Griffin Museum Of Science And Industry Breaks Ground On Historic South Portico Opening

HYDE PARK — Work to open the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry’s south entrance for the first time in the museum’s history is officially underway.

A $22 million project to renovate the South Portico of the museum5700 S. DuSable Lake Shore Drive in Hyde Park, was celebrated with a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday.

Renovations to the south entrance, which has been closed for more than a century, will add an Americans With Disabilities Act-accessible entrance, a café and a terrace overlooking Jackson Park. Construction is set to be finished by late 2027.

The museum will remain open through construction and access to surrounding roads and park spaces won’t be impacted, officials said last year.

The south portico “will open as a fully accessible entrance to the museum and a free gathering space, creating a much stronger connection between Griffin MSI, Jackson Park and our South Side community,” museum president and CEO Chevy Humphries said during Tuesday’s ceremony.

The project was boosted by a $10 million gift from the Chicago-based Richard H. Driehaus Foundation — the largest amount the foundation has awarded since its creation in 1983.

“We saw this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reopen the original southern entrance and preserve it as a public space, revitalizing an important piece of Chicago’s vibrant architectural history,” Cynthia Van Osdol, president and CEO of Driehaus Trust Company, said Tuesday.

The state also contributed $5 million in capital funds through the fiscal year 2025 budget, state Rep. Curtis Tarver told Block Club.

“One of the visions is to have a Museum Campus South,” Tarver said. “You have the parks already, you have the lakefront, you have the Obama” Presidential Center. He said the renovations can create “something that is more welcoming for folks who are further south.

“You shouldn’t have to come from the far south, all the way over north, to get into the building.”

Visitors to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition were the last to enter the building — which served as the Palace of Fine Arts during the World’s Fair — from its south end. Many did so after riding gondolas through the neighboring Columbia Basin, said Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, superintendent and CEO of the Chicago Park District. The museum officially opened in 1933.

“I’m not saying we’ll have gondolas on the Columbia Basin tomorrow — there’s still some dredging that needs to be done, [and] a lot more work that needs to occur before we get there,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “But [this project] reactivates this entrance and restores that history to this site.”

This week’s groundbreaking comes amid renovations to a Jackson Park pathway linking the museum’s south end with the Obama Presidential Center. That project has received $1.2 million in federal funding.

Museum officials last month also announced plans to renovate the building’s north entrance with a new, above-ground Welcome Hall. The existing underground entry would be repurposed as additional exhibition space.

The Park District has not given final permit approvals to the North Portico renovations, but the agency completed its review of the plan’s design and supported its advancement through the city’s approval process, Ramirez-Rosa said.

“We think that [the north entrance project] also adds accessibility and inclusivity and connectivity to the front entrance of the building,” Ramirez-Rosa told Block Club.

“It too will shorten the distance that people have to walk, which is great for people with mobility issues. … The shorter distance they have to traverse, the more time they can spend in the exhibits learning and having fun. We think that the North Portico project is great on the accessibility and mobility front.”

The Park District “did have some concerns about the modern design” of the North Portico project, but “deferred to the experts” after receiving letters of support from preservation nonprofit Landmarks Illinois and the State Historic Preservation Officer, Ramirez-Rosa said.

Tim Samuelson, the city’s cultural historian emeritus, denounced the twin renovation plans in a Tribune op-ed Sunday. The north and south entryway projects will “destroy the essence of what makes the building rare and special,” Samuelson wrote.

Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey has described the North Portico project as a “carbuncle” that resembles “a displaced section of Teletubbyland,” though he wrote Sunday that “the South Portico additions seem to be less intrusive, judging from the renderings.”

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