Palace of Fine Building, Field Columbia Museum, Museum of Science and Industry (rebuilt), Griffin Museum of Science and Industry
Architect: C. B. Atwood, Chicago, Illinois
Area:
Cost: of $600,000
Picturesque World’s Fair, An Elaborate Collection of Colored Views—Published with the Endorsement and Approval of George R. Davis, 1894
THE ART PALACE.—No structure among the many which made up the White City commanded more universal admiration than did the Art Palace, wherein were displayed the triumphs of artists from all over the world. It was a fitting receptacle for its marvelous displays. The style of architecture adapted in the building was of the Grecian-Ionic order and the blending and adaptation of what was most perfect in the past was such as to secure an effect, if not in the exact sense original, at least of great harmony and grandeur. The area of the main structure is three hundred and twenty by five hundred feet. It is intersected by a nave with a transept one hundred feet wide and seventy feet high, and a central dome sixty feet wide and one hundred feet high surmounted by a winged figure of Victory. The main structure is surrounded by a gallery forty feet in width. It has two annexes one hundred and twenty by two hundred feet in dimensions, each with exterior colonnades. Because of the enormous value of the statues and paintings exhibited—the buildings’ contents were estimated to be worth five million dollars—it was necessary to make the Art Palace fire-proof and it was so built, at a cost of six hundred thousand dollars. It so remains a permanent structure and is now occupied by the Field Columbian Museum, one of the great Fair’s heritages to the public. The view of the building from the lagoon on the south, from the broad highway on the north and the areas of lawn in other directions are such as to afford a just idea of its excelling beauty. It stands today without peer a triumph of architecture.
THE WESTERN ENTRANCE TO THE ART PALACE—Some millions of people familiar with the appearance of the great portal shown in the illustration below. The western entrance to the main building of the Art Palace was the popular one. It opened upon the great thoroughfare running north and south along the west side of the Exposition grounds, was close to the popular Fifty-seventh street entrance close also close to the Michigan Building, that structure which, from the liberality and broad national spirit of the representatives of that strong state, became something like a general club house and resting place for everybody. Of the architectural or particularly charming features in any way connected with the entrance itself, there is little to say. It was in tone with the general perfection of that grand structure which, somehow, gradually displayed in other artistic creations by active men of the present day from all over the world. It was the main gateway to what surpassed interiorally in the same degree and in the same manner that it surpassed exteriorally every other exhibit at this most wonderful of expositions. From any point of view the art display at the Exposition caught the drift of hosts to the same extent that its splendid casing caught the eye of the myriads, and there was seldom an hour of the day that this particular entrance was not thronged with people surging in and out of the building.
THE ART PALACE ACROSS THE NORTH LAGOON.— Hardly ever among the pretty vistas afforded by the Columbian Exposition was the effect so beautiful as when aided by the natural scenery which chanced to form an accompaniment. The Fair grounds were located in a park that had been improved by leaving o nature all that nature had accomplished, and the builders of the White City had left bits of the original wildwood here and there, although the most of it had been removed to make way for great buildings, broad thoroughfares, lagoons, lakes and water ways, the like of which artificial construction had never been seen before. In the accompanying picture an accident affords an illustration of what is here described. The view across the North Lagoon is a charming one. The frontage of the great Art Palace, one of the most imposing structures of the age, is such as the eye delights to rest upon unweariedly. The surface of the water, half revealing by reflection the scenes above it, is a charming thing to look upon, but alter all the beauty of the picture is in the delicate tracery of the trunk and limbs and foliage of the tree in the immediate foreground, all of which are so sharply outlined against the sky. The point of view is from somewhere close to the Brazil Building, and looking toward the northwest the great Art Palace, of which too much cannot be said in praise, lies sleeping beautifully across the water. The sky scene is evidently of a day when clouds were lowering. It must have been one of the accidental dull days at the Fair.
