CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE CENTER'S VIRTUAL(ISH) OPEN HOUSE

by Suzanne Hanney

The Chicago Architecture Center (CAC) has responded to the 2020’s public health and social justice concerns with nearly 50 online programs and trails for self-guided biking, driving and walking during the 10th annual Open House Chicago, Friday, October 16 through Sunday, October 25.

This year, North America’s largest annual architecture festival will highlight more than 20 Chicago neighborhoods and two suburbs, with an intentional focus on corridors prioritized by the City of Chicago’s INVEST South/West initiative. These neighborhoods include: Auburn Gresham, Austin, Back of the Yards, New City, Bronzeville, Englewood, Humboldt Park, North Lawndale, Pullman and Roseland, and South Shore. Fifteen additional Open House Chicago 2020 focus areas are Chicago’s Loop, Near North Side and Near West Side, plus Beverly, Chinatown, Evanston and Rogers Park, Hyde Park and Kenwood, Lincoln Park, Logan Square, Oak Park, Pilsen, Wicker Park and Woodlawn.

“As we approach the end of a year that has brought unforeseen challenges to us all, we’re proud to offer this year’s Open House Chicago as a gift to the city’s residents, as well as a way for people to learn more about ‘the city of architecture’ from wherever they’re most comfortable,” says CAC President and CEO Lynn J. Osmond. “In partnership with our friends at

Choose Chicago and in response to the unfortunate but necessary contraction in local tourism, we’re leveraging OHC 2020 to prompt visitation and patronage of more than 100 businesses, sites of cultural significance and other assets near official OHC sites and trails."

Visitors to each Open House area will be supported in their self-guided exploration by free resources available online at openhousechicago.org, and through the free Open House Chicago 2020 app for mobile devices, compatible with both Android (Google) and iOS (Apple) operating systems. All Open House 2020 experiences and programs are outdoors or online in support of public safety. While select online programs during the festival may include images and video footage of building interiors, entry is not permitted at any of the more than 100 sites and buildings located along the trails.

Audio, images and video will be available, however, via the OHC 2020 mobile app, available for download via the App Store (for iOS devices) and Google Play Store (for Android devices) prior to the festival. Out-of-app, analog versions of this content will be available upon request for those with access needs. Generally, OHC trails are easy-to-intermediate bicycle rides or walks designed to last an hour or less.

Architectural Innovation Trails include:

• Chinatown, including Hilliard Apartments, Chinatown Square, Ping Tom Memorial Park, the CTA Green Line station at Cermak-McCormick place and the Chicago Public Library’s Chinatown branch, with narration by Carol Ross Barney of Ross Barney Architects; Brian Lee of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Ernest C. Wong, site design group, ltd.

• Fulton Market District, including McDonald’s global headquarters and the under-construction Fulton East and 800 Fulton Market.

• Hyde Park, encompassing the Frederick C. Robie House, Keck-Gottschalk- Keck Apartments, Promontory Apartments, University Park Condominiums and Townhomes and Solstice on the Park. Mark P. Sexton of Krueck + Sexton and Juliane Wolf, Studio Gang provide audio narration.

Neighborhood Trails include:

• Bronzeville Performance Spaces. In the first half of the 20th century, discriminatory practices by banks and insurance companies forced Black Chicagoans into a narrow corridor. With space so limited, sites served as both gathering places and music performance venues. Audio narration by Bernard Loyd, Urban Juncture and Robert M. Marovich, Journal of Gospel Music.

• Pilsen Tracing at least to Mario Castillo’s “Peace or Metafisico” mural of 1968, Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood has long been a hub of the Mexican muralist movement in the United States. Many of the neighborhood’s works of tile and painting merge expressions of cultural and religious identity with calls for social justice. Narrated by Luis Tubens, the tour includes Cooper Dual Language Academy, 1645 W. 18th Place by Francisco Mendoza, Noe Milan and students, (1991); J-Def Peace Project, 1719 S. Paulina St., by Jeff Maldonado, 2014-17; Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, 1852 W. 22nd Place by Juan Angel Chavez, Jeff Zimmermann, and Cynthia Weiss, (2002- 04); “Vida Simple” at Damen Pink Line Station by Juan Angel Chavez (2004); “Ice Cream Dream” at the CTA Western Pink Line station.

• Downtown – Lakeshore East, a half-mile exploration of a planned community on the former site of the Illinois Central Railroad yards, tucked between Lake Michigan, Millennium Park and the Chicago River that is now home to some of the tallest new buildings in the U.S. James Loewenberg, Magellan Development Group and Juliane Wolf, Studio Gang, provide narration.

• Lincoln Park- A Women’s History. This one-mile trail illustrates how a small cemetery was transformed into today’s 1,200-acre recreational landscape thanks to the efforts of women. Julia Bachrach, Chicago parks expert, narrates.

• Near North Side/Gold CoasT After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, grand residences were built along Lake Shore Drive between Division Street and North Avenue. Virginia Gerst, CAC docent, narrates the one-mile trail profiling the ambitions, personalities and stories of figures and families who chose to make homes here.

