annual Open House Chicago (October 13-14, 2018). Hosted by the Chicago Architecture Center (C.A.C.), the operational arm of the Chicago Architecture Foundation (C.A.F.), it is a free festival that offers behind-the-scenes access to over 250 sites. Download the 2018 Open House Chicago Event Guide here.

This year, Morgan Park, Beverly, and Austin joined the nearly thirty Chicago neighborhoods and two suburbs that host the sites, which include re-purposed mansions, skyscrapers, theaters, and churches. Visit https://openhousechicago.org/ to get up-to-date information on sites and to plan one’s itinerary.

One of the highlights of the festival is that drawings and architectural drawings from the Simmerling Collection will be on display at the The Cliff Dwellers club from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. C.A.C. docents will be on hand to expound on the history of The Cliff Dwellers. This is a private club, so members of the general public should take advantage of opportunities such as this one.[1]

Wintrust is the Presenting Sponsor. “We’re thrilled that Wintrust, Chicago’s Bank, has signed on as Presenting Sponsor for OHC’s 2018, 2019 and 2020 festivals,” stated Lynn Osmond, President and C.E.O. of the C.A.F. on Monday, July 9, 2018. “Last year, nearly 100,000 Chicagoans from every neighborhood discovered hidden gems in our architecturally rich and culturally diverse communities. With Wintrust’s help, we can continue to help more Chicagoans discover our great neighborhoods.”

Use the hashtag #OHC2018 on social media. The address of the Chicago Architecture Center is 111 East Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60601. The Website is http://www.architecture.org/.

[1] Founded by a group led by Hamlin Garland in 1907 as the Attic Club, it was renamed the Cliff Club in 1909 and for decades was quartered at the top of Orchestra Hall (now called the Chicago Symphony Center). In 1996, it moved to the twenty-second floor penthouse of 200 South Michigan (the former BorgWarner building) at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street, so it is next door to the Chicago Symphony Center overlooks The Art Institute of Chicago.

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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.