INTERIOR OF THE ART PALACE.-This is a general view of the interior of the Art Palace, taken in the west court: German statuary, models and architectural reproduction occupied the floor space in this part of the building, while in the alcoves on each side and in the galleries above were displayed water colors and drawings. The most conspicuous thing in the view here presented is a model of the German Reichstag building, corresponding to the British House of Parliament, or our own Capitol at Washington. This attracted much curious attention, not only because of its beauty of architecture and the artistic work displayed in the reproduction, but also because of the historical interest attaching to the original Surrounding the model on all sides were many noted statues and groups of statuary, the work of the most famous German and Austrian sculptors of the present time and past ages.
Readers who visited this part of the Art Palace will recognize the red and white banner, the miniature pagoda and other characteristic signs which marked the entrance to the Japanes section. They will also remember the representation of a lion displayed there-a most remarkable painting by a Japanese artist, who devoted so much attention to detail that each particular hair was separately painted, and who, in consequence, went crazy over his work. The west court was usually thronged with visitors, as it was at the time the accompanying photograph was taken, as in it were to be found some of the most interesting groups and specimens of art in the whole building.
INTERIOR OF THE ART PALACE—TROCADERO COLLECTION.—The French claim, and it may be justly, to be the successors of the ancient Greeks in the art of sculpture. In their section of the Art Palace the display was superb. The view on this page is a corner of the section, showing a portion or a collection or casts, duplications or the most important reproductions or works shown in the Museum of Comparative Sculpture, in the Trocadero Palace, in Paris. These casts showed portions of the facades or churches and cathedrals, grand portals, beautiful galleries, altars, statues, columns, capitals, etc. They were as perfect as the highest degree of French art and skill can make them, even the time-worn appearance of the originals being faithfully reproduced. These replicas were not reduced in size, and consequently some of them were very large, as will be seen by the specimens shown in the accompanying picture. The largest, perhaps, was a portion of the Church of St. Giles, which was forty-one by twenty-four feet in size. Another piece from the gallery of Limoges Cathedral was twenty by thirty-six feet, and a third from the “Portal of the Virgin,” in Notre Dame, Paris, was eighteen by twenty-five feet. The architectures and sculptures represented in this collection began with the art era of the twelfth century, and were followed down to the seventeenth century era continuously. The French government presented to the American people a large number of these casts, with the understanding that they should be placed in some American art museum.
THE LAGOON IN FRONT OF THE ART PALACE.—It was not a very big sheet of water which lay just south of the Art Palace in the Exposition grounds. It was not imposing in dimensions, though it was by no means small, and it was not such a thoroughfare for launches and gondolas as were other lagoons and connecting straits, but it is doubtful if ever a sheet of water anywhere afforded fairer spectacles or if ever upon one of the same size occurred more pretty incidents of more importance. Here, under the shadow of the most beautiful of structures, was the water resting-place of the Fair. Here, too, was the scene of many various and interesting exploits. From the little platform seen extending out in the right foreground of the picture, were made the tests of the fly throwers among the champion fishermen of the world. Here were made other tests of interest pertaining to the water, and interesting to the world. This lagoon was just aside from the general water thoroughfare between the Grand Basin and the lake, and the drift of travel it caught was but a trifle. Undisturbed by the wayfarer, but most interesting , was the North Lagoon. The photograph reproduced is an almost perfect one. The Illinois Building appears inverted in the water; the flag from the Art Palace dips beneath the waves. The view of the westward is rounded out and and complete. Squarely at the west end or the lagoon stands California Building beyond it, in the far distance, looms up the Ferris Wheel, the haunting monster of the Fair.
The general plan, apart from its decorative features, may be described as that of a continuous series of compartments, flat-roofed, sky-lighted, somewhat less than 50 feet high, and resting on a basement raised nine feet above ground, the entire structure forming an oblong, 500 feet in length by 320 in width, and covering an area of nearly five acres. At the corners are projecting pavilions of similar height, giving accent to the design. The clear stories and roofs over the several courts are fashioned with level sky-lines, and from their central point of intersection rises from a spacious rotunda to an elevation of 125 feet, and with nearly half that diameter, a dome surmounted by Martin’s heroic statue of Fame. The principal entrance-ways, in the centre of each of the main facades, are in the form of porticos, with columns of the Ionic order, and above them are attics, on the pilasters of which are figures resembling those of the temple at Agrigentum. In the middle of the end facades are similar porticos, but on a less imposing scale.
