Saints and Social Change: A Q&A With Artist Laurie Buman

Discover how Laurie Buman’s art, heavily influenced by her travels in Mexico, shines a light on social issues through her captivating saint and botanical series.

Saint Monarca of the Milkweed

Duke and I popped into Everybody’s Coffee in our neighborhood of Uptown in Chicago — and were instantly captivated by the striking art gracing the walls. Laurie Buman’s works are a visual feast: wide-eyed saints with a hint of steampunk flair and Day of the Dead influences, each collage exuding a powerful spirituality. Among the holy figures were unique creations like a holy canine and the butterfly-infused Saint Monarca of the Milkweed, canonized straight from Buman’s imagination. We couldn’t help but be intrigued by the stories each piece told.

We reached out to Laurie a few months ago to learn more about her artwork and process. –Wally

Artist Laurie Buman

Let’s start from the beginning. What inspired you to become an artist and develop your style?

Since I was little, I knew I was an artist. I would draw from around 4 years old and always loved coloring and drawing. My parents noticed I had a natural ability to draw realistically, so they nurtured that talent. I received an art scholarship to the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and later finished my degree at the University of Milwaukee. Over the years, I took continuing education courses in design and art, earning a BFA [bachelor of fine arts degree]. I spent many years working as a designer full time, which consumed a lot of my time, but I’ve gradually increased the time I spend in my studio.

Saint Cabrini of the River

How does Mexico influence your art?

I’ve been traveling to Mexico since I was 17. My first trip was for Day of the Dead, and I was captivated by the landscape’s beauty and the culture. It’s very unlike Wisconsin, where I grew up. The people in Mexico are so welcoming and inviting, and their culture is rich in history, color and ritual. It draws you in. My art was influenced by these experiences, especially my Day of the Dead photography.

What are some of your favorite places in Mexico?

Oaxaca is very dear to my heart, with its intense culture and natural beauty. I also love Mexico City and Mérida. I’m excited to visit Chiapas in spring 2025, which has a rich indigenous culture.

Can you tell us more about your saint series?

The series started with Saint Catherine of Bologna, an incorruptible saint whose body did not decompose. I channeled her and created my first saint piece, and the series grew from there. I've created pieces addressing social issues like femicide and mental illness, each piece becoming a shrine where people can put their thoughts and prayers. The process is therapeutic for me, as it allows me to bring light into the darkness.

What’s your artistic process like?

I spend months thinking about a particular saint. I do extensive research, layer images in Photoshop, and bring in original photography and found objects that add dimension and meaning. For example, I use rosaries and milagros in my pieces and top them with hand-applied gold leaf.

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha of the Indigenous

What other themes do you explore in your work?

In the past two years, I’ve been focusing on the environment and global warming, creating pieces about monarch butterflies and bees. My latest work, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint, celebrates ecology. I’ve also been working on botanicals and cyanotypes, exploring themes of nature and spontaneity.

What are some of the biggest challenges you face as an artist, and how do you overcome them?

Keeping momentum can be challenging, especially when starting. Making connections and finding venues to show my work helps. Having a studio at the Bridgeport Art Center provides a monthly audience and a supportive community. It’s vital to share your work and feel inspired by those around you.

Tell us about 3rd Fridays at the Bridgeport Art Center.

All the resident artists open their studios, and there are galleries on the third and fourth floors. We always have a show or two going on. I have a small gallery called Galería Azul, where I feature a guest artist every two months.

Daffodils + Fireflies

How has your work evolved over the years?

As I’ve aged and grown more confident, my work has become more expressive. My experiences at the University of Chicago and the Bridgeport Arts Center have elevated my work and given me the confidence to be myself and share my ideas.

Night Sky

What do you hope people take away from your art?

With my saint series, I hope people feel compassion towards the subject matter and think about social issues. With my botanical pieces, I want people to delight in spontaneous moments and appreciate the beauty of our world, realizing how precious our planet is.

A Day of the Dead ofrenda by Buman at the Chocolate Museum in Mexico City, featuring Saint Agatha of the Forgotten Daughters

Are there any upcoming projects or exhibitions you’re excited about?

Yes, I have a Day of the Dead show at the Patrician Gallery in Wilmette and a potential show in December at the Chocolate Museum in Mexico City. 

Infant Saint Ben of the Pit Bulls

Is there a particular piece that holds significant personal meaning for you?

All my pieces are special, but Saint Ben of the Pit Bulls is very dear to me. I used to do pit bull rescue, and this piece commemorates a pit bull named Ben who had a significant impact on my life.

The Black Madonna of Light

What legacy would you like to leave as an artist?

I hope to have brought attention to social issues, brought light into the world and added beauty. If people said I reminded them of Frida Kahlo, that would be a great honor.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Just that I’m grateful for this opportunity to share my story. I love connecting with others who share a passion for travel and culture.

---

Rick Bayless Garden Tour: A Flavorful Experience

Join the renowned Topolobampo and Frontera Grill chef in his Bucktown garden on an unforgettable Chicago culinary tour. And be sure to try the begonias. 

When celebrity chef Rick Bayless opens up his urban garden for tours, snatch up tickets — they go fast.

One of the many things that I love about Chicago is that you can be a tourist in your own city. There’s so much to see and explore. So when I received an email announcing the opportunity to take a tour of Chef Rick Bayless’ urban production garden, I immediately texted my husband, Wally, to gauge his interest. Thankfully he was as excited as I was, and we were able to secure a late August visit through the Tock app. 

The Bayless home’s front door

We arrived about 15 minutes early and joined the other guests waiting outside the Bayless residence in a quiet street in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood. It’s situated adjacent to the 606, an elevated park that used to be a rail line.

Because we had a little extra time, Wally and I went up onto the 606 and stood on our tiptoes to get an aerial view of Rick’s garden. 

You can catch a peek of Bayless’ garden from the 606 elevated park.

After the previous tour group left, we entered through the side gate and gathered around the outdoor kitchen. The late afternoon sunlight cast a warm glow over the patio as Wally and I eagerly awaited the start of the tour. We were served classic shaken margaritas and I must admit that I was somewhat awestruck as Rick himself appeared, warmly welcoming us and sharing the fascinating history of his home.

