Chicago Landmarks Panel Approves New Welcome Hall for Griffin Museum of Science and Industry

The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry is moving ahead with a new front door.

The Permit Review Committee of Chicago's Commission on Chicago Landmarks approved plans this week for a new Welcome Hall at the museum's North Portico, the columned entrance facing the North Lawn at 5700 S. DuSable Lake Shore Drive in Hyde Park. Museum officials say the addition will become the primary point of entry for visitors while leaving the building's original architectural details in place.

According to the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, the approved plans call for both interior and exterior work on the north entrance. That includes installing glass curtain walls behind the portico's historic columns, reconfiguring the north lawn, and other structural changes tied to the new hall. Renderings released by the museum show an entry space set behind the existing colonnade, designed to funnel visitors into the building without altering the portico's exterior appearance from DuSable Lake Shore Drive.

The museum, built for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and one of the last surviving structures from that fair, has long had to balance its status as a protected landmark with the demands of moving hundreds of thousands of visitors a year through a single, aging entrance. The North Portico currently serves as the museum's main entry point, and the new Welcome Hall is meant to modernize the arrival experience, adding space for ticketing and orientation and easing crowd flow without disturbing the columns and facade that give the building its landmark status.

The committee's sign-off is a procedural but necessary step for any exterior work on a designated Chicago landmark. The full Commission on Chicago Landmarks and the Permit Review Committee review proposed alterations to protected buildings to make sure changes do not compromise the features that earned a structure its designation in the first place. With that approval secured, the museum can move forward with the permitting process needed to start construction, though a specific timeline for breaking ground on the Welcome Hall has not been released.

The north entrance work is separate from another project already on the museum's books: a $22 million plan to reopen its south entrance for the first time in more than 100 years. That project is expected to break ground this winter, with completion targeted for 2027. The south entry, on the building's opposite side, has sat unused as a visitor entrance for generations, and reopening it is intended to give the museum a second major access point, easing congestion at the north side and offering a route in from the south end of Jackson Park.

The building has changed names and ownership structures over the decades, and now carries the Griffin name after a major gift, but the North Portico's columns have remained largely unchanged since 1933, when the museum first opened to the public.

Museum officials have not released a total cost estimate or funding breakdown for the Welcome Hall project separate from the south entrance figure. Officials also have not said whether the two projects will proceed on overlapping schedules or whether visitors should expect entrance closures or detours once construction begins on the north side.

For now, the approval clears the design for the Welcome Hall to proceed toward permitting. The south entrance project remains the more defined of the two, with a winter groundbreaking and a 2027 completion date already set. The Commission on Chicago Landmarks and the museum are expected to release further construction details as permitting moves forward on the north entrance work.