Inter Ocean, June 20, 1891
THE ART PALACE. This building will be of pure Grecian-Ionic style, and a type of that most refined classic architecture. The building is oblong and is 500 by 320 feet, intersected north, east, south, and west by a great nave and transept 100 feet wide and 70 feet high, at the intersection of which is a great dome 60 feet in diameter. The building will be 125 feet to the top of the dome, which will be surmounted by a colossal statue of the type of famous figures of winged victory. The transept has a clear space through the center of 60 feet, being lighted entirely from above.
On either side are galleries 20 feet wide, and 24 feet above the floor. The collection of sculpture will be displayed on the main floor of the nave and transept, and on the walls of both the ground floors of the galleries will be ample wall apacee for displaying the paintings and sculptured panels in relief. The corners inane by the crossing of the nave and transept are tilled with small picture galleries.
Around the entire building are galleries 40 ft. wide, forming a continuous promenade around the entire structure. Between the promenade and the naves are the smaller rooms devoted to private collections of paintings and the collections of the various art schools. On either side of the main building will be one-storied annexes, which will be divided into large and small galleries, capable of expansion if a demand for space should warrant. Those annexes will be 120 by 200 feet wide.
The main building is entered by four great portals, richly ornamented with architectural sculpture, and approached by broad flights of steps. Tue walls of the loggia of the colonnades will be highly decorated with mural paintings, illustrating the history and progress of the arts. The frieze of the exterior walls and the pediments of the principal entrances will be ornamented with sculptures and portraits in base relief of the masters of ancient art. The general tone or color will be light gray stone.
The construction, although of a temporary character is necessarily fireproof. The main walls will be of solid brick, covered with staff architecturally ornamented, while the roof, floors, and galleries will be of iron. All light will be supplied through glass sky-lights in iron frames
The building will be located at the south side of the improved portion of the park, with the south front directly on the north lagoon. It will be separated from the lagoon by beautiful terraces, ornamented with balustrades, with an immense flight of steps leading down from the main portal to the lagoon, where there will be a landing for boats. The north front will face the wide lawn and the group of State buildings. The immediate neighborhood of the building will be ornamented with groups of statues, replica ornaments of classic art, such as the Choriagic monument, the “Cave of the Winds,” and other beautiful examples of Grecian art. The ornamentation will also include statues of heroic and life-size proportions. The probable cost of the building will be between $500,000 and $600,000.
The art palace was planned in the World’s Fair construction department under the eye of Supervising Architect D. U. Burnham, and the details worked out by Chief Designer P. B. Atwood. By the by the annex is substantially, in its facade at least, the outline plan left by the late consulting architect, George W. Root.
- The Art Gallery, Room 34, Germany
World’s Columbian Exposition The Art and Architecture. The Edition of the Republic in Eleven Parts, Printed and Published by George Barrie, Philadelphia
- Interior of the Palace of Fine Arts
- Palace of Fine Arts at Night
Chicago Tribune Supplement
1893
Charles Graham
- Palace of Liberal Arts
KEY TO INSTALLATION
”
This building, which is expressly devoted to the exhibit of fine arts, painting, sculpture and statuary, is divided into four great courts known as the north, south, east and west courts. These lead into a space known as the central dome. Each space for exhibits is indicated by a number in connection with the court in which it is located. In connection with the main building are pavilions located at each corner, where exhibits are also shown an exterior colonnade extending from each pavilion to the north and south courts. The paintings. sculpture and groups of statuary are each indicated in regular numerical order. The location of the exhibit will be found by referring to the name of the exhibitor and then glancing at the diagram. where the court or gallery, containing the exhibit is shown, together with the number of the painting, etc. The exhibits in the loggias, and also on the second floor, are indicated in like manner.
Chicago Tribune, June 3, 1894
OPENING OF THE MUSEUM.
The Columbian Museum, which has become an accomplished fact, thanks to the liberality of Mr. Marshall Field and other public-spirited citizens, was dedicated to its purposes of use and beauty yesterday and will now remain open to the public every day in the year as a permanent monument of Chicago enterprise and generosity. Its directorship has been in-trusted to Mr. Skiff, who brings skilled intelligence and excellent executive ability, as well as enthusiasm, to the administration of his responsible office. The various departments are in the hands of experts, who, as Mr. Skiff’s lieutenants, will conduct and maintain them upon the highest standards of efficiency.
