Griffin Museum to reopen historic South entrance

reopen the – The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry plans a $22 million winter construction push to reopen its 133-year-old South Portico entrance, add an indoor cafe and renovated terrace, and deliver a fully ADA-accessible entry by 2027.

For generations. the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry’s south entrance was more than an architectural feature—it was the kind of door people simply passed through. Now. after roughly a century of being closed to routine public use. the museum is preparing to bring that bronze-doored entry back to life.

Come winter, the museum plans to break ground on a $22 million project that will include reopening the 133-year-old South Portico entrance and adding an indoor cafe with seating on a renovated outdoor terrace. The overhaul is expected to be completed in 2027.

Chevy Humphrey, the museum’s CEO, framed the decision as both a restoration and a correction. “That is the original entrance,” she said. “We want to celebrate that history. but we also want to show how we’re modernizing [and bringing] it back to its original intent of welcoming visitors on the south side of our building.”.

The revised entry is designed to be an active, ADA-accessible gateway. And the terrace—overlooking Jackson Park’s Columbia Basin, Wooded Isle, and the famed Osaka Garden—aims to give visitors a view that matches the building’s ambition.

“It is going to be exquisite,” Humphrey said. “And it’s going to be extraordinary.”

To carry out the redesign. the museum has turned to RAMSA. the New York City architecture firm formerly known as Robert A.M. Stern Architects. Associate Partner Caitlin Getman said the intention is to draw more visitors to the museum’s southern edge. “The goal was to create this opportunity to really capture all the visitors and people traveling along the southern edge of the museum. ” she said. “It was to open the doors back up. to create public amenities like restrooms. event spaces for the museum and the community [and] an outdoor terrace and cafe.”.

The South Portico was designed by Charles Atwood for the 1893 World’s Fair. Most of the fair’s buildings were temporary structures made of a plaster-like material. but the Palace of Fine Arts—where the museum space began—was built with a brick substrate. with works sent from across the world. Its permanence also made it more fire-resistant.

After the fair, the building briefly became home to what is now the Field Museum. The Field later constructed its own building at 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive in 1921, and the old Jackson Park palace fell into ruin.

In 1926, Julius Rosenwald, then president of Sears, Roebuck and Co., invested $5 million to convert the building into the Museum of Science and Industry. The neo-classical, limestone-clad museum with Art Moderne interiors designed by Alfred P. Shaw opened in 1933.

Even then, the museum’s focus shifted. Getman said that when it became the museum in 1933, the south entrance “was no longer the primary the entrance.” She added: “[The building] had shifted its focus to the North Portico.”

That arrangement had practical reasons: the north entrance is easier to access by car, and there’s enough room for bus traffic.

But Humphrey, who became president and CEO in 2020, described a more human motivation for recent changes to the museum’s pattern of entry—until disability access issues pushed the museum to scale back.

She said she started opening the old main entrance doors so visitors could see the cherry blossoms bloom in Jackson Park. “But we found that it was very hard on visitors that had disabilities,” she said. “So we don’t open them very often. And the stairs … are in heavy need of repair.”

With the South Portico project, the museum hired RAMSA to create new admission-free spaces on all sides of the building so people could “convene,” Humphrey said. She described the South Portico as the first part of that effort.

Funding for the initial phase includes a $10 million contribution from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.

Under the redesign plan. visitors will enter through a new set of on-grade entry doors that lead to a lobby and possibly exhibition space. Getman said. A lobby elevator will connect to the museum’s portico level and main cafe. Exterior steps will be restored. and a glass floor-to-ceiling exterior curtain wall will enclose the loggia between the entry’s four massive columns and the building’s bronze doors.

Getman said the goal is to make the new elements visually match the old. “The work ‘allows there to be a very light touch on the historic landmark,’” she said.

For others watching the project, the stakes are about sensitivity as much as access. Eleanor Gorski, CEO of the Chicago Architecture Center, said she expects RAMSA to handle the redesign with care. “I think it’s a great addition to the museum. and I can’t wait to see how they realize it and [the space] plan. ” Gorski said. “It seems like a very sensitive undertaking.”.

The reopened entrance also connects to a broader cultural map on the South Side. Humphrey said it puts the museum in dialogue with the nearby Obama Presidential Center. Valerie Jarrett, CEO of the Obama Foundation, said the effect is about more than two buildings—it’s about a museum campus.

“On the South Side, we will have a museum campus that rivals the one downtown,” Jarrett said.

Humphrey added that the museum is considering making general admission free again, returning to a practice that ended in the early 1990s. She said it could take years.

“As Daniel Burnham said, ‘Make no little plans,’” Humphrey said. “[This is] one of our big goals, and we’re going to try our best to reach it. It may take us a decade to do, but we have a focus and we’re trying to figure out how we do this.”

When the South Portico reopens in 2027, it won’t just change foot traffic. It will reopen a long-closed line of arrival—this time with amenities, an accessible route, and a new terrace view—so the museum’s history can be felt at street level again, on the south side.

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