The Chicago Architecture Center’s free annual spectacle, Open House Chicago, returns Oct. 18-19, unlocking the doors to more than 200 sites that most of us might not otherwise see.
Some old favorites return such as the Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Ave., and Wintrust’s aptly-named Grand Banking Hall, 231 S. LaSalle Street, a place so Greek Revival it makes me want to slip on a toga and deposit a few drachmas up in there.
But this year’s event has 30 new places to gawk at. All of them are pretty good, but here are my top five:
Hilliard Towers Apartments, Near South Side
Built in 1966, these circular apartment towers at 30 W. Cermak Road were originally public housing residences. But instead of warehousing people in stark high-rise towers that were typical of the era, Marina City architect Bertrand Goldberg designed humane buildings with nice views, green space and quality interiors. The towers are rehabbed, privately managed and, fortunately, still providing affordable housing.
Auditorium Building, Loop
You’ve probably seen a performance or two in the beautiful Auditorium Theater at this Adler & Sullivan masterpiece that is also the home of Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Ave. But the show doesn’t stop there. The building’s lesser-seen Ganz Hall, a seventh-floor performance space that is one of the finest late-1890s interiors in the city, will be open to visitors. Check out the room’s gold leaf stenciled arches, hand-painted murals and Victorian-era steel chandeliers. Besides, it’s a rare chance to see the work of Louis Sullivan, Dankmar Adler, painter Albert Fleury, stained glass masters Millet & Healy and a young Frank Lloyd Wright all in a single place. Visitors can also see the restored Sullivan Room on the second floor and the Murray-Green Library.
Japanese American Service Committee, West Ridge
Kudos to the Open House Chicago team for putting the spotlight on this smart adaptive reuse project in West Ridge, at 5700 N. Lincoln Ave. The Japanese American Service Committee converted a modernist U.S. Bank branch into a vibrant-looking community center packed with tons of uses, including an adult day care, work spaces and the committee’s archive and library, showcasing Japanese American history in Chicago. As single-use neighborhood commercial buildings such as bank branches and retail stores continue to close, the committee and their architects, Metis Design, show there can be a community-oriented future for these structures.
Morning Star Baptist Church of Chicago, Grand Boulevard
This Bronzeville church at 3993 S. King Drive has the distinction of being designed by two prominent Black architects — 30 years apart. In 1939, Walter Thomas Bailey — the state’s first licensed Black architect, responsible for the remarkable First Church of Deliverance, 4315 S. Wabash Ave. — designed the conversion of Morning Star from a 1912 auto garage into a church. Then in 1968, the building was given a stylish top-to-bottom midcentury makeover that’s visible from the outside — but with an interior that has to be seen to be believed, with its floating staircase, dalle de verre stained glass and crisp, sophisticated worship space. The Black architecture firm Hunter, Konn, & Duster and Associates handled the renovation. Partner Charles Duster, grandson of Ida B. Wells and her husband, Ferdinand E. Barnett, later became an associate partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
National Public Housing Museum, Near West Side
This serving remnant of the former Jane Addams public housing development, originally built in 1937, began a new life this year as a museum. Nicely designed, the nation’s first public housing museum has art, video, oral histories, exhibits and a trio of re-created apartments that show how residents lived at various points in the Addams homes’ existence. The museum, 919 S. Ada St., provides a counterpoint to the shopworn crime-misery-death narrative that surrounded developments like these, while also making a case for the greater point that housing is a human right. Chicago-based LBBA architects handled the job.
Bonus pick: Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation, Austin
Opened last summer, this project at 5500 W. Madison St. turned the former Emmet Elementary — one of the 50 public schools shut down in 2013 by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel — into a well-designed workforce development center and community space. The architecture firm Lamar Johnson Collaborative handled the redesign and gave the building a 50-foot glass entry atrium — that alone is worth checking out.
To see a full list of the 2025 Open House sites, visit openhousechicago.org.