The organization of these departments has been made scientifically complete. Though little over six months old the museum already stands in a more finished state and more thoroughly equipped than most similar institutions in this country which have been in existence for years. Every department of recreation, taste, art, and scientific study is represented by a rich and large display of specimens brought from all parts of the world, and these will be enriched from time to time by further contributions and by purchases of rare objects which have not yet arrived. In addition to special departments of art, curios, and memorials of the Fair there are general departments of geology, industrial arts, zoology, anthropology, botany and plant economics, and departments devoted to railroad, steamboat, and other methods of transportation which are thoroughly equipped. In a word, the history of the race and the record of the earth’s evolution in all its forms are presented in the museum arranged with scientific exactness and system, so that the student may see at a glance and study the record of progress, while the uneducated person will find plenty of material to interest and instruct him in this immense collection. To aid in this work and to economize time for the visitor an admirable guide book has been prepared, so arranged that the visitor will have no difficulty in finding not only the special department but even the special object he may wish to examine. It is one of the most noteworthy features of the new museum that it has been placed upon a popular basis and that the trustees and Director Skiff have kept constantly in view the desirability of making it a museum for the people. To this end the daily admission has been placed at a figure within the reach of all. It will always be free to school children. Saturdays, Sundays, and all public holidays it will be free to all. Today will be the first open free day and it goes without saying that if the weather shall be favorable the attendance will be very large. From every point of view it is the people’s museum, and it unquestionably will at once become the most popular resort in the city. It will also stand as a permanent memorial of the great Columbian Exhibition and a reminder of the beautiful White City now rapidly disappearing from view. Many of the treasures of the Fair will be preserved there and can be studied at leisure, free from the crowds and excitements and fatigues of last summer. Then the educational influences of the Columbian Exhibition will be continued and its lessons will not be lost. As a memorial of that exhibition and as a monument of Chicago’s liberality, public spirit, and enterprise, the museum will take a high place among the institutions of the city and add to its attractiveness. There is but one other similar collection in the country which can now compete with it—that of the National Museum at Washington. In many of its departments, however, the Field Columbian Museum already surpasses it. It will not be long before in all departments it will become the first institution of its kind in the country.
Suburbanite Economist, August 30, 1918
War Museum in Jackson Park.
The exhibits of the Field-Columbian museum are being removed from the building in Jackson park that had served as the Arts bulling during the world’s fair, to the new Field-Columbian museum on the lake front at 12th St. It is now proposed to restore the old building in Jackson park by re-coating it with staff or stucco, and making it a war museum. This would be a grand thing, as a war museum is needed in this part of the country, to perpetuate the wars and gallant deeds of our soldiers and sailors in the different wars the country has engaged in, and no better location would be selected than Jackson park, ant a splendid substantial brick building awaits the exhibits, with comparatively small outlay to make it fit. A few years ago it was proposed to preserve the building, and it was estimated that $50,000 would restore it, so the expense would be very trifling considering the importance of the enterprise. We ask that all of the patriotic organizations get behind this enterprise and boost for it. The C. W. Guenther collection of war relies and arms is already offered and a good start is made for the largest war museum in the world.
- The Palace of Fine Arts
1925
Chicago Tribune, August 19, 1926
CHICAGO’S NEW MUSEUM.
Mr. Rosenwald’s notable gift of $3,000,000 for the erection of an industrial museum in Jackson park entitles him to a further measure of gratitude from the community which is already deeply indebted to him. Mr. Rosenwald is aware that it is our industrial processes which mark off our civilization from all previous civilizations. Our technology has made possible our greater material prosperity and our greater leisure. If in any way the nature of man has altered in our age, it is probably because we live in the midst of machinery. Mr. Rosenwald desires an historical record of improvements and refinements in industrial technique not only for their intrinsic interest but to serve as an inspiration to further advance. He wishes to keep alive the American genius for in vention by showing where progress was achieved in the past and by demonstrating the scientific principles which have made progress possible.
