Griffin MSI plans $22 million renovation to reopen historic south entrance

The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry is preparing to begin a $22 million renovation of its South Portico, bringing a historic entrance back into regular public use. Museum officials have scheduled a groundbreaking ceremony for Tuesday, with construction expected to finish in late 2027.

The project will create an ADA-accessible entrance on the museum’s south side, along with an outdoor cafe, gathering areas and a terrace facing the Columbia Basin and Jackson Park. For Chicago residents and museum visitors, the improvements are intended to make the building easier to enter and provide new places to spend time without paying admission.

Plans include a new elevator and a floor-to-ceiling glass enclosure for the loggia, the sheltered space between the portico’s six large columns and its bronze doors. RAMSA, the New York architecture firm previously known as Robert A.M. Stern Architects, is designing the renovation. The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation has contributed $10 million toward the work.

The south entrance has a direct connection to the building’s earliest visitors. During the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, the structure served as the Palace of Fine Arts, and visitors could arrive at its front steps by gondola through the Columbia Basin. The renovation is intended to restore consistent public use of that entrance for the first time since the fair.

Designed by Charles Atwood in the Greek Revival style, the building originally had a plaster exterior. The South Portico was not used while the building housed the Field Museum from 1904 to 1920. The structure later received limestone and other more permanent exterior materials before opening as the Museum of Science and Industry in 1933.

The South Portico work is one of two entrance projects planned for the museum. Officials recently announced a separate, two-story Welcome Hall measuring 458 feet across at the North Portico entrance off 57th Street. RAMSA is designing both projects, which museum officials describe as efforts to improve accessibility and expand admission-free public space.

Scheduled speakers at the south entrance groundbreaking include museum President and CEO Chevy Humphrey, Chicago Park District General Superintendent Carlos Ramirez-Rosa and Chicago Department of Planning Commissioner Ciere Boatright. Humphrey has described the south entrance project as a way to honor the building’s history while updating how it welcomes visitors.