The “welcome” margaritas were too pretty not to photograph. 

Polly’s Polka Lounge

He began by telling us that he and his wife, Deann, had been looking for a property in the city where they could live and cultivate a production garden for their restaurants, Frontera Grill and Topolobampo. After three years of searching, they were discouraged and had nearly given up. So when their real estate agent excitedly called and said, “I found your place!” Rick admitted to us that he was initially skeptical, adding that they waited three days before scheduling an appointment to see it.

At the time of the Baylesses’ viewing, a cheap plastic Old Style beer sign with the name Polly’s Polka Lounge still hung outside of the two-story brick building. Built in 1895, it was originally a tavern that served the community of Eastern European immigrants who had settled in Bucktown. “First of all you have to understand what a tavern was in 1895,” Rick said. “We think of a tavern as synonymous with a bar today, but it wasn’t back then.”

It served as a social hub, where residents could gather and connect with others who shared the same language and traditions. In an era when many families lived in small efficiency apartments with limited space to cook, taverns like this one played a crucial role in providing meals. These establishments were equipped with a full kitchen and served up the familiar, comforting dishes of their homeland. 

“The garden adheres to organic and biodynamic principles, meaning that no pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers are ever used.”

Rick recounted how he walked into the main room of the former tavern and thought, “This is where I want to live.” He was captivated by the open floor plan, 14-foot-high tin-plate-covered ceiling and terrazzo floor, which bore a beautiful patina from decades of beer dripping onto the floor where the bar once stood. 

Many of the flowers in the garden are edible.

Fun fact: When Rick asked the owners where the bar was now, he was told that it was sold to a buyer in Ireland, who had it dismantled, shipped across the Atlantic and reconstructed. He mused about the curious journey of a bar made in Chicago by Eastern Europeans now residing in a pub somewhere in Ireland. 

When Rick saw the outdoor area, which is the size of three city lots, he fell even more deeply in love with the property, and he and Deann immediately put in an offer. 

A boulder behind the adjoining property had a face drawn on it by the Baylesses' granddaughter — which Wally, of course, couldn’t resist sitting on.

Wally and Duke think the garden tour is worth the price of admission. And if you’re lucky, you’ll have Rick himself as your guide!

They’ve now lived there for nearly three decades, and as Rick tells it, it was kismet. “This is just amazing because I have always been in the hospitality business,” he said. “My parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were all in the restaurant business, and I grew up in it and then got into it myself.” 

In addition to the former tavern where Rick and Deann reside, there’s also a three-flat next door, where their daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter live.

Bayless tells us about the behind-the-scenes drama of the pibil episode of his show.

The Pitfalls of Pit Cooking in Chicago

Before we left the grilling area, Rick pointed out an earthen rock-lined pit. This traditional pre-Hispanic cooking method involves adding firewood to heat the rocks to a temperature between 800° and 900°F. Historically, people would dig a pit, line it with rocks, build a fire, add meat wrapped in aromatic leaves and bury it to prevent oxygen from getting in. The protein cooks underground over a period of six to eight hours, using the residual heat of the rocks. Rick explained that on the Yucatán Peninsula, this method is used for making cochinita pibil, while in Southern and Central Mexico, it’s used for barbacoa. 

Rick recounted how he wanted to feature this method on his PBS cooking show, Mexico: One Plate at a Time. He got his television crew excited, and they started digging at 8:00 in the morning. However, he had overlooked one crucial detail: the shallow roots of the maple trees growing in that part of the yard. He proceeded to tell us that what appears to be him single-handedly digging the hole was actually a labor-intensive effort involving three men wielding pickaxes for nearly six hours to tackle the stubborn roots. 

“When you watch any kind of television, especially reality television, don’t believe it,” Rick added. “There’s a lot going on behind the scenes that you don’t see.”

Bayless’ local restaurants include Topolobampo, Frontera Grill and Xoco.

Garden Party With Rick Bayless

We followed our host to the heart of the garden, which features a grapevine-covered pergola that yields between 250 to 300 pounds of sweet, juicy Concord grapes annually (the same variety used in Welch’s Grape Juice). Once harvested, the thick-skinned grapes are laboriously processed through a food mill, cooked down and sweetened with sugar. The resulting pulp is used in sorbets and pies at Frontera and Topolobampo. 

The Concord grapes adorning the pergola are used in sorbets and pies.

Adjacent to the pergola is a plot dedicated to growing hoja santa, which translates to “holy leaf” in Spanish. The large heart-shaped leaves are extensively used in Mexican cuisine as a wrapper for tamales, poultry, meat and seafood, which are then steamed or baked. Its flavor is reminiscent of black licorice and root beer, and in Texas, where it grows wild, it’s known as the sarsaparilla plant.

Rick gave us an overview of the main production garden, which holds a combination of raised beds, traditional beds and containers. A few of the raised beds produce salad greens, continuously replanted throughout the season, along with aromatic herbs such as basil, lavender, lemon verbena, marjoram, spearmint and thyme. These provide the restaurants with an array of seasonal, locally sourced produce. 

Many of the fruit, veggies, herbs and flowers are used in dishes at Bayless’ restaurants.

The garden adheres to organic and biodynamic principles, meaning that no pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers are ever used, and it emphasizes the holistic relationship between plants, animals and soil. Additionally, there are two resident chickens, Grace and Frankie, and a small pond that’s not filled with koi but with goldfish from PetSmart, as well as an apiary buzzing with honeybees. 

Colorful zinnias

These cacti are resilient enough to survive harsh Midwestern winters. Bayless planted a single paddle years ago that has since grown to this size.

Raspberries add a burst of color and flavor, not to mention Mexican sunflowers, nopal cactus and butternut squash, grown for both their blossoms and fruit. These thrive alongside hanging baskets of Begonia boliviensis, whose edible red flowers pack a delightful sour citrus punch. 

Wally couldn’t believe how tasty the begonias were. It was like something Willy Wonka would create. (He went back for seconds.)

Rick urged us to sample anything from his garden, which we did, and by far, our favorite ended up being the surprisingly tart begonia blossoms. 