The old Fine Arts building in Jackson park is to be torn down and rebuilt in permanent materials to house the museum. A bond issue of $5,000,000 has been voted for the restoration of the building. The present building was erected to house the fine arts of many nations exhibited at the word’s fair, and it was a fitting home for the arts. Though a vast structure it is exquisitely graceful. In a state of decay for years, it has been preserved only because no man in authority dared to order it destroyed.
There are those who will say that the building is too delicate in feeling for an industrial museum. We do not accept this view. We believe that modern technology is not the enemy of beauty but can be its servant. Housing an industrial museum in the midst of classic refinement impresses us as a recognition of the fact that the machine has brought leisure and with leisure a greater opportunity for the cultivation of beauty than the world has ever before known. If our industrial cities are not beautiful it is not the fault of the machine but of us. The new museum can express that idea far more forcefully than it can ever be expressed in words.
The Fine Arts building is a perfectly proportioned whole. If its symbolic value as an industrial museum is not to be lost, it must be rebuilt with a meticulous regard for the minutiae of the original exterior, an attitude of mind which may well irk the architects but which they must accept with no reservations whatsoever. They are not to improve but to restore. In only one particular, so far as the exterior is concerned, will the restorers have any freedom, and that will come in the choice of materials. It is worth noting in this connection that the corner of the building which was restored experimentally some years ago is far from satisfactory either in color or texture. The choice of a suitable building material is a matter of such importance that we hope the decision will not be made hastily or with an eye primarily to economies in construction. The community is entitled to expect that the architects will not hesitate in this regard to call upon the most gifted members of their profession for advice and assistance.
- ROSENWALD GIVES $3,000,000 FOR NEW INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM.
Left to right: Ralph K. Stern, Dr. Johann Biberger, Michael L. Igoe, Julius Rosenwald, W. F. Sims, Edward J. Kelly, Leo F. Wormser, Sewell L. Avery, Albert Koch, and George Donoghue before old Fine Arts building in Jackson park, which is to be reconstructed.
Chicago Tribune, October 12, 1928
Announcing that exhibits worth $250,000 already have been offered to the Industrial museum, without solicitation, Waldemar Kaempffert, director, yesterday presented to the mu seum’s executive committee the first definite picture of what visitors to the reconstructed Fine Arts building in Jackson park may expect to find early in 1931.
Mr. Kaempffert is leaving Sunday for Europe. There he will study industrial museums, particularly the one at Munich. He announced he expected, on his return in three months, to find the old Fine Arts building razed and ground broken for construction of the new $5,000,000 structure. An additional $3,000,000 offered by Julius Rosenwald will be spent on exhibits in the museum.
The committee members who heard the directors plans were Mr. Rosenwald, who is chairman of the board of Sears Roebuck & Co.; Sewell L. Avery: president United States Gypsum company; W. Rufus Abbott, president Illinois Bell Telephone company, and Attorney Leo F. Wormser, personal counsel for Mr. Rosenwald. The meeting was held in Mr. Avery’s office.
Mr. Kaempffert, speaking of the form which the exhibits will take, said:
- One of the exhibits will be a street about 100 feet long. At one end this street will be representative of a thoroughfare, say in London in the 16th century. It is littered with filth. Pedestrians are lighted on their way by torches and accompanied by bodyguards for protection against footpads.
Then the street progresses through five centuries to the modern, paved boulevard of today. Oil lamps give way to gas and then to electricity. A unique arrangement shows how the modern street is honeycombed beneath the surface with conduits, wires, tunnels.
Progress will be shown in business. A counting house of 1800 will be shown and then the modern business office with its wonderful devices for saving time and labor.
A farm house of 100 years ago will be contrasted with the farm house of today. The division relating to products of the soil and the forest will include not only agricultural methods and machines, forestry and lumbering, but also the preparation of animal and vegetable foods for the market, the manufacture of woods and cellulose products.
The Chicago museum will differ from similar institutions in Europe, be cause it is our purpose not merely to trace the evolution of crafts and industries, but also to show the effect of applied science and invention on society.
Machines and processes were devised for the use of humanity. What, then, has been their human influence? Clearly, we must dramatize the machine of progress if we are to have something more than a collection of devices useful in industry.
