Griffin Museum of Science and Industry to redevelop historic main entrance with new Welcome Hall
The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry plans to construct a new Welcome Hall for its primary entrance facing 57th Drive and Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.
For its first 65 years, visitors to the museum walked up the grand staircase and between the hulking Ionic columns to enter through the front doors, which famously feature an array of panels representing different scientific and industrial disciplines — mathematics and probability, measurement of space and time, chemistry, medicine, physics, power, transportation, metallurgy.
Instantly, visitors would enter the bustling, wondrous main floor, with the doorways to the old Money Center and Food For Life exhibits to the left and the Omnicom communications exhibit to the right, the rotunda straight ahead, and the coal mine whistle sounding every several minutes.
The coal mine whistle still sounds today, of course. But in recent years, those massive entry doors have been shut for the most part.
In 1998, the land in front of the MSI was redeveloped to move parking underground and replace the old surface lot with six acres of green space. New entry pavilions were constructed that sent visitors — whether in their cars or on foot — down to the ground level to purchase tickets and then up an escalator to the old entry area.
That will be changing, the museum said in a news release issued this past Friday.
The new project will replace the multi-level entry sequence with an above-ground Welcome Hall in front of the North Portico.
"This is an incredibly exciting moment for Griffin MSI because this project is about so much more than a new entrance," Dr. Chevy Humphrey, president and chief executive officer of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, said in a news release. "We heard from our community that they wanted a Museum that was more welcoming, more accessible and more connected to the people we serve, and we listened. This project is part of how we are delivering on that promise, honoring the history of this extraordinary building while reimagining how people will experience Griffin MSI for generations to come."
As described by Urbanize Chicago, the Welcome Hall will feature a low-sling archway that connects to the museum building by a glass structure. Renderings appear to show visitors entering the museum through the welcome hall both at grade level and by going up the stairs.
Part of the central area of the front stairs would be carved out for the accessible ground-level entrance, Urbanize Chicago reported.
The plan for the Welcome Hall will also include an adjacent outdoor Science Gardens, which will be open to the public without admission, the Griffin MSI said.
The existing underground entry hall will become additional exhibition space, the Griffin MSI said.
In January 2025, the Griffin MSI announced plans to open the South Portico facing the Columbia Basin pond in Jackson Park. The South Portico entrance was the main entrance to the building in its first incarnation as the Palace of Fine Arts during the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, but has not been an entrance to the building at any point in the Griffin MSI's 93 years of existence, according to published reports.