Fun fact: According to Rick, the cilantro we’re familiar with today originated in Southeast Asia and was introduced to Mexico by Spanish conquistadors in the 1800s. However, this doesn’t mean there wasn’t a cilantro-like herb already in existence south of the border. In the garden, you’ll discover an indigenous aromatic, the grass-like pipicha, native to Southern Mexico, with a flavor akin to cilantro.

After exploring the gardens, we used the bathroom and snuck a peek of the kitchen, where Mexico: One Plate at a Time is filmed. It’s filled with well-loved pots and pans, plant-covered windowsills and cabinets lined with souvenirs from Rick’s travels.

I found Rick to be a sincere and passionate teacher. It was a privilege to visit and experience his excitement about his garden as he spoke with us — if only for a magical hour and a half. –Duke

We were served guacamole and ceviche — which Bayless wittily clarified wasn’t made using the goldfish in the garden pond.

Rick Bayless Garden Tour

The highlights

• Guided tour of the garden (we’ve heard his gardener, a charismatic young man, often leads these, but we were lucky enough to have had Rick Bayless himself as our host)

• Welcome cocktail and light Mexican bites (we had guacamole and ceviche)

• Learn about the history of the home and garden and its role in Rick’s restaurants.

• See the diverse array of fruit, vegetables and herbs grown in the garden.

• Gain insights into Rick’s sustainable gardening practices.

• Eat as much flora as you want!

The kitchen in Bayless’ home is the one featured on his cooking show.

The details

Cost: $75 per person

Duration: Approximately 90 minutes

Availability: Select dates throughout the year

Location: Rick Bayless’ private residence in Bucktown in Chicago

Visit Tock to book a tour — if they’re available. 

Note:

• Tours sell out quickly, so snatch up a spot as soon as possible.

• The tour isn’t wheelchair accessible.

• Children under the age of 12 aren’t permitted.

Iconic Stadiums and Sporting Landmarks Around the World

From the Colosseum to Dodger Stadium, from Wembley to Yankee Stadium, we’ve got a winning itinerary of the planet’s most iconic sporting landmarks. Game on, sports fans!

Sports stadiums have been gathering spots for ages, where people have come to witness athletic feats, whether that’s a fight between gladiators in Ancient Rome or today’s games. From the deafening cheers to the hushed silences, these places have seen raw emotions on full display.

Now, get ready for a global journey for sports fans: We’ll be making stops at some of the world’s most iconic stadiums and sporting landmarks. From an ancient arena to modern architectural marvels, we’ll dig into their history and the architects who brought them to life, throw in some interesting facts, and even point out a few nearby attractions.

All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club

This London site has hosted Wimbledon since 1877. The world famous tournament is one of the big four in professional tennis, commonly known as the Grand Slams. And when  tennis folk mention a “Grand Slam,” they mean winning all four major championships, held in Australia, France, the U.K. and the United States, in the same calendar season.

Architect: Stanley Peach

Fun fact: The retractable roof installed in 2009 ensures that play can continue even during the all-too-common English summer rain. 

Nearby attractions: Visit the Victoria & Albert, an amazing museum of art and design, or grab your baking buddies and live your Great British Bake Off fantasy at the Big London Bake.

Cleveland Browns Stadium

For die-hard American football fans, this place is like sacred turf. When the players hit the field and the game intensifies, you’re in for all the highs and lows of a typical game. And if you’re looking to crank up the experience and try to win some money, hedge your bets with this deal.

Architect: Populous (formerly HOK Sport) 

Fun fact: The stadium was designed to give spectators unobstructed views of the city skyline and Lake Erie. 

Nearby attractions: Why not make a day of it? You can check out the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame or take a leisurely afternoon stroll through the Cleveland Botanical Garden.

The Colosseum

The ancient world had its own versions of sporting arenas, but let’s be honest — none could quite rival the grandeur and infamy of Rome’s magnificent Colosseum. This colossal wonder serves as a testament to the might of the Roman Empire, along with its insatiable appetite for entertainment. The arena’s innovative elliptical shape laid the foundation for modern stadiums.

Constructed under the Flavian dynasty between 72 and 81 CE, the massive amphitheater could seat over 50,000 spectators. In addition to hosting animal hunts and gladiatorial battles, the arena could be flooded with water, where battles between ships would take place — all to the roaring approval or dismay of the audience.

Architect: Commissioned by Emperor Vespasian and completed by his son Titus

Fun fact: Beneath the Colosseum’s floor was a vast subterranean substructure known as the hypogeum. This included a complex network of tunnels and chambers where gladiators, ferocious beasts and sinister contraptions for special effects were kept before fights. 

Nearby attractions: You won’t have to go far at all to dive into Ancient Roman history. Just a stone's throw away, you’ve got the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, waiting to transport you back in time.

Dodger Stadium

SoCal vibes meet America’s so-called favorite pastime at Dodger Stadium. Serving as home base for the Los Angeles Dodgers, it’s been an integral part of the MLB (Major Baseball League) scene since it opened in 1962. Built in the valley of Chavez Ravine and set against the backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains, its scenic beauty complements the thrilling baseball action. 

Architect: Emil Praeger 

Fun fact: The concept for Dodger Stadium began to take shape in 1957, following the team’s relocation from Brooklyn, New York. Today, it holds the title as the oldest ballpark west of the Mississippi River and ranks as the third-oldest MLB ballpark, behind Boston’s Fenway Park and Chicago’s Wrigley Field. 

Nearby attractions: Reach for the stars at Griffith Observatory or visit historic Olvera Street, where you’ll find the colorful Mexican Marketplace. 

Estádio do Maracanã

Constructed to serve as the main venue for the 1950 World Cup, Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã Stadium embodies Brazil’s unwavering passion for football (known to us Americans as soccer). This stadium has borne witness to some of the sport’s most historic moments, including the legendary Brazilian footballer Pelé scoring his 1,000th career goal here in 1969. 

Architect: Rafael Galvão and Pedro Paulo B. Machado 

Fun fact: The World Cup final held at Maracanã still holds the record for the highest attendance, with a crowd estimated at over 199,000.

Nearby attractions: Take the cog train to the top of Corcovado Mountain to reach the awe-inspiring Christ the Redeemer statue or visit the white sand beaches of Ipanema.  