Mr. Kaempffert announced the list of curators he had selected for his staff. The division of geology, min-ing, metallurgy and metal working will be in charge of J. R. Van Pelt Jr., formerly of the Illinois Geological survey and of the geological department of the University of Chicago.
J. A. Folse, formerly of Northwestern university and the Carnegie institute of Washington, will head the division relating to the generation and transmission of energy by chemical, mechanical and electrical means. S. C. Gilfillin, formerly of Grinnell college, will direct the transportation exhibits. F. A. Lippold, German engineer, will head the division of civil engineering and public works. Dr. Andrew MacMahon, formerly of the University of Chicago, will head the physics and chemistry division.
Chicago Tribune, June 20, 1933
A little girl, 7 years old, climbed the broad steps of Chicago’s old Field museum in Jackson park yesterday afternoon. She passed between the great Ionic columns, crossed the threshold, and then stopped for a moment in wonderment.
“Mommy, is this granddaddy’s house?” she turned and questioned her mother following close behind.
The little girl was Adele Stern. She had come with her mother, Mrs. Alfred K. Stern, to see the great museum which her grandfather, the late Julius Rosenwald, has restored, through his gifts, as a house of science and industry.
She was the youngest of the 200 or more guests invited to a preview party yesterday, but none the less appreciative of the museum’s wonders, for not an exhibit in the great north wing or the far reaching coal mine [all that is open yet to public view] escaped her childish curiosity.
The other guests who heard the brief words of William R. Abbott, the president of the museum, and Mayor Edward J. Kelly, were the trustees-Sewen L. Avery, George A. Ranney, Lessing J. Rosenwald [the son of the founder], Joseph T. Ryerson, Clarence
W. Sills, Col. Albert A. Sprague, and Leo F. Wormser among them–mem-bers of the South Park board, and Mrs. Julius Rosenwald.
“We forgot to ask our wives to-day,” said Mr. Abbott, speaking for the officers and trustees. “I was in Florida when the invitations for the party were issued and neglected this important detail.”
Mr. Abbott described the museum (its official name is the Museum of Science and Industry, founded by Julius Rosenwald) as “a technical ascent from the cave man to the engineer.”
Then he went on to explain the significance of the opening of only section of the museum at time. “What the museum presents now is a cross section of what it will ultimately become,” he said. “It took 25 years to bring the Deutsches museum to its present state. The Science museum of South Kensington has a history that goes back more than 80 years, and the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers dates to the French revolution. A museum, like a university or a business enterprise, is the momentary end product of an evolution. So it happens that a portion of the building in Jackson park is opened in 1933, simultaneously with A Century of Progress.”
The north hall which the official party visited yesterday strikes the very keynote of what the “great house” is to be. It is animation everywhere. All of the art of the stage director is invoked to tell a technical story. Yet it is no technical Coney Island. The dramatic is not introduced for its own sake, but as a means to an educational end.
Round the walls are the murals of Nicholas Remisoft, David Leavitt, and Edgar Miller, not merely decorations, but pictorial summaries of the museum’s ultimate collections. The coal mine is the story of coal from its very beginning, from the day that “coals were carried to Newcastle.” It is another suggestion of the future educational role.
Mayor Kelly spoke yesterday about the building itself, & classic. monument to the machine age, exhibit A in Mr. Rosenwald’s vast exposition of the industries. He told of its be ginning as the Fine Arts building of Chicago’s World’s Fair of ’93, of the tenure after the Fair of the Field museum, its occupancy up until 1920 (the reason the building is familiarly known as the old Field museum) and the trials and tribulations encountered in the present restoration.
“Praise be,” he concluded, we have it today.”
And praise be, we repeat, that we have it today. It is a monument to that glorious fifth century B. C. when Athens was building on its Acropolis the Ionic Erechtheum and the Doric Parthenon. It is a monument to the Fair of ’93, a, greatest cultural achievement of Chicago and mankind. And now it is a monument to man as a builder and tool user, a monument to the machine age itself.
Chicago Tribune, October 4, 2019
The Museum of Science and Industry will rename itself after Chicago philanthropist Ken Griffin, who is making the largest donation in the institution’s history, the museum announced Thursday.
