Amazing Open House Chicago 2012 Looking for a Thousand Good Women (And Men)

Corpus Christi Church (click images for larger view)

The full schedule of 150 locations has been published for the 2012 edition of Open House Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Foundation's remarkable two day point of entry to . . .

. . . over 150 of the city’s great places and spaces.  Explore repurposed mansions, hidden rooms, sacred spaces, private clubs, iconic theatres, hotels, community murals and more—all for free.

As you can imagine, such an event takes a lot of planning, and a lot of help.  Specifically, the CAF has put out the call for volunteers.  Shifts are four hours, either/and Saturday and Sunday, October 13th and 14th.  You must be at least 18, and you must wear clothes.

In addition to the satisfaction of a job well-done for a great event, being a volunteer has its benefits:

• Priority access at all OHC sites for you and a companion
• 50% off a CAF membership
• Member discount at CAF shop for the week following OHC
• OHC T-shirt and lanyard souvenirs
• Two free CAF walking tour passes

Get all the details and sign up on-line here.

The site list is remarkable, from downtown to all across the city, with a large roster of "hidden gems" not usually open to the general public.  To cite just one example, you can visit the 41st observation deck of the 1962 Shaw, Metz designed United of America/Unitrin/Kemper Building - open for the first time in nearly 40 years - and, unlike the guys in the photograph above, you can actually enjoy it from the inside.

You can also visit the offices of such firms as Goettsch Partners, Holabird and Root, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, Murphy/Jahn, Perkins+Will, SOM, Thornton Tomasetti, VOA, Wheeler Kearns, and Wright Heerema.  You can see Dankmar Adler's last commission, Isaiah Temple, now  Ebeneezer Missionary Baptist Church, get inside the Germania Club, the Powhatan Apartments, Apollo's 2000 (the former Marshall Square Theater), Jens Jensen's Park Castle, and the historic Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation.  You can visit the Lohan Associates designed Police Headquarters, and go directly to (Cook County) Jail.

Ogden School, Nagle/Hartray Architecture

And lest you think the architecture of today is being slighted, 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 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.

Poetry Foundation, John Ronan Architects

This is an absolutely fantastic event, and you can become a part of it here.

October's spectacular openhousechicago needs a few good men and women (800, actually, but who's counting, and what a view!)

Adrian Smith+Gordon Gill Architecture (click images for larger view)

Architecture, no matter the focus on exterior form, is not a wrapper, but an environment. And while we usually experience architecture by walking by or standing in front of it, on October 15th and 16th, you can soak it in, both inside and out.  The Chicago Architecture Foundation's extraordinary event, openhousechicago, will let visitors enter into some of the city's most distinctive and compelling interiors.

And they need your help.  Jump to the bottom of the post for more info, but first let me show you some of the wonder with which you'll surround yourself.

Some of the 126 buildings, from Rogers Park to Hyde Park, Garfield Park, downtown and all points in between,  are "walk-by" only, but the vast majority offer rare opportunities to experience some of Chicago's greatest spaces.  You can tour online, with photographs, the full roster of locations here, but among the highlights are the architectural office of Goettsch Partners, Perkins+Will, Adrian Smith+Gordon Gill, and VOA Associates.  There's Corpus Christ Church . . .

. . . the 1897 Grant Memorial AME Church, Dankmar Adler's last commission, the 1899 Isaiah Temple (now Ebeneezer Missionary Baptist church),The Chicago Motor Club and its 29-foot wide John Warner Norton mural, a historic courtroom at 26th and California, the Del Prado Hotel, Frank Lloyd Wright's Emil Bach house, and the interior of the auditorium space at the Abraham Lincoln Center, the Art Noveau murals of the Fine Arts Building, the spectacular Sears Roebuck Power House that is now the Power House High School . . .

.  . . an empty floor of the Inland Steel building, Alfred Caldwell's rooftop garden at Lake Point Tower . . .

 . . . the Martinez Funeral Home, Meyers Ace Hardware (the former Sunset Cafe where Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Earl 'Fatha' Hines played in the 1920's), the 1912 Monroe Building and new Pritzker Military Library, the private pool of Jens Jensen's Park Castle apartment building . . .

 . . . KAM Temple/Rainbow PUSH, the Art Moderne 2nd Federal Savings . . .

. . . Krueck and Sexton's Spertus Institute, the Gustavus F. Swift mansion . . .

. . . the Michigan Room overlooking Millennium Park in the University Club, Helmut Jahn's South Campus Chiller Plant at U of C, the 1893 Samuel Karpen mansion (now Welcome Inn Manor).

You get the idea.

As you might imagine, covering 126 sites all across the city, takes a lot of volunteers . . .

In order to make this weekend a success, we need many volunteers to play a variety of roles. Volunteering for OHC is simple and the benefits are pretty great.  We're looking for volunteers to provide visitor welcoming assistance at all OHC2011 sites. Volunteers will also help control admission to sites and track visitor attendance. You can volunteer for one 4 hour shift on either Saturday or Sunday, or both. Either way, volunteers receive a commemorative shirt, a discount at the CAF shop, a free walking tour pass and priority access to all OHC 2011 sites.

You can get more information on how you can volunteer here,  or contact openhousechicago's volunteer coordinator, Patrick Miner, via email.