Estadio Santiago Bernabéu

Madrid’s Estadio Santiago Bernabéu stands as a monument to football royalty. It has hosted the final match of the UEFA Champions League on four occasions (1957, 1969, 1980 and 2010) and is the home of the Galácticos: the world’s priciest players signed to play for Real Madrid. From David Beckham to Alfredo Di Stéfano to Cristiano Ronaldo, this stadium has borne witness to legends and epic clashes.

Architect: Manuel Muñoz and Luis Alemany Soler, with a revamp by L35, Ribas & Riba, and GMP Architekten

Fun fact: The Bernabéu has an unusual vertical design, making it one of the steepest stadiums in the world, helping ensure that every fan has a great view. 

Nearby attractions: For those seeking a cultural experience, Madrid beckons with its treasures, such as the Prado Museum and the Royal Palace.

Fenway Park

As home to the Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park proudly holds the title of being the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball. It boasts a 37-foot-high (11 meters) left field wall affectionately known by locals as the Green Monster. (It was added a couple of years after opening to deter curious passersby from sneaking a glimpse.)

Architect: James McLaughlin

Fun fact: The lone red seat that sits among the green right field bleachers commemorates the longest home run in Fenway Park history, which was hit by Ted Williams on June 9, 1946. Legend holds that Williams spotted a fan taking a nap and decided to wake him up by launching a ball at him.

Nearby attractions: After the game’s over, you’ve got some great options for entertainment. You can explore Boston's historic Freedom Trail or head over to the lively Quincy Market. 

Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Racing enthusiasts know that there’s no place quite like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana. The thrill, the speed and the history — it’s all there. Traditionally, the race is held over the last weekend of May and stands as one of the oldest and largest single-day sporting events in the world.

Architect: Not attributed to a specific architect or firm

Fun fact: Originally, this race was called the 500-Mile Sweepstakes, but its name went through quite a few changes over time. The “500” stuck around, though. Drivers hit 500 miles by going 200 laps around the 2.5-mile oval.

Nearby attractions: The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum offers an in-depth exploration of racing history. You can also discover artworks along the 100-acre riverfront Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park. 

Madison Square Garden

New York City’s Madison Square Garden has been the stage for some of the 20th century’s greatest athletes, from boxing legend Muhammad Ali to hockey great Mark Messier. Nicknamed the World’s Most Famous Arena, the venue has witnessed a bit of everything — from Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy at the 1962 Democratic Party fundraising dinner to the excitement of Knicks basketball and Rangers hockey games.

Architect: Stanford White, Cass Gilbert and Charles Luckman

Fun fact: Madison Square Garden has been rebuilt a total of four times since 1879. Its current iteration was designed by American architect Charles Luckman in 1968, whose firm also designed the Prudential Tower in Boston and the Forum in Inglewood, California.

Nearby attractions: Explore the High Line, a public park built on a historic elevated rail line and watch the sunset over Manhattan from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. 

Melbourne Cricket Ground

Over in Australia, you’ve got the Melbourne Cricket Ground, or MCG to locals. This place is like the crown jewel of Aussie sports venues, and it’s a big deal, as it’s the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. It was built to satisfy the continent’s cricket craze, and it was here that the world’s first test cricket match took place, in 1877. Test cricket is like the granddaddy of the sport, lasting a full five days, where two national teams take turns batting and bowling. It was a faceoff between Australia and England, and in the end, Australia came out on top, winning by 45 runs. 

Architect: Various (the stadium has undergone multiple renovations)

Fun fact: The MCG’s six light towers are 75 meters high, equivalent to a 22-story building and are the tallest of any sporting venue in the world.

Nearby attractions: Take a leisurely stroll along the Yarra River or visit the National Sports Museum for a comprehensive exploration of Australia’s sports legacy. 

San Siro Stadium 

Italy’s San Siro is one of the most legendary venues for football (soccer). It’s officially named Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in memory of Milanese footballer Giuseppe Meazza and is home to both Inter and AC Milan, two top professional teams.

AC Milan was founded in 1899, and Inter Milan followed nine years later in 1908. Interestingly, Inter’s formation was a result of a disagreement within AC Milan’s ranks, particularly regarding the signing of foreign players. A fierce rivalry emerged, cranking up the already electrifying atmosphere of the annual Milan Derby, which, as you might have guessed, takes place at none other than San Siro.

Architect: Ulisse Stacchini and Alberto Cugini

Fun fact: In preparation for the 1990 World Cup, architects Giancarlo Ragazzi and Enrico Hoffer, along with engineer Leo Finzi, designed the addition of the stadium’s third tier, suspended by its 11 spring-like towers and crisscrossed red steel girders. These enhancements were aimed at boosting San Siro’s seating capacity. 

Nearby attractions: The Castello Sforzesco and the gorgeous Gothic-style Milan Cathedral, known as the Duomo, (the third largest church in the world) are situated in the heart of the city.

SoFi Stadium

Home to the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers, this stadium sets the bar high with its innovative design and immersive state-of-the-art facilities. The 3.1-million-square-foot (288,000-square-meter) arena is the largest in the NFL. 

Architect: HKS 

Fun fact: The stadium features the Oculus, an oval, double-sided infinity screen suspended 122 feet (37 meters) above the playing field. This massive display includes a 4K HDR video board and 27,000 embedded LED pucks capable of displaying images and videos in such high resolution that you can spot them from airplanes arriving at Los Angeles International Airport.

Nearby attractions: Take in a concert at the Kia Forum or grab a donut at Randy’s. The original shop features a massive 32-foot-tall donut on its roof, and has appeared in movies like Wayne’s World and Iron Man. 

Stade Roland-Garros

Paris is home to this mecca for clay court tennis. It’s the place where the French Open goes down every year. For two action-packed weeks, the best international players, including Björn Borg and Rafael Nadal, gather to battle it out on its challenging courts. And there are 17 of them, including the central Philippe-Chatrier court, which has a retractable roof to keep the game going when it rains.