The sprawling science, tech and business museum on the city’s South Side will become the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry after the museum’s board voted to accept Griffin’s $125 million donation and the name change Thursday morning.
It’s a major change in the Chicago cultural landscape, prompted by one of the largest cash donations ever to a local cultural institution. Griffin, founder of the hedge fund Citadel, has been one of the most prominent and active donors to cultural and educational organizations through his Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund, with giving that now with the MSI gift totals over $1 billion.
“The most important thing is that we are absolutely thrilled and proud to become the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry,” said David Mosena, the museum’s president and chief executive officer, although Mosena noted the formal name change will take months to enact.
Mosena said the name change will become official as soon as possible but could take a year or more to complete the necessary paperwork.
Mosena “came to me with this as a proposal,” Griffin said, “and having looked at a number of other proposals over the years, I decided that this was something that would be an outstanding way to ensure the long term… (success) of the museum. This is about maintaining the museum at the forefront of being a resource to inspire the next generation of our country in the areas of science and innovation.”
The museum says the gift pushes its current capital campaign past the $300 million mark in funds raised. The money will mostly go into the museum’s endowment, which will more than double as a result, MSI board Chair Chris Crane said.
Chicago, however, did not seem so immediately proud of the name change for the institution at 57th Street and Lake Shore Drive. The MSI, with 14 acres of floor space in a building that is the last holdover from the “White City” site of the 1893 World’s Fair, was Chicago’s second most popular museum in 2018, with 1.56 million visitors.
The Art Institute of Chicago had 1.62 million. Many commenters on Twitter reacted with outrage to the news, drawing comparisons to, for instance, when new owners changed the name of Sears Tower or Comiskey Park. “Nope,” although milder than many, was not an atypical response. A few, however, noted that most of the other big cultural institutions already have a donor’s name in the title, and we don’t give it a second thought, from the Field Museum of Natural History to the Shedd Aquarium to, more recently, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.
“I’m sure there’s going to be snark somewhere,” said Richard Lariviere, president and CEO of the Field Museum, which has also been a recipient of Griffin largesse, to the tune of at least $22 million in recent years, and calls its dinosaur offerings the Griffin Dinosaur Experience. But he discounted it as an unsurprising reaction to change, and one that misses the big picture.
“Look, the guy gave $125 million to a cultural institution in the city of Chicago. What’s not to celebrate?” Lariviere said. “I don’t feel any jealousy or resentment or anything. I’m absolutely delighted Ken has done this. It’s a real boost for the city.”
Griffin did not want to engage with social media critics. “Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and I’m not going to wade into that debate,”he said. “What I am going to say is that I’m really excited about the work the MSI does to educate teachers here in Chicago, which they take back into the classroom to educate litera- lly almost every child in public schools.”
Putting a name on a donation helps raise more money, too, he said.
“Being on a number of boards over the course of the last 10 or 15 years, hands down, named gifts are far more impactful in terms of follow-on giving,” said Griffin. “Everybody watches what their fellow peers are doing, and there’s no doubt this gift to the MSI will encourage others to be generous in their giving. Just as Ann Lurie’s gift to Children’s Memorial Hospital has been inspirational to me.”
In the other major Chicago institutional name change in recent memory, philanthropist Ann Lurie gave $100 million — about $121 million in 2018 dollars — to Children’s in 2007, and after a subsequent move from Lincoln Park to a new building in Streeterville, it was renamed the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital. Lurie was a former pediatric nurse at the hospital, while her late husband was a real estate investor.
Griffin also cited as an inspiration the “mind-boggling act of generosity” of Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson’s 2015 art gift to the Art Institute of Chicago. Their donation of 40-plus contemporary and modern art works, including 10 highly regarded Warhols, was estimated at $400 million in value.
But Edlis only gave the gift on the condition that the works be displayed there for the next 50 years. They are currently on view in the museum’s Modern Wing as the Edlis/Neeson Collection.
“It’s clearly an honor. This was not a long conversation,” said Griffin, a multi- billionaire commonly cited as Illinois’ richest man. “David (Mosena) and I have talked about a number of ideas for probably a decade. Naming the museum and securing the museum’s financial resources to be involved in our city, our state and our country was a compelling proposition.”
