Monday / September 26, 2016 / 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
50th Anniversary of the Rescue of Glessner House
AIA Chicago, 35 East Wacker Drive, Ste. 250
Join us for a lecture celebrating the 50th anniversary of a National Historic Landmark, Glessner House, designed by eminent architect Henry Hobson Richardson, FAIA (1838-1886) and completed in 1887. It remains an internationally renowned treasure, designated a local and national landmark. A radical departure from its contemporaries, the structure served as an inspiration to architects such as Louis Sullivan, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright, and helped redefine domestic architecture. Richardson, an architect who achieved widespread international recognition, combined the specific needs of the Glessner family with his own progressive design ideas to create a house that was praised by architects but misunderstood and shunned by many of its neighbors when new. In 1966, the house stood vacant and under threat of demolition. A group of preservationists and architects banded together and formed an organization to purchase and rescue the house, a significant milestone in the historic preservation movement in Chicago. William Tyre, executive director of the Glessner House Museum, will explore that history and the home's 50th anniversary as a house museum.
Refreshments and socializing at 5:30pm; presentation at 6:00pm.