Architect: Louis Faure-Dujarric 

Fun fact: The stadium features an open-air courtyard dedicated to France’s Four Musketeers, or les Quatre Mousquetaires. It’s a nod to a quartet of iconic French players: Jean Borotra, Jacques Brugnon, Henri Cochet and René Lacoste, who made their country proud in the tennis scene during the 1920s and ’30s. Lacoste even got his nickname “the Crocodile,” thanks to his big grin and iron grip on his racket. And guess what? He later went on to create the clothing brand famous for that embroidered crocodile logo.

Nearby attractions: The enchanting Bois de Boulogne park is right next door, and the Eiffel Tower is a short distance away.

Wembley Stadium

Crossing over to the British Isles, Wembley Stadium in London is a pilgrimage site for football/soccer fans. The venue hosts major matches, including the home games of the England national football team and the Football Association Challenge Cup final as well as hosting concerts from bands like Green Day. 

Sir Robert McAlpine laid the foundation for the original, which was constructed for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 and was quite a marvel, being the largest reinforced concrete building of its time. Its famous twin towers were symbols of the game and served as the backdrop for some of the most epic moments in football for over 75 years.

The new Wembley, designed nearly 16 years ago by Foster + Partners, is twice the size of the old one and comes with modern upgrades like a retractable roof for those unpredictable weather days and a soaring arch that’s taken over as the iconic replacement for the twin towers.

Architect: Robert McAlpine, then Norman Foster

Fun fact: The Wembley Arch soars to a staggering height of 133 meters, equivalent to about 30 stories, and stretches 315 meters (over 1,000 feet), solidifying its status as the world’s longest single-span roof structure. It’s functional too, though: It bears the majority of the roof’s weight.

Nearby attractions: Located adjacent to the stadium, the London Designer Outlet (LDO) is a great place to get your shopping fix. Or you can spend a fun afternoon at the landmark Natural History Museum. They’ve got hands-on exhibits and even animatronic dinosaurs!

Wrigley Field

If you breeze into Chicago, aka the Windy City, you’ve got to stop by Wrigley Field, America’s second-oldest Major League ballpark. If we’re talking about a stadium that can rival Boston’s Green Monster, Wrigley’s ivy-covered outfield wall is a strong contender. It’s so iconic, it’s got its own set of rules: If a baseball disappears into its vines, the batter (and all runners) are granted two bases. However, to make it official, an outfielder must raise his hand to signal that the ball is lost in the ivy. If he doesn’t, it’s considered fair play. 

Architect: Zachary Taylor Davis

Fun fact: The neighborhood stadium was one of the last Major League ballparks to install lights for night games, which didn’t happen until 1988. The tale of these floodlights dates back to the early 1940s, when plans were set in motion, but a pivotal twist occurred after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In a patriotic gesture, Philip K. Wrigley, owner of the Cubs, diverted 165 tons of steel to support the war effort instead of installing the lights.

Nearby attractions: After the game, you can wander the lively Wrigleyville neighborhood. And if you’re up for more adventure, don’t miss the chance to explore the city’s legendary architecture by taking a boat tour along the Chicago River. 

Yankee Stadium

The original Yankee Stadium was a massive horseshoe-shaped ballpark and one of the most beloved structures in the history of baseball. Its field witnessed legendary players like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle rounding its bases, to name just a few.

In 2009, the torch was passed to the new Yankee Stadium. Inspired by the 1923 Bronx Stadium, the modern four-story limestone and granite-faced ballpark even re-created the arched Art Deco metal frieze that crowned the upper deck of its illustrious predecessor.

Architect: Populous (formerly HOK Sport)

Fun fact: The Yankees’ impressive HD display is about 103 feet (30 meters) wide and 58 feet (18 meters) tall — six times larger than the screen at the old stadium. 

Nearby attractions: Check out the Bronx Museum of the Arts and explore the impressive Victorian-era greenhouses of the New York Botanical Garden.

---

These stadiums and sporting venues are more than just places to watch a game — they are monuments to athletic achievement and the human spirit. Within their walls and on their fields, records have been broken, underdogs have triumphed, and fans have bonded over the shared passions of competition and community. Though styles and designs may change with the times, the thrill of cheering for the home team endures. The legends, memories and traditions attached to these landmarks will continue to inspire athletes and fans for generations to come. Wherever you are in the world, paying a visit to one of these iconic sporting meccas is a must for any true sports lover. –Taylor Miller 

3 Chicago Muralists Share Their Secrets

How is a mural made? That was the idea behind a recent exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center. We did a Q&A with each of the featured artists: Cecilia Beaven, Miguel A. Del Real and Anna Murphy. 

Duke and I have always appreciated murals, but didn’t know a whole lot about what went into their creation. Are they gridded out? Are they done freehand? Do they use spray paint? Or are all these things, as I imagine, dependent upon the artist?

That’s why it was so cool to visit the Chicago Cultural Center and see Exquisite Canvas: Mural Takeover, an onsite installation sponsored by the Department of Cultural Affairs and featuring the talent of three local artists: Cecilia Beaven, Miguel A. Del Real and Anna Murphy. The experiential exhibit was held on the first floor galleries and invited visitors to meet the artists and watch their progress as they completed their works. (The exhibit ran from June 10, 2023 and closed on September 3).

Part of the idea behind Exquisite Canvas at the Chicago Cultural Center was to show the artists’ process of creating their murals.

Pro tip: In our opinion, you have a better chance of seeing an impressive art exhibit at the Cultural Center, which is free, versus the often disappointing and even laughable works displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The first room of the exhibit had a brightly colored geometric mural titled Perspectiva Perpetua by Miguel, who has a tattoo and calligraphy background. It depicted a man in the middle, staring intently ahead, with an Aztec jaguar on one side and a woman in profile with her eyes closed and her head tilted upwards on other other. Miguel was working on his mural the day we visited. It was pretty cool to have the opportunity to chat with him briefly. 

Miguel A. Del Real working on Perspectiva Perpetua

We admired his mural as well as the other two by Cecilia and Anna. Cecilia’s piece, Moon Bloom, references tenangos, a colorful style of embroidery that originated in the Tenango de Doria municipality in the Mexican state of Hidalgo.

Moon Bloom by Cecilia Beaven

Anna’s concept, Awakening, featured a resting tiger,  symbolizing the inner strength in each of us. She’s known for her photorealistic style and use of blue and gold paint.

