Cultural center is architectural gem

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By Shirley Davis | Monday, May 5, 2008 9:56 AM CDT | () comments

Whenever I’ve attended one of the free lunchtime concerts in Preston Bradley Hall in Chicago’s Cultural Center, I spend most of my time looking at the ceiling.

Of all the priceless glass, mosaics, wood carvings and other artwork in the old public library, it’s always been the gigantic glass dome that simply dazzled me. No wonder. It’s made of Tiffany glass and is more than a century old.

If you’ve ever been to the old library, now known as the cultural center, you know what an architectural gem it is. Located on Michigan Avenue, with entrances on both Washington and Randolph streets, it’s the location for 700-plus free concerts a year.

On Wednesdays, for instance, the accent is on classical music in the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert series. The opportunity to hear a 45-minute free concert is sort of a well-kept secret — except to the several hundred Chicagoans who fill the hall for each performance.

What a lovely gift to residents of the city and its visitors!

When I stopped by for a concert a couple of weeks ago I was directed to another beautiful hall in the building.

“They’re restoring the Tiffany dome,” I was told. “Preston Bradley Hall won’t be used again until the restoration is completed in June.”

And that’s when I began asking questions about the history of that dome, and here’s what I found out:

“Cost of the restoration project?” I asked. “About $2 million,” I was told by Meg Givhan in the public affairs office, who said she really didn’t want me to climb the scaffolding up to where they’re working on the dome to take a picture. But they did let me give my camera to a worker who scaled the scaffolding and came up with the photo on this page.

So, I got only a peek through scaffolding from below of the world’s largest Louis Comfort Tiffany art glass dome that will allow natural light to shine through when the project is finished.

Completed in 1897 for the public library, the dome is 38 feet in diameter and covers more than 1,000 square feet. When you think of what a Tiffany lamp sells for today, you can just imagine the value of this ceiling that contains about 30,000 pieces of glass in 243 sections within an ornate cast-iron frame.

The body of the dome has a “fish scale” pattern; the center displays the signs of the zodiac. It was originally protected by an exterior translucent glass dome that allowed natural light into the room. That dome was replaced by one made of concrete blocks and covered with copper, and with a lighting system behind the glass so it could illuminate the room.

Why did they put such an elaborate work of art in a public building in the first place? Lois Weisberg, commissioner of cultural affairs for the City of Chicago, explains: “In the 1890s, Chicago wanted to affirm its identity as a center of culture and artistic achievement instead of as a gritty metropolis of stockyards and smokestacks.

“The nation’s best resources and personnel in architecture and craft were secured to create this home for the city’s main library.”

Several years ago, it was determined that 1,800 pieces of glass were cracked and that the glass was very dirty. When removing the pieces for repair, they found more than 6,000 rough chunks of clear glass in the panels to further reflect the light.

So, in December, each of the glass panels was carefully removed for restoration and replaced with a replica.

When the restored panels are reinstalled, these jewels of cracked glass will face the room for the first time — as Tiffany intended.

In January, the concrete-and-copper exterior dome was removed, and plans were made for a new exterior, translucent skylight.

The ornate cast-iron framework is being cleaned and restored to its original finish — “an aged patina similar to gold leaf, yet more lustrous and more iridescent,’’ I was told.

New lighting will illuminate the framework, bringing out the red, pink and salmon colors of the art glass. In late June, the replicas will be removed and the restored art glass panels reinstalled.

Now, won’t that be a new reason for Quad-Citians to be among the 800,000 visitors who come to Chicago each year to enjoy the beauty of the Cultural Center as well as the free programs offered there?

Shirley Davis can be contacted at (563) 383-2281 or sdavis@qctimes.com.