• Oak Park-The Young Frank Lloyd Wright. This halfmile trail highlighting seven houses shows how Wright’s work evolved from his start as a draftsman under Louis Sullivan to become an influential architect on his own. Adam Rubin of the Chicago Architecture Center narrates.

• Rogers Park – The Mile of Murals is more than 14,000 square feet of bold imagery and vibrant streetfacing walls abutting the CTA Red Line. Launched in 2007, the project aims to promote arts identity of the neighborhood, which includes the Glenwood Avenue Arts District. Ana Bermudez of the Rogers Park Business Alliance narrates.

• Wicker Park- A half-mile of mansions between Damen and North Avenues and Leavitt and Schiller Streets was dubbed “Beer Baron Row” for its tightly packed assortment of grand homes in Queen Anne, Second Empire, Richardsonian Romanesque and other styles, as well as humble workers’ cottages of the same period, built to house German, Scandinavian and Polish immigrants who shared the neighborhood.

• Pullman & Roseland Today Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives President David Doig discusses historic rehabilitation and housing in and around Pullman, originally designed as an idyllic community for Pullman Palace Car workers, but within 15 years the site of the violent Pullman Strike of 1894. The Pullman National Monument today encompasses landmark buildings by Solon Spencer Beman and landscapes by Nathan Barrett as well as urbanized areas west of Lake Calumet and north to 95th Street.

• North Shore A five-mile bicycle/driving trail winds past National Register homes in Kenilworth, Winnetka and Glencoe designed by David Adler, Howard Van Doren Shaw and Frank Lloyd Wright. Audio narration is by Lisa Pickell, president of Orren Pickell Building Group and a CAC docent.

OHC 2020 will also offer online programs, some at no charge and some for a fee. Event listings and registration will be available at openhousechicago.org/programs and via the OHC 2020 mobile app. Unless otherwise noted, all OHC 2020 online programs are scheduled on Central Time, hosted via Zoom and subject to change.

“Changing the Narrative: African Americans in Evanston” is a free program at noon Wednesday, October 21. OHC 2020 community partner, the Evanston History Center, co-convenes this conversation between its director of facilities, visitor services and collections Kris Hartzell and Shorefront Legacy Center founder and executive director Dino Robinson.

African Americans came to Evanston seeking better homes, jobs and education, Robinson told StreetWise. There was still segregation on the beaches, sometimes in the movie theatres, and Blacks didn’t always feel welcome downtown; they came for something specific, bought it quickly and left. But mostly, Blacks were entrepreneurs. “They pursued opportunities where the doors were open or they made them open,” Robinson said. “They started a business, found ways to raise money.” There was also a Black business district on Emerson Street, an area still known as the 5th ward.

African American landmarks include: 2206 Darrow Ave., former home of the late Lorraine Hairston Morton, Evanston’s first black mayor, elected in 1993, who served 16 years; 2032 Darrow Ave., former home of Edwin B. Jourdain Jr., Evanston’s first black alderman in 1931 and a Harvard graduate, managing editor of Chicago Bee and sports editor of Chicago Defender; 1031 Sherman Ave., former home of Butler Groceries, owned and operated by Cornelius and Barbara Butler,

who moved there in 1878; 914 Davis St., site of Butler Livery Stable from 1891 to 1930, owned and operated by Cornelius and Barbara’s son, Henry Butler; 325 Dempster St., former home of Maria Murray Robinson and George Robinson – Maria was the first Black person brought to Evanston as an indentured domestic, at age 14 in 1855, and the couple were founders of Second Baptist Church in 1882; 1619 Sherman Ave., William Twiggs Print Shop, where he published two newspapers, The North Shore Colored American (1904) and The Reporter and Directory (1909).

Other online programs include “Artmaking and Placemaking” with the Hyde Park Art Center; “Chicago Landmarking at 50” with Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd ward) and Glessner House Curator/Executive Director William Tyre; “Get to Know Your Rogers Park House;” “Stories of ImMigration/Sites of Unity” with Chicago Cultural Alliance members Ukrainian National Museum, Swedish American Museum, National Hellenic Museum and National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture;

“Evanston’s Design Heritage;” “South Shore Neighborhood Virtual Tour” with Rainbow Beach Advisory Council President Allen Lindrup and Yvette Moyo, Real Men Charities Inc CEO and publisher of South Side Drive magazine; “Historic Community Gardens of North Lawndale"; and “Investment Through Preservation in Roseland” with Red Line Extension Coalition member Clevan Tucker Jr., Preservation Chicago Director of Community Engagement Mary Lu Seidel and historian/ photographer/lifelong resident Paul Petraitis.

Current CAC members get free access to most OHC online programs, and exclusive access to the October 7 preview and the “My Neighborhood, My Story” series of video tours led by noted architects, artists, media personalities and public figures such as Carol Ross Barney on the Chicago River; Rhymefest on Hyde Park and Kenwood; XRT’s Lin Brehmer on historic rock band performance venues downtown; and freelance journalist Robert Loerzel on Edgewater and Rogers Park.