Awakening by Anna Murphy

Seeing Miguel at work gave us a glimpse into the making of a mural, but we still had a lot of questions. So we decided to reach out to the artists to learn more. 

Fortunately, all three took the time to answer our questions, and their Q&As provided a fascinating glimpse into their creative process. –Wally

Cecilia Beaven

How did you get into art?

I remember drawing since I remember being myself. Creating images has always been an activity that fascinates me and it’s my favorite form of communication or expression. I started taking art classes when I was a kid, and I started doing art more professionally right after highschool when I went to art college.

How do you get your ideas for murals? What subjects do you cover?

I explore mythology through a very playful lens that allows for experimentation and speculation. I draw from Aztec and other Mesoamerican stories and combine their archetypal elements with fiction in a seamless way. I also include a self-representative character that inhabits these narratives and allows for reflection on my place in the making of culture and participation in it.

Which character is that?

The character that represents me is the woman figure with a big nose and short hair that you can see in a lot of my pieces.

Are they entirely planned out in advance?

They usually are. I do lots of sketches, color tests, and planning ahead of time, so when I’m on site creating a mural I know what steps to follow. There are a few decisions that get modified once I’m in front of the actual wall, but not many.

Do you draw them out on the wall?

Yes. The sketching technique depends on the project, resources available, and time limitations. Sometimes I work traditionally and follow a grid, sometimes I project my sketch, and sometimes I just freehand recreate my sketch.

Tell us more about your technique and the process of creating your murals.

I create a loose sketch on a sketchbook using non-photo blue pencil. Once I like where it's going, I ink it. Then I scan my drawing and get rid of the blue. I use photoshop to do color tests and once I’m happy with the color palette, I print it. I then mix paints that match my tones. 

On the mural site, I recreate my sketch on the wall (using a grid, freehand, or with a projector, depending on the project) and then start to apply my colors from the background to the foreground.

How long does it typically take to create a mural?

The time depends on the size of the wall and how detailed it is. But I work pretty fast, so I’ve completed small murals in one day and the largest ones in two or three weeks. 

How would you describe your style?

Playful, cartoony, absurd, mythological, self-reflective, bold.

What’s your favorite part about creating a mural?

I love using my whole body to create an image, to see something as big as me, or bigger, take shape as I move my body. I also love being on ladders, scaffoldings, and lifts. And I enjoy the mindset that creating a mural puts me in, I feel calm and focused.

What is your least favorite part?

Painting the lower part of the walls that require bending, kneeling or even lying down on the floor.

What message do you want people to get from your murals?

Ideally, I want people to experience happiness and a sense of hope.

ceciliabeaven.com

Instagram: @samuraiceci

---

Miguel A. Del Real

How did you get into art?

It wasn’t until second or third grade. I was trying to replicate the Ninja Turtles, and I think that’s what really got me into drawing. And then around seventh or eighth grade and throughout high school, I got into doing graffiti letters. 

I stopped for a little bit when I went to Northern Illinois University, but then I came back into the city and started hanging out with old friends. And I started getting back into the arts, like with graffiti murals. 

I would say that’s what helped develop me as an artist, those years doing experimental work — that’s what led me to be taken a little bit more seriously as a professional artist. 

How do you get your ideas for murals? What subjects do you cover?

That’s tough. You do want to be respectful to where you’re painting, And I feel like that approach is what has helped shape some of the ideas or concepts. 

These past couple years, I’ve been experimenting more with the sense of consciousness. I don’t want to say spirituality or anything like that. But it’s just been more like depicting dreams, combining some abstract elements with figurative elements, patterns, heavy line work. 

Are they entirely planned out in advance?

I like to leave some breathing room. So I would say, when it’s a job that really requires that they’re more hands-on, they want everything planned out.

This particular one that the cultural center, they allowed a lot of flexibility, where I just gave them a rough sketch. And then out of that, I was able to change it and add things as I went, inspired by the space. 

Do you draw them out on the wall? Tell us about your technique and the process of creating your murals.

I just start sketching. Like at the cultural center, I sketched it with pencil. They wanted it with a brush — I couldn’t use any aerosol. Then you start blocking out sections with paint and color, and then you move on to details. 

When it’s a mural outside, I can use spray paint and I start sketching with the paint itself, just blocking in shapes. 

How long does it typically take to create a mural?

As fast as two and a half weeks to a month and a half.

How would you describe your style?

With my background in graffiti lettering, I use the chisel qualities of a brush, from thick to thin, combined with sacred geometry with shapes like circles, squares, triangles. 

What’s your favorite part about creating a mural?

It’s definitely the painting. Once you have the sketch done, the coloring of it — even though that’s where I struggle the most, where I go back and forth with colors. This is when it really starts coming to life. 

What is your least favorite part?

The sketching, because everything needs to be locked in precisely. So if something looks wrong, then that throws off the whole mural — everything needs to be mathematically divided. 

What message do you want people to get from your murals?

The common theme that I have, regardless of the different institutions and corporations that I’ve painted for, it’s always the message of transformation, evolving. Man fusing with spirit or nature.

delrealink.com

Instagram: @delrealink

---

Anna Murphy

How did you get into art?

I received a BFA in painting from the University of Louisville in 2011. After many years creating fine art oil paintings on canvas, I painted my first mural in 2018, and fell in love with the large scale and community aspect of public art.

How do you get your ideas for murals? What subjects do you cover?

The central themes of my work include celebrating nature’s wondrous beauty and the divine connection we share with one another, Mother Earth and the animal kingdom. My spirituality is the driving force of my life and my art.

Are they entirely planned out in advance? Do you draw them out on the wall? 

Yes, I design the layout in PhotoShop, then project a line drawing of my design onto the wall. With a small paintbrush, I paint the outline of the design onto the wall.

How would you describe your style? 

With a traditional painting background, I merge the worlds of fine art and street art by bringing an emphasis on intricate detail into my large-scale public murals.

Tell us about your technique and the process of creating your murals. 

Hand-painted with brushes, my painting style uses a process similar to watercolor, building up thin layers of washes to create depth, texture and a lifelike quality.

What’s your favorite part about creating a mural?

Knowing that it will bring joy and inspiration to those who see it, for years to come.

What is your least favorite part?

Spiders.

