Henri Bouyett Cultural Event Topic Museum Of Science and Industry

If youve ever visited downtown Chicago you probably saw the vast array of architectural difference there is many of the different buildings/skyscrapers that surround the city. Once you get past the awe of how tall some of the buildings are you start to notice the beauty in some of the older structures, specifically the cultural attractions of Chicago. There is the Art Institute, the Chicago Public Library, the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, and many more which were built with some heavy influence from classical styles. The one that I was able to visit and the museum that I enjoy the most is the one that is located in Hyde Park, the Science and Industry Museum, which boasts many different types of architectural styles and combines them to form the largest museum of its kind in the western hemisphere. This building probably has the richest story in Chicago architectural history, it was part of the two of the worlds largest fairs, it broke many records in terms of size, and interaction ability and it has been around for almost a 120 years. Before and during the time of the construction of this building the United States was going through period which was known as the American Renaissance. Americans believed they were the heir to Greek democracy, Roman law, and Renaissance Humanism. Americans were preoccupied with their national identity and they expressed this through technology, their modernism and also their taste for classicism. Just like in the Italian Renaissance there was a large emphasis placed on education and on humanism. This period coincided with the New Imperialism age hence why the Americans believed that this truly was the great next empire;

they truly believed they were building the American Empire and the most popular style in architectural designing that embodied this movement was the Beaux-Arts style which was a neoclassical architectural style that originated in Paris. This form of architectural technique included Imperial Roman architecture, Italian Renaissance, and French/Italian baroque styles. Other styles that where incorporated into Beaux-Arts where also late French Gothic style or Quattrocento Florentine palace styles. In the United States architects leaned more towards Greek models than Imperial Roman models (The American Renaissance: 18761917). The structure that is now called the Museum of Science and Industry used to be called the Palace of Fine Arts when it was originally constructed for the 1893 Columbian Exposition which was celebrating 400 years of Christopher Columbus discovering the new world. At the age of just 60 years old Chicago was chosen to host one of the Worlds largest fairs and with 27 million visitors it is the largest tourist event this country has ever seen. The Palace of Fine Arts was an exception to most of the other buildings built in the White City for the exposition, instead of it being built with wood or clad in staff the Fine Arts building had to be fireproofed because they needed a building that was going to hold the finest art from across the globe. Due to the fact that it was going to hold the finest art from around the globe it had to be built with brick walls and concrete floors which made it the fairs strongest structure. According to the Hyde ParkKenwood-Community Conference and its Website It was covered, though, like most of the buildings, with gesso, a plaster and glue material modified for the fair, and the cost was Cost: $541,795. The structure itself was to be designed by Charles B. Atwood for the firm D. H. Burnham & Co. Daniel Burnham, who was the leading developer of the fair, chose the classical Beaux-Arts style as the unifying theme for all of the main structures that where going to be a part

of the White City. It was going to be located on the northern far end of the fairgrounds in Jackson Park and it was designed in a classical style which was heavily inspired by ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The building is perfectly symmetrical, just like its Greek and Roman influences it was heavily covered with ornaments and what made it stand out the most was its sense of grandeur (http://www.blueprintchicago.org/2010/05/12/museum-of-scienceand-industry). After the completion of the building one of the most famous American sculptors from the Beaux-Arts generation during the American Renaissance period said that the building was the finest thing done since the Parthenon. When it was first built its main and most popular entrance faced the lagoon and could only be reached by gondolas. Charles Atwood was the leading architect of the Palace of Fine Arts building and he was really known for his classical style of monumental buildings of that era, the man had the same vision for architecture that the Romans and Greek had. The great structure though was not built to last for a long time and by the 1920s it became to start completely deteriorating. After the exposition had ended the members who organized the event and the City of Chicago wanted to have a main place to keep all of the great fine art pieces that where left behind because of the fair. They ended up choosing the Palace of Fine arts because of its enormous size which could boast countless of exhibits. Marshall Fields financed the move and in 1906 the building was named the Field Museum of Natural History. Since the building eventually became deteriorating though Marshall Fields started looking for a new home for all the exhibits and eventually in 1923 moved to what is today known as the Field Museum in Grant Park (http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/859.html). Even though it was abandoned the structure was still massive and a sight that still attracted people to come see. Occupying five acres of land, with 600,000 sq. ft. of exhibition

