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The story
World's Columbian Exposition and aftermath
The building which houses the Museum was constructed as the Palace of Fine Arts, built for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and designed by Charles B. Atwood for D. H. Burnham & Company. During the fair, the palace displayed paintings, prints, drawing, sculpture, and metalwork from around the world. Unlike the other "White City" buildings, which were primarily temporary, it was constructed with a permanent brick substructure under its plaster facade.
After the World's Fair, the palace initially housed the Columbian Museum, largely displaying collections left from the fair, which evolved into the Field Museum of Natural History. When the Field Museum moved to a new building five miles north in the Near South Side in 1920, the palace was left vacant.
School of the Art Institute of Chicago professor Lorado Taft led a public campaign to restore the building and turn it into another art museum, one devoted to sculpture. The South Park Commissioners (now part of the Chicago Park District) won approval in a referendum to sell $5 million in bonds to pay for restoration costs, hoping to turn the building into a sculpture museum, a technical trade school, and other things. However, after a few years, the building was selected as the site for a new science museum.
Museum formation
At this time, the Commercial Club of Chicago was interested in establishing a science museum in Chicago. Julius Rosenwald, philanthropist and Sears, Roebuck and Company president, energized his fellow club members by pledging to pay $3 million towards the cost of converting the Palace of Fine Arts; Rosenwald eventually contributed more than $5 million ($118 million in 2025) to the project. During its conversion into the MSI, the building's exterior was re-cast in limestone to retain its 1893 Beaux Arts look. The interior was replaced with a new one in Art Moderne style designed by Alfred P. Shaw.
Rosenwald established the museum organization in 1926 but declined to have his name on the building. For the first two years of development, the museum was often referred to as the "Rosenwald Industrial Museum". In 1928, the name of the museum officially became the Museum of Science and Industry. Rosenwald's vision was to create a museum in the style of the Deutsches Museum of science and technology in Munich, which he had visited in 1911 while in Germany with his family.
Sewell Avery, another businessman, had supported the museum within the Commercial Club and was selected as its first president of the board of directors. The museum conducted a nationwide search for the first director. MSI's Board of Directors selected Waldemar Kaempffert, then the science editor of The New York Times, because he shared Rosenwald's vision.
He assembled the museum's curatorial staff and directed the organization and construction of the exhibits. In order to prepare the museum, Kaempffert and his staff visited the Deutsches Museum in Munich, the Science Museum in Kensington, and the Technical Museum in Vienna, all of which served as models. Kaempffert was instrumental in developing close ties with the science departments of the University of Chicago, which supplied much of the scholarship for the exhibits. Kaempffert resigned in early 1931 amid growing disputes with the second president of the board of directors; they disagreed over the objectivity and neutrality of the exhibits and Kaempffert's management of the staff.
Opening
The museum underwent renovation work, including the installation of a Ludowici tile roof on the central dome in 1930, before opening to the public in three stages between 1933 and 1940. The first opening ceremony took place during the Century of Progress Exposition. Two of the museum's presidents, a number of curators and other staff members, and exhibits came to MSI from the Century of Progress event.
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In 1992, the museum began planning a series of renovations as part of the "MSI2000" plan. This included an underground three-level parking deck beneath the front lawn. Construction of the underground parking deck was finished in July 1998. These renovations also eventually incorporated a new subterranean main entrance hall which visitors descend into before re-ascending into the main building, similar to the entryway beneath the Louvre Pyramid in Paris.
For the first 5 decades of its operation, general admission to the MSI was free, although certain exhibits (such as the Coal Mine and U-505) required small fees. General entrance fees were first charged in the early 1990s, with general admission rates increasing from $13 in 2008 to $18 in 2015 and $25.95 in 2024. Many "free days"—for Illinois residents only—are offered throughout the year.
Renaming
On October 3, 2019, the museum announced that it intended to change its name to the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, after a donation of $125 million from billionaire Kenneth C. Griffin. It is the largest single gift in the museum's history, effectively doubling its endowment. However, president and chief executive officer David Mosena said the formal name change could take some time, due to the legal complexity of the process. He also said part of the gift will go into funding "a state-of-the-art digital gallery and performance space that will be the only experience of its kind in North America." Chevy Humphrey became president and CEO of the private, non-profit museum in January 2021. The new name was officially unveiled on May 19, 2024, alongside an updated logo. Due to Griffin's conservative political views, the name change drew criticism from some in the community. Specifically, some were upset that Griffin had offloaded many of his Chicago properties and moved his family to Miami due to the city of Chicago's politics and crime rates.
In 2025, the Driehaus Foundation, which has interests in preserving neo-classical architecture, announced its largest capital grant to date of $10 million to help fund the renovation of the museum's south entrance accessibility and new public amenity spaces. The south portico with platforms and steps down to the Jackson Park lagoon was the building's main entrance during the world's fair when it was built in the 1890s. The south entrance also faces toward the nearby Barack Obama Presidential Center part of the Museum Campus South.
From Wikipedia’s article on Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5