Chicago Museum of Glass Art
Located adjacent to the Obama Presidential Library in Chicago’s Hyde Park, the Chicago Museum of Glass Art is a proposed cultural and educational institution that explores the artistry, science, and transformative qualities of glass. The design integrates exhibition, education, and public gathering spaces—including soaring double-height gallery floors, a school for glass education and fabrication, an event hall, and a subterranean restaurant and auditorium connected to an outdoor amphitheater and sculpture garden. A generous ground-level plaza welcomes visitors and weaves the museum into the civic fabric of the neighborhood. Throughout the project, glass is not only the subject of the museum but also the architectural medium—shaping space, light, and experience.
IIT College of Architecture – Spring 2025
Studio Professor: Tom Brock
Team Members: Kelly Sullivan & Ivan Gonzalez-Vazquez
Nagle/Hartray Scholarship Award Recipient
A structural expression where offset cantilevers create double-height galleries lifted off the ground. A double-skin façade wraps the volume, while a transparent glass lobby at grade blurs the line between interior and exterior. Flanking elevator towers on each end echo Lina Bo Bardi’s iconic spatial moves, anchoring the building like bridge pylons.
Section drawings reveal how light, structure, and movement shape the visitor’s experience — from the open gallery spaces to the more intimate moments tucked within.
The design uses transparency and layering to create a dialogue between the artwork, the architecture, and the city beyond.
In a museum dedicated to glass, the boundaries between inside and outside, heavy and light, visible and hidden, all begin to blur.
