Griffin Museum of Science and Industry South Portico Renovation, Chicago

The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry South Portico renovation broke ground Oct. 13, 2026, and it reopens a front door Chicago hasn’t used in more than a century. The $22 million project turns the colonnaded south entry of the 1893 Palace of Fine Arts, long the back of the building, into a full-time accessible entrance facing the Columbia Basin and Jackson Park. Completion is expected in December 2027.

RAMSA, the New York firm formerly known as Robert A.M. Stern Architects, designed it. The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation put up $10 million, the largest grant in the foundation’s history.

Project Scope

The South Portico is the six-column, bronze-doored entry that World’s Columbian Exposition visitors reached by gondola. Charles Atwood designed the Palace of Fine Arts for D.H. Burnham & Co., and the building was later rebuilt in limestone and reopened as the Museum of Science and Industry in 1933. The south entry hasn’t been in regular public use since the fair.

RAMSA’s plan encloses the loggia between the columns and the bronze doors with a floor-to-ceiling glass curtain wall, keeping the glass seams behind the existing columns. A new structure cuts into the entry steps to hold a cafe and an elevator, topped by a small terrace looking over the basin. The work adds lobby space, outdoor seating and restored paths and steps down to the water. The museum stays open throughout.

Why It Matters

Accessibility is the real driver. A Beaux-Arts building with monumental stairs on every side is a hard place to enter in a wheelchair, and this gives the museum a level, staffed entry on the park side, close to the Obama Presidential Center.

It’s also the less controversial of the museum’s two entry projects. The planned two-story, 458-foot-long Welcome Hall in front of the North Portico drew pushback from the Chicago Park District, which said it would block the lower facades, before the district backed it after Landmarks Illinois and the state historic preservation office weighed in. The Sun-Times’ architecture critic called the south work less intrusive, and that seems fair: glass tucked behind columns is easier to undo than a new hall.

For restoration contractors, this is precision work on one of Chicago’s most photographed landmarks, with the museum open the whole time.

Project Team & Details