“Temporary Pluto Exhibit will Close Soon at Adler Planetarium,” by S.M. O’Connor

The award-winning temporary exhibit What is a Planet? re-opened at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, but will close shortly. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (I.A.U.) voted to reclassify the planet Pluto as a dwarf planet rather than grant recognition as planets to celestial bodies of similar size at the periphery of the Solar System that had been discovered since 1992. Given that Pluto had been considered the ninth planet in the Solar System since its discovery by astronomer Clyde William Tombaugh (1906-1997) in 1930, people around the world were upset at the news.

This was not, however, the first time astronomers had to reconsider the definition of planet due to newly discovered knowledge of the Universe. Astronomers used to think of a planet as any celestial body that moved relative to the stars, but the same could be said of the Sun (which is a star, not a planet); asteroids, which are or seem to be the debris from the formation of planets; meteoroids, which are smaller than asteroids; and comets. There was also the realization that Earth, too, was a planet.

Local Italian-American sculptor and industrial designer Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965), who also sculpted a bronze plaque representing one of the twelve signs of the zodiac that is inset at each corner of the Adler Planetarium’s facade, sculpted the eight planets then accepted by astronomers on display in the building’s lobby. Oddly enough, his work was completed before Tombaugh made the discovery at Lowell Observatory of the existence of the dwarf planet Pluto, so when the I.A.U. downgraded Pluto from planetary status to a mere Kuiper Belt Object in 2006, a representation of Pluto did not have to be removed to conform to the current state of scientific opinion.

In the exhibit, one finds artifacts from the museum’s collections that illustrate how the concept of planet has changed over the past 500 years, reactions in the mass media to the reclassification of Pluto, and find out how astronomers determine what is and what is not a planet today. Presented by Bank of America, the exhibit is open through Sunday, August 18, 2019.

Figure 1 Credit: Adler Planetarium Caption: The exhibit won first place in the British Society for the History of Science 2016 Great Exhibitions Competition.

Figure 2 Credit: Adler Planetarium Caption: Astrolabes like this one were used for celestial navigation. This one has forty-one star markers. It is labeled in Latin in Gothic script.

The Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum is located at the northeastern corner of Northerly Island, which is really a peninsula. It is the only island from a chain of artificial islands Daniel Hudson Burnham, Senior (1846-1912) and Edward H. Bennett (1874-1954) called for in the Plan of Chicago. Northerly Island is part of the Chicago Park District’s Burnham Park. The Field Museum of Natural History, the John G. Shedd Aquarium, and Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum comprise the Museum Campus at the northern end of Burnham Park, east of Grant Park in downtown Chicago. Soldier Field and the Lakeside Center of McCormick Place are immediately south of the Museum Campus. The Arie Crown Theater is inside the Lakeside Center.

Normally, the Adler Planetarium is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. It is open from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. from Memorial Day (May 27, 2019) through Labor Day (September 2, 2019) and during “Winter Break” from Thursday, December 26, 2019 through Wednesday, January 1, 2020. The Adler Planetarium will close early at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 7, 2019. It will be closed on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 28, 2019) and Christmas Day (Wednesday, December 25, 2019).

The address is 1300 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60605. The phone number is (312) 922-7827. The Website U.R.L. is https://www.adlerplanetarium.org.

$5.00 Per Month In THE GARDEN CITY Subscription Plan

$50.00 Per Year In THE GARDEN CITY Subscription Plan

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.