What message do you want people to get from your murals?

The metallic gold background reflects our own divinity and the sacredness of life. The cobalt blue, a symbol of Earth, like Heaven and Earth together, this combination portrays the connection between the human and the divine. The cherubs are also a symbol of our connection to the divine, and guardians of our pure and spiritual nature. The bees act as a symbol of a higher frequency, community and a connection to all things. The flowers and plants, a symbol of Mother Nature’s beauty, represent a paradise that can also be found within.

annapmurphy.com

Instagram: @annapmurphy

---

Chicago Cultural Center 

78 East Washington Street
Chicago, Illinois
USA

The Charnley-Persky House in Chicago: America’s First Modern Home?

Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright collaborated on this sleek, minimal home that defied the ostentatiousness of the Gilded Age. Step back in time and tour this innovative but little-known architectural gem.

Imagine what people thought of a home like this — sleek, modern, horizontal — at a time when Victorians were all the rage. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

When dealing with such legendary icons of the architectural world as Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, it’s not surprising that towering egos and intense rivalry come into play. But with the iconic Charnley-Persky House in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, who actually deserves the accolades?

“Wright wrote that he had designed the Charnley-Persky House entirely on his own.

The claim couldn’t be refuted, as Sullivan had passed away, and the firm’s records had burned in a fire. ”

Helen Charnley

The Charnleys Want a “Country” Home

Let’s start at the beginning to try to unravel this mystery. In 1891, Sullivan, 34, and his then-23-year-old apprentice, Wright, teamed up to design a residential masterpiece on Astor Street for their wealthy clients, James and Helen Charnley.

The couple were members of the one-percenters of the Gilded Age. James was a banker who made his fortune in lumber, and Helen’s father was president of the Illinois Central Railroad. 

At the time, Sullivan and his partner, Dankmar Adler, were basically the cool kids of the architecture world. They had designed the Auditorium Theater Building in 1889, which is still world-renowned for its acoustics. Business was good.

While many of Adler & Sullivan’s 180-some commissions were for commercial spaces, they also designed about 60 residences. Unfortunately, most of them are no longer standing. In fact, the Charnley-Persky House is the only residence designed by Sullivan that you can still tour today.

So how did the Charnleys manage to snag Sullivan as their architect? Well, it turns out that James’ brother, Albert, was an executive at the Illinois Central Railroad. As our guide, Jean, joked, “The rich like to hang out with other rich people.” 

Adler & Sullivan’s architectural drawing of the James Charnley home

But why did the Charnleys choose this location? They were ahead of the curve. While the Gold Coast is now an affluent neighborhood, at the time it wasn’t exactly a hot spot. In fact, even though it’s not that far north of downtown, it was considered the countryside.

Three-quarters of a mile in one direction, you would reach the Chicago River. Go three-quarters of a mile in the other direction, and you’d find yourself in a notorious slum charmingly known as Little Hell. It was gnamed for the smell of sulfur from the coal gas furnaces that permeated the air. It was so dangerous that even the police wouldn’t go there, Jean told us. (What did that neighborhood eventually become? The infamous Cabrini Green housing project.)

So how did this land become prime real estate? Well, Potter Palmer, Chicago’s richest resident at the time, had a lot to do with it. He built his own home on the corner of Lake Shore Drive, spending a whopping $1 million back in 1882. The house was called “the Castle” for its size and design. 

“Of course, it raised the value of all the land around it,” Jean said. “And so it started to get developed very quickly after that.”

You can see why the Palmer home was called the Castle. It helped make the Gold Coast a hot new housing market.

Sadly, no one could afford to keep up the Castle, and it was razed in 1950. 

Before that, this area was owned by the archdiocese, with parts of it acting as a Catholic cemetery, and the only other building in sight was the archbishop’s residence.

The Charnleys’ first home in the undeveloped Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago was a site of heartbreak. Note the Palmer Castle under construction in the background.

The Charnleys Join the Neighborhood 

The Charnleys built their first home on Division and Lake Shore Drive, but lost their two young daughters (ages 4 and 6) to diphtheria shortly after moving in. The memories of that house weren’t happy, so they decided to have this one built instead. It was never intended to be a family home. They had larger homes in the suburbs of Lake Forest and Evanston, so this was simply their pied-à-terre in the city, Jean explained.

Even today, it stands out from its neighbors with its modern design, a product of Sullivan’s experimental phase.

After the Charnley’s departure, the house went through several owners, including the Waller family, who had a member living there until 1969. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) bought the house next for the headquarters of the Chicago Institute for Architecture and Urbanism and restored it. 

“They didn’t stay here long. But fortunately, they had deep pockets,” Jean said. “So they were able to restore the structure to the way it was, which no private owner could do before them.”

Philanthropist Seymour Persky later bought the house and let the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) move their headquarters there from Philadelphia. This allowed the house to continue to stand and be appreciated for its architectural significance. As a token of its gratitude, the society added Persky’s name to the home. 

Bustling State Street in the 1890s, when Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world

Gilded Age Chicago

To put the time period into context, Chicago underwent exponential growth and development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

In 1880 the city’s population was 500,000; in 1890 it had doubled to 1 million; and in 1910 it had doubled yet again to 2.2 million. 

“At that time, the turn of that century, it was the fastest-growing city in the world,” Jean said. “Of course, that’s a thing of the past now. But it was a very new, vibrant, lively, energetic city with lots of money, lots of wealth, lots of disease, lots of extremes.”

Rudyard Kipling visited Chicago around this time and declared, “I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.” Rude. 

In 1889, the Chicago Sanitary District was formed to reverse the flow of the Chicago River, which had been dumping waste into Lake Michigan and contaminating the city’s drinking water. A New York Times article from the time said that the water in the Chicago River “now resembles liquid.” (Sorry, St. Louis!)

As Jean pointed out, the tail end of the Gilded Age in Chicago was a time of juxtaposition, when typhoid epidemics and inaugural symphony concerts were happening simultaneously. 

Start your tour of the Charnley-Persky House Museum where the servants used to spend most of their time, in the basement. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

The Basement/Visitors center of the Charnley-Persky House 

Our tour of the Charnley-Persky House began in the basement, which is the visitors center. This floor was strictly for the servants’ use, so the family had no reason to come down here.

