Construction barricades are now in place at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry’s lagoon-facing south entrance — all in preparation for plans promoted as improving entrance visibility and museum accessibility. The state and local agencies empowered to protect important landmark structures have been in lockstep to approve the proposed work.
From the 50-plus years I’ve been involved in historic preservation work in the public and private sectors, I can state without reservation that the proposed work to the museum’s campus is the most seriously damaging I have ever witnessed. The only exception of something worse was when entire historic buildings were approved for demolition.
With the approved alterations to the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, the building will essentially remain standing. But the changes will destroy the essence of what makes the building rare and special. It’s all about an elusive quality known as perfection.
When originally constructed as the Palace of Fine Arts for Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair, the building was repeatedly singled out for being as near to perfection as could be humanly achievable in its architectural composition and the relationship to its site. Creating quality classical design is one of the most challenging in architecture. It’s all about a perfect relationship of proportions, details and site. All parts must harmoniously relate to the whole.
At the time of the 1893 World’s Fair, the respected sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens said of the building: “I am just bowled over; there is no breath in me. As for that art gallery, it is the greatest thing since Athens.”
Prior to construction, New York architect Charles F. McKim — a stickler for classical accuracy — looked over designer Charles B. Atwood’s plans for errors. He ultimately exclaimed, “Confound him, he is right every time,” and later praised the building as “the greatest thing that has been done in the present century in any country.”
Because of its architectural accolades, the Palace of the Fine Arts was one of the only major building of the World’s Fair to be preserved, becoming the first home of what is now the Field Museum. When vacated by the Field Museum in 1921, the building fell into ruin, with its plaster skin peeling off the sturdy brick core. That set in motion a cry for its preservation from a national architectural constituency, as well as from influential Chicago city leaders.
Rescue came in the 1930s when philanthropist Julius Rosenwald seeded funding for transforming the building into a museum showcasing achievement in the fields of science and industry, establishing the revered institution we know today. Special care was taken to preserve the perfect proportions and details as originally designed by Atwood. Drawings for the new carved limestone elements replacing the building’s original plaster cladding made clear that all pieces should be reproduced exactly.
Over the next several decades, the Museum of Science and Industry was a diligent caretaker of the building’s original architectural integrity. Even with contemporary needs for better public accessibility and removal of an obtrusive grade-level parking lot, new facilities were creatively placed underground in the 1990s, providing an accessible museum entry from small free-standing pavilions respectfully held away from the main building. The former parking lot on the north side became a grassy park that showcased the building’s “perfect” classical proportions for passing motorists and museum patrons alike.
But for all the museum’s previous diligence and respect for its building and campus, all seems to have been forgotten in the current proposals to modify the north and south entryways. The signature classical wide exterior staircases on both sides are to be punctured, creating a gap-toothed large hole at the center that will diminish the power of the remaining original elements. The boldly columned porticos that provide a transitional sense of entry are to be glassed in. No matter how transparent, the original effect is lost.
And lost forever will be the majestic views of the building melding into the historic landscape of Jackson Park, a landmark itself shaped in design by the great Frederick Law Olmsted. No longer will the front steps of the south side dreamily extend into the adjoining lagoon. And with new construction of entryways and berms on the building’s north side, the majestic classical gift of the building rising from the ground atop a sturdy base will be lost.
I’m at a total loss to explain how these damaging alterations could be allowed — or even proposed in the first place. Have people forgotten that a masterpiece of classical architecture is dependent on all parts relating to the whole? Is there no longer respect for established guidelines at federal and local level for historically, culturally and architecturally significant structures?
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“Perfection” is hard to achieve and rare to come by. Naturally, total perfection is not possible — but here’s an instance where it has come remarkably close in the opinion of many distinguished experts. Is it all going to be thrown away for superficial and inappropriate changes?
In the past, the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry consistently displayed great inventiveness and ingenuity for adapting its historic campus to meet changing needs without compromising the near perfection of its building. It has obviously lost its touch with the current alterations.
Tim Samuelson is an emeritus cultural historian for the city of Chicago.
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