|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hours | Mon-Thurs 10am-7pm; Fri 10am-6pm; Sat 10am-5pm; Sun 11am-5pm | ||
| Address | 78 E. Washington St | ||
| Transportation | Bus: 3, 4, 20, 56, 145, 146, 147, 151, or 157. Subway/El: Brown, Green, Orange, or Purple line to Randolph, or Red Line to Washington/State | ||
| Phone | 312/744-6630, 312/FINE-ART for weekly events | ||
| Web site | www.cityofchicago.org/exploringchicago | ||
| Prices | Free admission | ||
| Season | Closed major holidays | ||
Frommer's Review
The Chicago Cultural Center was built in 1897 as the city's public library, and in 1991, it was transformed into a showplace for visual and performing arts. Today, it's an overlooked civic treasure with a basic Beaux Arts exterior and a sumptuous interior of rare marble, fine hardwood, stained glass, and mosaics of Favrile glass, colored stone, and mother-of-pearl inlaid in white marble. The crowning centerpiece is Preston Bradley Hall's majestic Tiffany dome, said to be the largest of its kind in the world.
The building also houses a Chicago Office of Tourism visitor center, which makes it an ideal place to kick-start your visit. If you stop in to pick up tourist information and take a quick look around, your visit won't take longer than 15 minutes, but the Cultural Center also schedules an array of art exhibitions, concerts, films, lectures, and other special events (many free), which might convince you to extend your time here. A long-standing tradition is the 12:15pm Dame Myra Hess Memorial classical concert every Wednesday in the Preston Bradley Hall.
Guided architectural tours of the Cultural Center run at 1:15pm on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip.
| Back to Top |
| RSS | |||||||
|
Frommer's Chicago 2010
Author: Elizabeth Canning Blackwell |
Related Titles:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
| Sponsor Links | What's This? |
| 0 stars | Frommer's Recommended | |
| 1 stars | Frommer's Highly Recommended | |
| 2 stars | Frommer's Very Highly Recommended | |
| 3 stars | Frommer's Exceptional |
Frommer's ranks every hotel, restaurant, attraction, shop, and nightlife establishment it reviews for quality, value, service, amenities, and special features using a star-rating scale, an expression of the strong compare-and-contrast opinions that are a brand hallmark.
Other ratings provide stars based primarily on price and amenities; the Frommer's star rating is meant to quantify the kind of intangible, experiential elements that help travelers make informed decisions.
The "baseline" recommendation is zero stars--every hotel, restaurant, attraction, shop, and nightlife establishment that Frommer's chooses to review is recommended; otherwise, we simply wouldn't include it.