On Kilbourn Avenue, just south of 63rd Street and a block over from the grocer Sav A Lot — not too far from Taqueria El Pastor — sits a small architectural wonder that relatively few Chicagoans have seen.
Ave Maria Chapel, 6336 S. Kilbourn Ave., is a brick building designed by and built for Lithuanians, who settled on the Southwest Side following World War II, fleeing Soviet occupation of their homeland.
“The main spiritual goal [in building the chapel] was to maintain their national identity in this polyglot country,” Vicki Matranga, curator at the Balzekas Museum Of Lithuanian Culture in West Lawn, said.
As of late, however, there’s been fear this unique building and its former monastery might be lost.
The Marian Fathers, the Catholic order that owns the buildings and the headquarters of Draugas — the world’s only daily Lithuanian-language newspaper published outside Lithuania — put the entire campus up for sale last summer.
The buildings, which come with park-like green space, is the kind of package developers tend to like. The chapel closed in July, but the newspaper office remains open.
There could be some hope on the horizon. The Brother David Darst Center, a nonprofit educating young people on social justice issues, said last week that it has a countersigned offer letter with the Marian Brothers to buy the chapel and monastery.
“Just working through financing and final contract stuff now,” Darst Center Executive Director Keith Donovan said.
Donovan said the purchase would preserve the monastery and chapel.
It would also shine some light on a fascinated, if lesser-known, chapter of Chicago’s architectural history.
New Lithuanian architecture — but in America
Ave Maria Chapel was designed by Jonas Kova-Kovalskis, an architect whose work includes Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church at 6812 S. Washtenaw Ave.
The chapel faces a handsome brick-walled courtyard anchored by an entry tower. It’s a peaceful, contemplative space. Even though it’s less than a block from busy West 63rd Street, it feels miles away.
Behind Ave Maria’s arched entry sits a small nave that is somehow classical yet modern; filled with mosaics, ornate stained glass, mosaics windows and enough color, details and natural light to seemingly keep the eye occupied for an eternity.
The nave’s south wall is dominated by large stained glass windows by Kazys Varnelis — he’d later open a studio in Chicago and teach at Olive-Harvey College — that depict St. Mark and a lion; St. John and an eagle; St. Matthew and an angel; and St Luke and an ox.
Women artists played a key role in the chapel’s design.
The nave’s north wall features the four Stations of the Cross rendered in lively glazed ceramic tile by Eleonora Marciulionis. The space’s mosaics were designed by Ada Korsakaite-Sutkus and created by Dalia Jukneviciut Markus, both of whom worked in the Chicago studio of stained glass master Adolfas Valeska.
“This is a unique little jewel box,” Chicago art historian and stained glass expert Rolf Achilles said of the chapel. “It’s very small. It’s 30 by 40 feet or so, and it’s not your typical church interior. [It’s] absolutely unique. There’s nothing like it in Chicago.”
For Ave Maria’s architects and artists, Chicago provided the design freedom that couldn’t be found in their homeland, Matranga said.
Matranga said the chapel and other postwar buildings designed by Lithuanian refugees “not only have to fill functions, but also represent the national identity … to express a new kind of architecture for Lithuania — that doesn’t exist in Lithuania [but] it exists in America and Canada.”
If the sale goes through, Donovan said his organization would use the chapel and monastery for educational and retreat space for high school and college-age students.
He also said the complex is in relatively good condition.
“While some things have been band-aided, nothing has fallen apart,” Donovan said. “I think we have a great diamond in the rough to be able to make sure it gets to continue on.”