the rebuilt chicago stock exchange building trading room's luridly polychromatic interior

if you haven't already, please take the time to visit this adler & sullivan masterpiece, containing an extraordinary level of design complexity and detail, and a variety of building materials treated with a visually stunning polychromatic finish. with a sizable amount of salvaged material carefully documented and removed from the original trading room, chicago architect john vinci et al., managed to follow through with a remarkable undertaking: to rebuild the room from the time the chicago stock exchange building was demolished in 1972 to its completion with exceptional exactness in 1977.

polychrome stencil and monogrammed plaster untouched for decades. courtesy of the john vinci collection.

salvage of the trading room. courtesy of the john vinci collection.

sadly, in my opinion, much of the "behind the scenes" effort to recreate this space (including the sense of loss surrounding one of adler and sullivan's architectural masterpieces, and richard nickel's death), is not felt upon entering the room. consequently, it's no surprise that it remains mostly empty and forgotten - at least on each and every visit i've made to the art institute. the few people that do wander in no doubt admire the richly colored stencils and skylights, executed by healy and millet, but they may have little idea what they are looking at.

there is no narrative or context to really make the room come to life. only through the ornament can it be effectively communicated what this room is and why so much effort was put into its recreation. in other words, there isn't much there to impart the story or significance. instead, people drop in, look up, comment a little, then turn right back around.

i hope that sometime down the road, someone will put forth the necessary time and effort to fill in these gaping holes, where there continues to be a disconnect.  i hope that someone who cares will steer people toward an engaging narrative, one that walks them through the remarkable effort of its creation -- to successfully fund and recreate an entire room (and a very complex one at that) from a pile of materials quickly removed from a historically important building no longer with us. instead, the room lies largely neglected and off the beaten path to most patrons, waiting to be used time and again as an "event space," a pretty backdrop to hold a party. with a narrative attached, i believe it would be given a second life as a place to inspire architects, historians, researchers, preservationists and anyone else who wants living proof that projects of this magnitude can and do become a reality.

chicago stock exchange building trading room artifacts acquired over time for the bldg. 51 museum.