Open House Chicago, complete with custom scores, opens up 150+ Chicago marvels Saturday and Sunday

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I make no secret of it:  I think Open House Chicago is as absolutely great event.  If you don't know about it already, let the experts describe it:

"It's a free event for all Chicagoans." says President Lynn Osmond,  "Chicago Architecture Foundation's mission is to help inspire people to discover why design matters, and what better way than by opening up over 150 sites  for Chicagoans to go out and explore.  Last year we had over 85,000 people visit our sites, and it was really exciting to see how they discovered the sites of Chicago and our neighborhoods.  86% of those people were actually residents of the city of Chicago.  But we also had visitors that we welcomed from all around the world and from all 50 states."

original Sears Tower

"Last year, we had visitors from more than 54 countries," adds Bastiaan Bouma, Open House Chicago's Managing Director.   We're thrilled with the participation we received last year .  We're nearly twice the size this year.  We're in 25 neighborhoods, as opposed to 13 last year . We're in 13 community areas.  We're in 21 of the city's 50 wards . . . from Rogers Park to West Ridge to South Shore to Garfield Park , Little Village , Pilsen,  - it's a tremendous opportunity for people to rediscover the city of Chicago from a brand new perspective."

"Someone once said that Chicago is a city of 2.8 million architecture critics, and this is your weekend to take advantage of that instinct.  Free, behind the scenes, no tickets, no reservations.  Develop your own itinerary.  We do think that the bicycle is the ultimate Open House Chicago accessory.  The record last year was something over 50 visits by one individual , so we're looking forward to seeing somebody beat that record this year and I'll bet he or she is going to be on a bicycle."

St. Philip Neri Church

Most of the sites are open 9 to 5 both Saturday and Sunday, but there are exceptions - Churches, as is to be expected, are open later on Sunday - so double-check the sites you want to see.

Bridgeview Bank - photograph: David Suarez

Also very neat, four composers from Access Contemporary Music have written musical compositions that will be composed at the sites they will be created for:  Jude Matthews for the Bridgeview Bank (12:00 to 3:00 p.m. Saturday), Katherine Young for the Nickerson Mansion (1:00 to 4:00 Saturday); Eric Malmquist for the Poetry Foundation (12:00 to 3:00 Saturday), and Timothy Corpus for the Arts Club (12:00 to 3:00, Sunday).  All events free.

Among the new locations are places that almost never open to the public, such as the observation deck atop the Kemper Building, open for the first time in 40 years and offering a spectacular 360 degrees panorama of Chicago from 500+ feet up.  In the case of historic Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation, it's a space that's been closed even to its congregation since 2008.

Poetry Foundation, John Ronan Architects

Contemporary architecture?  You've got  VOAs new Wabash Tower vertical dorm for Roosevelt University, you can see Jeanne Gang's Kam Liu Building in Chinatown and Columbia College Media Production Center , Helmut Jahn's State Street Village at IIT, Farr Associates, Christy Webber Landscapes, Nagle Hartray's Ogden  International School, Williams and Tsien's Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at U of C, Krueck and Sexton's Spertus Institute, Rem Koolhaas's Campus Center at IIT, and John Ronan's Poetry Foundation and South Shore International College Prep, to name just a few.

Theaters:  Check out Rapp and Rapp's hallucinogenic  Oriental Theater, the lovingly restored Apollo 2000 (the former Marshall Square Theater), Uptown's Riviera (Sunday only), and Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium.

The Green Mill

I've included here photos of many of the most spectacular interiors, but don't forget the equally spectacular smaller spaces, from the offices of many of the Chicago's leading architects, to the former Sunset Cafe in Bronzeville, Andrew Rebori's Frank Fisher Apartments, the Downtown Islamic Center, the former Swift Mansion, Jayuya Barbership , Shedd Park Field House, Thalia Hall, the Green Mill, the Berghoff, and even the Trib Tower aerie (a/k/a the Colonel's office) that was the site for Randy Michaels' notorious poker games.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.  Right now, the weekend looks warm and rainy.  What could be more perfect weather to check out the great interiors of Chicago.?  Take a few minutes to explore, and you'll discover wonders you may never have known existed.

