An architecturally-significant Roseland church linked to former President Barack Obama will be among the 170 sites architecture fans will be able to visit during Open House Chicago next week.
The yearly event hosted by the Chicago Architecture Center gives visitors a chance to go inside some of the city’s most unique and historic buildings.
This year’s offerings include the newly renovated Ramova Theater, 3520 S. Halsted St.; the Willie Dixon Blues Heaven Foundation building, 2120 S. Michigan Ave., where the groundbreaking Chess Records was located; and the six-story, century-old French Renaissance-styled John B. Murphy Auditorium, 50 E. Erie St., that was richly restored last year by the Richard Driehaus Museum.
The free event will be held Oct.19-20.
“One of the main goals at the Chicago Architecture Center is to foster a sense of civic pride,” said CAC Director of Public Engagement Adam Rubin.
Rubin said the center wants visitors to also “grab a cup of coffee, check out a landscape or a public park or a monument that defines a neighborhood, and really get a sense of what makes the city unique and what makes their neighborhood unique.”
A ‘breathtaking’ church linked to Obama
Open House Chicago will feature old favorites such architect Dwight Perkins’s spectacular Prairie School-styled Carl Schurz High School, 3601 N. Milwaukee Ave.; and the 107-year-old former Central Park Theater, an early movie palace that is one of the world’s first air-conditioned venues, at 3535 W. Roosevelt Road.
Other sites include the recently-landmarked Apollo’s 2000 theater in Little Village, and the muralist Hector Duarte’s colorful studio at 1900 W. Cullerton St. in Pilsen.
Twenty-five new offerings for this year include Greater Tabernacle Cathedral, 11300 S. King Drive.
The Roseland landmark was built in 1890 as Holy Rosary Catholic Church on land owned by railroad car manufacturer George Pullman, whose self-named company town — now a National Historical Park — was built just a few blocks east.
The brick-and-limestone Richardson Romanesque church was designed by Solon Beman and bears a strong resemblance to the factory, homes and other buildings the architect designed in Pullman.
Greater Tabernacle Pastor Eric Booker, whose congregation bought the church in 2017 from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, said visitors will be impressed by the building.
“The most poignant reaction that we get from folks who visit is the auditorium,” said Booker. “The height of the ceiling, the woodwork on the confessionals, the terrazzo floors, the handiwork that’s even along the clerestory … the inside, it’s breathtaking.”
The congregation won city landmark status for the building earlier this year.
And as if the building’s architecture and its connections to George Pullman weren’t enough to to snag the designation, there was one more thing: Obama’s office was in the church’s rectory from 1985 to 1988, during his days as a Far South Side community organizer for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
“The little room where his office was is very unassuming, very quaint,” Booker said. “A very small room and a very humble beginning for him.”
OHC puts proud city on display
Open House Chicago is a great way to see the city well beyond the sparking Loop towers.
In addition to eyeballing building exteriors and interiors, OHC visitors will be able to create Dia de Los Muertos art at Graceland Cemetery, and participate in salsa lessons in Humboldt Park that will be hosted by the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture.
There also will be a photo competition in which the winners have their pictures displayed in the Framed Views: OHC Photography exhibit that opens at the Chicago Architecture Center, 111 W. Wacker Dr., on Nov. 23.
With all this, OHC is a festival in addition to a big architecture tour. And is it ever needed, especially now.
Chicago takes such a pounding over its crime issues to the constant stream of wonkiness and dysfunction that pours out of City Hall each day.
We need a reminder like OHC to show us that this is still a proud metropolis — and one that deserves to shine.
Lee Bey is architecture critic for the Sun-Times and also appears on ABC7 News Chicago. He is also a member of the Editorial Board.
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