space, it was a large building. With a length covering 1,145 ft., it is as long as the 100-story John Hancock Tower is tall. (Stevens, 2010). In 1911 a man named Julius Rosenwald who was the chairman of Sears Roebuck & Company went to Germany to visit the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Its main purpose was to house exhibits that focused on industrial and scientific processes and promoted visitor interaction with the exhibits. This museum was a one of a kind where everything moved and visitors were encouraged to interact with the exhibits and touch buttons and work levers. He and his son were so captivated by this that he decided he had to bring this to Chicago. In the late 1920s the citizens of Chicago where able to prevent the city from demolishing the building and Rosenwald pledged 3 million dollars, the South Park District then passed a 5 million dollar bond and a restoration project ensued. Sears (which at the time was an international giant company) proposed and financed the restoration project and proposed for it to become a science museum. The renovation was led by the architect Alfred Shaw and he chose to remodel the whole interior using the Art Moderne style or also known as an Art Deco design. The exterior facade though was not allowed to be changed and they tried extremely hard in preserving the exterior design and reconstructed whatever they could with limestone. R. C. Wieboldt Company was selected for exterior restoration at $1.6 million. Work was delayed by a fight over exterior material between terra cotta manufacturers and limestone cutters, carried out from papers to board meetings. Indiana limestone won out--350,000 cubic feet weighing 28,000 tons. in 1929 Mr. Wieboldt throw a brick through a window to inaugurate the work. (http://www.hydepark.org/historicpres/MuseumSciInd.htm) The museum of Science and Industry as we know it today opened in 1933 during the same time that another great World Fair that was taking place in Chicago. This time the fair was called A Century of Progress and even though only 10% of the museum was ready for visitors

Rosenwald couldnt wait any longer and wanted to take part of this World Fair by opening the museum. During the 1930s the museum was in financial trouble due its massive amount cost to keep it running this all changed though in the 1940s when the board of directors lured Major Lenox R. Lohr who was the former general manager of the Century of Progress world fair. When you visit the museum and are staring at it from the outside (specifically the south side of the building) you feel almost as if youre somewhere in Greece staring at a building constructed in Athens due to the extremely similar style of design that this structure shares with Greek structures. It even has four enormous pillars or columns that are statues of women which were a very popular theme in classical Greek architecture style, the columns are actually called the Caryatids columns on a porch. The building itself is also massive, as I stated before it is as long as the John Hancock tower is tall. If you pay close attention to detail you will also notice the excessive amount of decoration on almost all of the faade walls. The museum does a good job in embodying many things such as how great of vision the people of American Renaissance had for style and art and it does really well in expressing what true Beaux-Art architectural style really is. Now a day it is a sight visited by more than 2 million people every year making it one of Chicagos hottest tourist attractions, it is still the largest museum in the western hemisphere and one of the largest science museums in the world. It offers over 2,000 different exhibits and is still at the forefront for interactive museums and educations of the masses through interaction.

Sources

1. . "Story of the Museum Science and Industry at 75."Museum of science and industry attractions. N.p., 2012. Web. 12 Jul 2012. <http://www.hydepark.org/historicpres/museumsciind.htm>. 2. keyes, Jonathan. "Museum of Science and Industry."Encyclopedia. N.p., 2005. Web. 12 Jul 2012. <http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/859.html>. 3. ."Museum of Science and Industry." Chicago - Architecture & Cityscape . N.p., 19/05/2011. Web. 12 Jul 2012. <http://chicago-architecturejyoti.blogspot.com/2011/05/museum-of-science-and-industry.html>. 4. Caroline Nye Stevens, . "Blueprint: Chicago." Museum of Science and Industry . N.p., 2010. Web. 12 Jul 2012. <http://www.blueprintchicago.org/2010/05/12/museum-ofscience-and-industry/>. 5. Robin Middleton, Editor. The Beaux-Arts and Nineteenth-century French Architecture. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1982). 6. Wilson, Richard Guy, The American Renaissance: 18761917, The Brooklyn Museum 1979 7. Kogan, Herman. A Continuing Marvel: The Story of the Museum of Science and Industry. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1973. 8.