Start here.

Inside the Chicago Motor Club: a preview of openhousechicago, October 15 and 16, a celebration of architecture giving access to 130 sites, many rarely open to the public

 

It started with OpenHouse London, almost twenty years ago, a weekend of public access to great spaces that are usually private and inaccessible.  By this year's edition, which took place just last month, they were  up to "700 buildings of all kinds opening their doors to everyone - all for free," and estimates of the number of participants is edging up towards a quarter million years.

"I don't think we'll be quite as big this year," said Bastiaan Bouma of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, "but we have ambitions to be just as large as London."  Bouma was talking about openhousechicago - he's managing director - which is bringing what's now an international program to Chicago this Saturday and Sunday, October 15th and 16th. opening up over a hundred locations, most rarely, if ever, open to the public.

And not just downtown.  Bouma estimated that about 40 of buildings are in or around the Loop, with another 90 spread out across the city, from Loyola on the far north, to the square-mile U.S. Steel site on the far south.  It's an opportunity to showcase not just the usual suspects downtown, but to introduce people to the Chicago's lesser-known jewels in the outlying neighborhoods, many of which have now been doubled-battered, first by the tsunami of foreclosures, and now with banks turning increasingly to demolition as the best way to cut their losses.

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Tours are grouped into five diverse neighborhoods, each with their own tour hub.  In Bronzeville, its K2 Architects' Little Black Pearl Art and Design Center on Greenwood just north of 47th, in Rogers Park, the Warren Park fieldhouse, etc.  Participants are responsible for getting themselves to the neighborhood, but once there, "hop on-hop off" shuttles will be available to move them from site to site.  Most, however, are within walking distance of each other, and, as Bouma suggested, the bicycle may be the ideal way of navigating the festival.

We've written about this fantastic festival before.  The great, keep-sake quality guide that ran in the Thursday Trib should also be available at many of the event sites, but even better is the very top-notch openhousechicago website, which is packed with information, great photographs, and maps - it even lets you create your own itinerary. 

Victoria Thornton, who founded the original Open House in London and has led the growth of the Open House Worldwide into what is now a dozen cities, from New York (also this weekend) to Helsinki to Tel Aviv, was on hand yesterday at the press launch for the Chicago edition at the long-shuttered Chicago Motor Club building on east Wacker.

The 17-story story 1928 skyscraper by Holabird & Root was picked up at auction this past June for $9.700,000 by Aries Capital, whose Chairman and CEO Neil Freeman was also on hand Thursday.  Aries has been involved in projects from the Whitehall Hotel in Chicago to the renovation of the century-old Hotel Roosevelt in New Orleans.  In Chicago, they're pairing up with Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture, whose portfolio includes the renovation of the former Chicago and Northwestern Power House west of the river, and the former Goldblatt's store in Uptown.

Yesterday, the Chicago Sun-Time's David Roeder reported Aries estimates the cost of bringing the Motor Club building back up to speed as a hotel as somewhere between $42 to $62 million.  As a hotel, the Motor Club has at least one great advantage: sitting just to the east of Harry Weese's Seventeenth Church of Christ Scientist, it offers great, largely unobstructed views down the river to the west.

We didn't get a chance to sample those views on Thursday, but did get to see the three-story, light-filled lobby.

 

Even with the current peeling paint and cracked glass, it's splendor endures in the Art Deco ornament and chandeliers, and a northern wall largely covered by John Warner Norton's massive mural depicting an abstracted map of the United States.

This Saturday and Sunday, October 15 and 16, you can check out the Motor Club lobby for yourself, as well as over 130 other sites, from churches, to swimming pools, to architects offices, mansions, shops, and everything in between, including a truly rare chance to climb to the top of the original Sears Tower.

Get your walking shoes and check out the full list of choices for openhousechicago.