By P. Crane By P. Crane | September 20, 2024 | Lifestyle, Feature, Features, Featured,
For 14 years, the Chicago Architecture Center (CAC) has held Open House Chicago (OHC), a free festival that grants backstage access to some of Chicago’s most iconic modern and historic sites. On Oct. 19 and 20, CAC is highlighting over 170 locations across Chicago, 25 of which are new this year.
“With all the new developments happening or proposed in Chicago, it’s more important than ever that people see how architecture and design shape our city,” says Eleanor Gorski, CEO and president of the Chicago Architecture Center. “Open House Chicago is easily accessible and free to all. We hope the event fosters dialogue about architecture and inspires people to become more actively engaged in shaping and improving our built environment.”
Many of the locations are hosting unique events and activities not otherwise seen throughout the year, and the CAC also has something new this year: its website, which can be used alongside its app to learn about the offered programs and then plan your route through them.
It’s perfect for figuring out whether to attend mosaic magnet making at Growing Home Urban Street Farm in Englewood, salsa lessons at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture in Humboldt Park or Graceland Cemetery’s paper marigold and ofrenda making for Dia de Los Muertos with the National Museum of Mexican Art, and there are plenty more activities being announced as the OHC weekend gets closer.
There are also striking historical sites like the Al-Sadiq mosque in Bronzeville, one of the oldest mosques in the United States, built in 1922, and the legendary Chess Studio at Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation.
For the first time, the OHC will also feature the Driehaus Museum’s Murphy Auditorium, a feat of architecture with cast bronze doors produced by Tiffany Studios and an exterior built to mimic parts of the Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Consolation, a neo-baroque memorial in the Champs-Elysees district in Paris. Despite its French inspiration, it was designed by local Chicago architects Benjamin Marshall and Charles E. Fox.
Before the event, a taste of what’s to come is being offered as CAC holds its Designing Futures Gala on Oct. 1 to raise funds for the Open House and other programming. It will take place at the Ramova Theater in Bridgeport, a nearly 100-year-old building that hadn’t been in use for almost 40 years after it drew its curtains on its operations as a theater back in 1985, which has reopened this year as a hybrid brewery, restaurant and concert venue.
As a final new addition this year, an OHC photography competition will be open for festival-goers to enter. The CAC is accepting submissions taken at one of the OHC sites in four categories: detail, black and white, interior and exterior, though an entry can only be submitted to one of the four.
Selected participants will have their photos printed and displayed at one of the CAC’s exhibitions, Framed Views: OHC Photography, opening Nov. 23. The winners will be handpicked by local photographers and receive complimentary CAC memberships.
To learn more, visit architecture.org and follow @chiarchitecture and #chiarchitecture on social media.
See also: The Ultimate Chicago Neighborhood Guide
Photography by: Photos of Chicago Architecture Center’s 2024 Open House event by Carrie Graham, Anna Munzesheimer and Warren Perlstein courtesy of the Chicago Architecture Center