Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago)

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The Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) is located in Chicago, Illinois in Jackson Park, in the Hyde Park neighborhood. It is housed in the only in-place surviving building from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the former Palace of Fine Arts (also known as the Fine Arts Building). It is the fourth largest cultural attraction in Chicago, based on 2006 attendance.

History

The Palace of Fine Arts was designed by Charles B. Atwood and, unlike the other White City buildings, was constructed with a brick substructure under its plaster facade. After the World's Fair, it initially housed the Columbian Museum, which evolved into the Field Museum of Natural History. When a new Field Museum building opened downtown in 1920, the museum organization moved and the former site was left vacant. Art Institute of Chicago professor Lorado Taft led a public campaign to restore the building and turn it into another art museum, one devoted to sculpture. After a few years, the building was selected as the site for a new science museum. During its conversion into the MSI, the building's exterior was re-cast in limestone, retaining its 1893 Beaux Arts look, while the interior was replaced with a new one in Art Moderne style designed by Alfred Shaw.

The South Park Commissioners (now part of the Chicago Park District) won approval in a referendum to sell $5 million in bonds to pay for restoration costs, hoping to turn the building into a sculpture museum, a technical trade school, and other things. At this time, the Commercial Club of Chicago was interested in establishing a science museum in Chicago. Sears, Roebuck and Company president and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald energized his fellow club members by pledging to pay $3 million towards the cost of converting the Palace of Fine Arts (Rosenwald eventually contributed more than $5 million to the project).

Rosenwald established the museum organization in 1926 and insisted that his name not appear on the building, but nonetheless, for the first few years of the museum's existence, it was known as the Rosenwald Industrial Museum. In 1928, the name of the museum was changed to the Museum of Science and Industry. Rosenwald's vision was to create an interactive museum in the style of the Deutsches Museum in Munich/Germany, a museum he visited in 1911 when he was on vacation with his family in Germany.

The museum conducted a nationwide search to find its first director. In the end MSI's Board of Directors selected Waldemar Kaempffert because he shared Julius Rosenwald's vision. Kaempffert was the science editor for the New York Times. He assembled the museum's first curatorial staff and began organizing and constructing the exhibits. In order to design and prepare the museum, Kaempffert and his staff visited the Deutsches Museum in Munich, the Science Museum in Kensington, and the Technical Museum in Vienna, all of which served as models for the MSI. Kaempffert was also instrumental in developing close ties with the science departments of the University of Chicago which supplied much of the scholarship for the exhibits. Kaempffert resigned in early 1931 amid growing disputes with the second president of the board of directors over the objectivity and neutrality of the exhibits and his management of the staff.

The new Museum of Science and Industry opened to the public in three stages between 1933 and 1940. The first opening ceremony took place during the Century of Progress Exposition. Two of the Museum's presidents, a number of curators and other staff members, and exhibits came to MSI from A Century of Progress.

For years visitors entered the museum through its original main entrance. However, it proved too small to handle a large number of people. The new main entrance is a structure detached from the main museum building, through which visitors descend into an underground area then re-ascend into the main building, in a way similar to the Louvre Pyramid.

Exhibits

References

Kogan, Herman. A Continuing Marvel: The Story of the Museum of Science and Industry. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1973.
Pridmore, Jay. Inventive Genius: The History of the Museum of Science and Industry Chicago. Chicago: Museum of Science and Industry, 1996.
Museum of Science and Industry (Yesterday's Main Street)

External links

Museum web site

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Last updated on Tuesday March 04, 2008 at 16:42:40 PST (GMT -0800)
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