Fortunately for the 2019 MSI, Sears, Roebuck President Julius Rosenwald was the museum’s visionary backer and principal funder before it opened in 1933, and opted not to follow the fashion of the founder class, choosing to keep his name out of the title. Before his death in 1932, Rosenwald gave $7 million toward starting the museum, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, the equivalent of about $128 million today.
Rosenwald’s grandson, who lives near the museum in Hyde Park, said he is OK with the name change. Rosenwald “didn’t want his name on it,” said the grand- son, 77-year-old Peter Ascoli, who is also Rosenwald’s biographer and clarified that Rosenwald and his heirs had given about $10 million total by the 1940s. “I asked members of my family because I knew this was coming down the pike and they all said, ‘Fine.’ It’s good the museum will have this money to continue strongly into the 21st century.
“From the museum’s perspective, “I don’t think it’s difficult, but I’m a biased party in this because I’ve been offering this for some time,” Mosena said.
“Our name right now is not a branded name,” he added, citing Museums of Science and Industry in Oregon and in Tampa, Florida. “It doesn’t have the personal presence of a major contribution. There are people who may have nostalgic reasons for change not to occur, but I think it’s exciting.”
Crane, the board chair and Exelon Corporation president and CEO, said that the board executive committee working on the deal spent about six months in due diligence with staff and outside counsel “understanding the value of the naming rights of an institution like this. And it’s well in line, if not on the higher side, with what philanthropic institutions have done in the past, or university medical centers, that type of thing.”
Naming an institution for a living person or ongoing entity can become complicated, of course. Remember Houston’s Enron Stadium?
Lariviere, at the Field Museum, said Griffin has earned such an honor and does not seem interested in grandstanding. “Griffin’s an honorable man, and a pillar of the community. I don’t think there’s much risk,” he said. “In our dealings with him he has been really self-effacing and just interested in effective use of his philanthropy.”
The $125 million donation will also put the Griffin name on a new exhibition in the works, “a state-of-the- art digital gallery and performance space that will be the only experience of its kind in North America,” said the institution’s news release.
Mosena described it as a kind of immersive full-room video experience that does not require virtual reality goggles to take part in. It’s being developed, he said, with the Linz, Austria institution Ars Electronica that has a version dubbed “Deep Space 8K.”
Among other Chicago cultural gifts, Griffin has donated substantial amounts to the Field Museum and Art Institute of Chicago, where the central hall of the new Modern Wing was named Kenneth and Anne Griffin Court for him and his now ex-wife.
He has helped major New York museums as well and gave $150 million to his alma mater Harvard University and $125 million to theUniversity ofChicago in the past five years.
Raised in Florida, Griffin, 50, has long called the Chicago area home and grew up coming here to visit grandparents and going to the MSI, he said. In 1990 he founded the hedge fund Citadel, which said it has $32 billion under management as of Sept. 1. The Citadel website says that Griffin, before the MSI gift, had given more than $900 million to educational and cultural causes.
MSI was founded in 1933 in the building that was the Palace of Fine Arts from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and subsequently served as the founding home of the Field Museum.
The natural history museum is named after its principal early benefactor, the founder and namesake of the late, great Chicago department store, Marshall Field’s. After a 2005 acquisition, the flagship Field’s store on State Street had its name changed, of course, to Macy’s.
I have a vase that I’m not sure of its antiquity. My aunt told me it’s from the 1893 worlds fair, she said she thinks it’s from the Malaysian exhibit.
It’s a large vase with a jungle theme with bird sculptures sculpted onto the vase along with flowers. Just trying to figure out its history. Can I send a photo?
That last photo is of the South entrance, looking west. Roughly the same perspective as the first photo, but closer — note that in both, the tower of the Michigan Building can be seen in the distance..
Saying what the palace Fine Arts look like, that during the Columbia Fair is amazing. Not knowing that the building that stands today, in Chicago is the Museum of Science and Industry. And the golden statue that wants to end up Pawn, doing the Columbia there is in Jackson Park on Hayes Drive