Architectural Grace and History

MSI Stairwell

The Museum of Science and Industry isn't just about science and industry.  The building itself is an architectural monument with a colorful history.  It's an absolutely beautiful building, both inside and out.  My niece Jackie's picture (above) shows how even its industrial looking stairwell is beautiful.  I like this picture; it shows how beauty is everywhere in the museum.  I can imagine looking up this stairwell as I try to decide what would be the next interesting place I should sleep during my month at the museum.

Different angles and views fascinate me.  Several of Jackie's outside shots are fascinating, too, because they remind me that this building began as the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.   Like many who have read Devil in the White City I'm rather sad that only this one building remains from that world's fair.  I look at it and try to imagine the whole fairgrounds.  How magnificent they must have been!

After the 1893 world's fair, the building housed what later became the Field Museum.  Once that museum moved elsewhere in 1920, this former Fine Arts Building was left vacant as a couple different groups tried to raise money for its future.  It was eventually chosen as the site for a new science museum.  The exterior was recast in limestone, and the interior was replaced with a different style.  This new museum made its debut at the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition, where its first opening ceremony took place.

I actually own a couple artifacts from that second Chicago world's fair.  One is a souvenir key to the fair, and the other is a commemorative booklet with pictures of its major sites and buildings of the fair, including the Museum of Science and Industry.  This is what it says about this building:  "Located in Jackson Park, Chicago, this remodeled Fine Arts Building of Chicago's 1893 World's Fair is considered one of the finest examples of architectural grace in the world."  Architectural grace!  Yes, that about sums it up.

And I would love to live in this example of architectural grace for a month.  Back in 1933, admission to the world's fair cost 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children.  The cost to live in one of those buildings now for a month is winning this contest and spending that month working on a blog and other means of sharing the experience.  If I could do this much blogging about living at the museum--on my first attempt at any blog--without even getting there yet, just think what I could do if I get the Month at the Museum!