The $22 million renovation of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry's South Portico is set to formally begin Tuesday with a groundbreaking ceremony, officials announced.
The project seeks to turn the museum's majestic but seldom-used south entry into a new ADA-accessible entrance with an outdoor cafe, public gathering spaces and a terrace overlooking the Columbia Basin and historic Jackson Park.
Griffin Museum CEO and President Chevy Humphrey, Chicago Park District General Superintendent Carlos Ramirez-Rosa and Chicago Department of Planning Commissioner Ciere Boatright are among the scheduled speakers.
The groundbreaking comes just weeks after the museum announced plans to construct a two-story tall, 458-foot wide Welcome Hall in front of the building's North Portico main entrance off 57th Street.
Museum officials said the both projects are part of efforts to create new, admission-free public spaces and improve accessibility.
Last month, I called the Welcome Hall a carbuncle that should be sent back the drawing board. The South Portico additions seem to be less intrusive, judging from the renderings.
Both portico projects are being designed by the New York firm RAMSA, formerly Robert A.M. Stern Architects.
The South Portico job would return the entry to consistent public use for the first time since it was the building's front door during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
Built as the fair's Palace of Fine Arts, visitors sailed through the Columbia Basin by gondola, arriving at the building's front steps.
"That is the original entrance," Humphrey told me in June. "We want to celebrate that history, but we also want to show how we’re modernizing [and bringing] it back to its original intent of welcoming visitors on the south side of our building."
The South Portico wasn't in use when the building was the Field Museum's home from 1904 to 1920.
The plaster-clad, Greek Revival-styled, Charles Atwood-designed fine arts palace, was reskinned in limestone and more permanent materials, and it opened as the Museum of Science and Industry in 1933.
The South Portico plan also includes a new elevator and a glass floor-to-ceiling exterior curtain wall, enclosing the loggia between the entry’s six massive columns and the building’s bronze doors.
The work is expected to be completed late 2027. The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation donated $10 million to the effort.
