© Arturo Gonzalez
Located in the Auditorium Building on the south side of downtown Chicago, the Auditorium Theatre is an entertainment center. The historic landmark opened in 1889 and is amazingly beautiful.
The Auditorium Theatre has a rich history. It went bankrupt and closed in 1941. The City of Chicago took it over in 1942, making it a World War II center for servicemen. Much of the ornate furnishings were covered during this time. More than 2.2 million servicemen spent time in the facility through 1945.
Roosevelt University acquired the Auditorium Theatre in 1946, but lack of funds kept it closed until a massive fundraising effort brought in $3 million to restore and refurbish the theater. It reopened in 1967 with a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed by the New York City Ballet.
I have attended many performances at the Auditorium Theatre, including Twyla Tharpe and Billy Joel’s Movin’ Out in 2006. While I obviously always noticed the grandeur of the building, it wasn’t until the 2015 NFL Draft was held there that I really soaked in the aesthetics. The large chunks of down time allowed my eyes to wander. The wonder of it all really hit me, and I planned to take a tour.
© Oliver Sandoval
The Auditorium Theatre has several tours a week. The tours guide you through the many nuances of the theater. Utilizing a technique called “compression and expansion,” guests walk through a small entrance with a low ceiling to enter the majestic six-story auditorium. This produces a wondrous effect. I liken it to walking through a concourse of Wrigley Field to reveal the open beauty of the field. That effect was ahead of its time and is still amazing.
The ornamentation includes flowers and other elements of nature, as opposed to royal figures, monuments or other such icons. The arches feature 24-karat gold leafing. Charles Holloway and Albert Fleury created the many floor and wall mosaics.
A feast for the eyes, the auditorium is also (and, perhaps, more importantly) acoustically superior. Having attended many performances here, I realized that early on, but again that lesson was hammered home during the NFL Draft, which had the clearest announcements.
Combining form and function to the fullest, it is simply a glorious structure. In the words of Frank Lloyd Wright, it is, “the greatest room for music and opera in the world — bar none.”
— John Wroblewski, distribution specialist
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