Open House Chicago celebrates the city’s buildings and neighborhoods
During a City Club of Chicago event on Monday, Chicago Architecture Foundation President Lynn Osmond encouraged Chicagoans to attend the upcoming Open House Chicago festival on Oct. 18-19.
The two-day event, which offers behind-the-scenes access to more than 150 buildings in Chicago, is free and open to the public. Participants can tour architecturally-significant mansions, theatres, hotels, offices, religious spaces and private clubs in 18 different Chicago neighborhoods. Osmond said the free festival embodies her foundation’s “mission to inspire people to discover why design matters.”
Now in its fourth year, Open House Chicago attracts visitors from as far as Australia, Osmond explained. She said the architecture festival drew 55,000 people last year and generated $5.1 million in direct spending on local restaurants, hotels, shops and transportation.
The architecture foundation expects at least 60,000 people to attend Open House Chicago this year. Buildings on the 2014 tour include: the Union Station Women’s Lounge, the original Sears Tower in North Lawndale, the Airstream conference center in Lincoln Square, St. Adalbert Church in Pilsen and the New Regal Theater in Bronzeville, which will be open to the public for the first time in nearly a decade.
For ambitious architecture enthusiasts, Osmond challenged, “Maybe you can even try to beat the record set by our chairman from Allstate, which is 40 buildings in two days.”
