Chicago Cultural Center — library building
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Chicago Cultural Center

  • 2 min read
  • 41.884° N 87.625° W

Interesting facts

  • The Tiffany dome over Preston Bradley Hall is made of some 30,000 pieces of glass, set with turtleback jewels produced by Indiana's Kokomo Opalescent Glass Works.
  • The building's second dome, by Healy and Millet over the Civil War memorial rotunda, is even larger: about 40 feet across with some 50,000 pieces of glass.
  • The land for the library was donated by the Grand Army of the Republic, which is why Union veterans received their own memorial hall inside.
  • Completed in 1897 for nearly $2 million, the building has masonry walls about three feet thick, faced with Indiana limestone over a granite base.
  • The staircase leading to the fifth floor was inspired by the Bridge of Sighs in Venice.
  • The Sidney R. Yates Gallery reproduces an assembly hall of the Doge's Palace in Venice, with richly ornamented pilasters and a coffered ceiling.
  • The Randolph Street entrance hall is lined with green-veined Vermont marble, while its curving stair is faced with Knoxville pink marble and bronze balusters.
  • The conversion into an arts centre in 1978 was driven by cultural commissioner Lois Weisberg and created the first free municipal cultural centre in the United States.
  • Each year the building stages more than 1,000 free programmes and exhibitions and also houses the headquarters of the Chicago Children's Choir.
  • Kerry James Marshall's 2017 mural Rush More on the west facade honours women who shaped Chicago's culture, including Gwendolyn Brooks and Oprah Winfrey.

Why it is worth it

Behind a restrained limestone front on Washington Street in the Chicago Loop hides one of the most lavish interiors in the United States. The Chicago Cultural Center opened in 1897 as the city's first central public library and, in the same building, a memorial hall for the Grand Army of the Republic, the association of Union veterans of the Civil War. The Boston firm Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge designed it in a Beaux-Arts manner with Italian Renaissance details, giving the two halves separate entrances and even different numbers of floors, as if two buildings had been fitted into one block.

Inside, the building turns into a jewel box. The grand staircase is of white Carrara marble set with medallions of green Connemara marble from Ireland, and walls and arches glitter with mosaics of iridescent Favrile glass, stone and mother-of-pearl. The climax is Preston Bradley Hall, a great, richly ornamented hall, crowned by a stained-glass dome some 38 feet (about 12 metres) across made by the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company to a design by J. A. Holzer. Its panes, cut in the shape of fish scales and set with glass jewels, glow with daylight, and the signs of the zodiac circle its crown; it is regarded as the largest Tiffany glass dome in the world. On the other side of the building, the Grand Army of the Republic rotunda has a second glass dome by the Chicago firm Healy and Millet, patterned in a Renaissance design.

In the 1960s the old library came close to being demolished; preservationists fought for it, and in the late 1970s it was reborn as a cultural centre, the whole building being given over to the arts after the new Harold Washington Library opened in 1991. Today it hosts free exhibitions, concerts and talks, and serves as the city's official reception venue, so a visitor can simply walk in off the street and stand under the Tiffany dome. The Tiffany dome was restored in 2008 and again in the early 2020s, when its glass was cleaned and repaired piece by piece.

Getting there

The Chicago Cultural Center is at 78 East Washington Street in the Loop, the centre of downtown Chicago, and entry to the building is free. The nearest airport is Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW), about 15 km away; O'Hare International is further out to the north-west.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

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From the encyclopaedia

The Chicago Cultural Center, opened in 1897, is a national landmark operated by Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. The neoclassical building houses the city's official reception venue, where the Mayor of Chicago has welcomed presidents, royalty, diplomats, and community leaders. It is located in the Loop, across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park.

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