The basement contains a kitchen, boiler room, laundry room, bathroom, root cellar and butler’s pantry with a dumbwaiter.

The soapstone sink has a concrete basin. “I think the reason it’s still here is because it’s too heavy to move,” Jean speculated. “Some things are just too inconvenient to destroy.”

Overall, the house presented some design challenges, starting with its narrow footprint. It has 4,500 square feet spread across four floors — but it’s only 25 feet deep from one wall to the other. It’s essentially designed in the space of a row house, but with the entrance on the long side instead of the short side. 

What’s impressive is how Sullivan and Wright got creative with elements of the home’s design. Originally, another house was planned to be built against the back wall, so there were no windows on that side. The architects added interior windows to bring light into the space. How sweet of them to consider the welfare of the servants.

The Charnleys were lucky (err, rich) enough to have hot water in the home. When it came to heating, Sullivan and Wright went against the norm by hanging the hot water radiator below the floor — and saved a lot of room in the dining room upstairs.

This genius feature hides the radiator and saves all that space from making the dining room above more cramped. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

There’s a door off to the side of the main room that leads to the coal cellar. It’s actually built under the sidewalk, and a manhole out front offered access for delivery men to shovel coal in.

Higher-end Roman bricks were used on the front of the home, with cheaper Chicago common bricks at the back. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

The Façade of the Charnley-Persky House

Most of the homes in the Gold Coast neighborhood are grandiose 19th century Victorian row houses with sharp vertical lines and elaborate ornamentation on their windows, doors, porches — basically everywhere. Many are made of rusticated brownstone and sport an asymmetrical design.

So one thing that sets the Charnley-Persky House apart is its horizontal layout.

“There’s nothing like it anywhere around here — even now,” Jean pointed out. 

Chicago was a brick-making center in the 1890s, manufacturing about 600 million bricks a year. This house reflects that. On the back side, Chicago common brick was used. Uneven in color and crumbly, they were made from clay in the Chicago River. They were also much cheaper than other types of brick. However, the front and sides of the home feature more expensive Roman brick and natural limestone.

The front door of the house. You can see the importance of horizontal planes and symmetry in the home’s design. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

In the design, Sullivan exaggerated the horizontal planes. The natural limestone goes all the way across the front section and the side. There’s a balcony that spans the front. It has pillars, but they are short and squat. The Roman brick is narrow. And you can’t see the low-hipped roof at all.

The design is notable for its lack of ornamentation around the windows and doors. “Sullivan wanted the mass of the building itself to be present to us, and not to cover it up with all kinds of frills and doodads — that’s the architectural term,” Jean joked.

Also in stark contrast to its neighbors, the house is completely symmetrical, with the front door and balcony in the center and the same number of windows on each side. 

The house is devoid of decoration, aside from the metalwork on the balcony, which features some of Sullivan’s recurring motifs. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

Looking at the design of the Charnley-Persky House, there are a few key motifs worth noting. One of these is the incised pattern on the balcony, which can be seen throughout the building, including the front door. Sullivan loved to incorporate organic shapes and patterns into his work, and he often referred to the pointed oval motif as a seed pod. 

“He put them on every single thing he designed,” Jean said. “Everything, even down to the tombs in Graceland Cemetery.”

Sullivan was certainly ahead of his time with this house. He was so proud of it that he advertised it in architecture magazines in England, promoting it as the first American modern design. 

Louis Sullivan, on the left, most likely designed the Charnley-Persky House — but that didn’t stop Wright, on the right, from taking credit later in life.

The Sullivan and Wright Controversy 

Wright was working as a draftsman for Sullivan at the time the Charnley-Persky House was built. Evidence shows that Adler and Sullivan, well-established architects at the peak of their business, would design the entire plan of the house, including the decoration and wood choices. Then, Wright would fill in some of the details. 

“So, while there are some unique elements that may be Wright’s additions, the overall design was likely a collaboration between the three architects,” Jean informed us. 

But that’s not what Wright claimed. In his 1932 autobiography, Wright wrote that he had designed the house entirely on his own. And the claim couldn’t be refuted, as Sullivan had passed away in 1924, and the firm’s records had burned in a fire. 

“Sullivan and Wright were very close, until they weren’t,” Jean said. “They both had very big egos.”

Wright left Adler & Sullivan in 1893. He claimed he was fired for moonlighting, building other houses on his own.

“But evidence suggests Sullivan didn’t care,” Jean went on. “I think Sullivan said, ‘You’re fired.’ And Wright said, ‘You can’t fire me — I quit.’ It was one of those situations. I think Wright had reached a point where he had the skills and the confidence to leave and go on his own.”

Jean added that Sullivan was an alcoholic and very difficult to get along with, while Wright was brilliant and visionary. 

The narrow entrance hall at the home, where the fireplace takes center stage. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

Inside the Charnley-Persky House: The Foyer

Step inside, and the first thing you notice is the foyer fireplace, which boasts original mosaic designs that echo flickering flames. The flue is hidden underneath the stairs and goes up the back. The fireplace has no mantel, which allows for an unobstructed view and emphasizes those horizontal lines that are a hallmark of Sullivan’s style.

Sullivan incorporated elements of the Arts and Crafts movement, which highlighted craftsmanship and natural materials. The use of wood as the main decorative element and the incorporation of organic motifs, such as oak leaves and acorns, were typical of this style.

Wide, expensive white oak panels feature prominently. Remember, Charnley was in the lumber biz. 

Those skylights illuminating the stairwell and landings is something you’d typically find in commercial buildings — not a family home. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

The design of the Charnley-Persky House reflects Sullivan’s experience with commercial buildings, as well as his innovative approach to residential design. The atrium and skylight, which were more commonly found in commercial buildings, allowed for natural light and air to flow through the home. This was a departure from the typical dark, closed-off interiors of Victorian homes.

To either side of the door are cozy alcoves. The Charnleys didn’t leave any letters, diaries or photos, so we have no idea how the family used these spaces. However, there’s only one sitting room, so it’s possible that these alcoves served as small reception areas for guests before entering the dining room.

No one’s quite sure what the Charnleys used the alcoves to either side of the front door for. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

According to the 1900 census, the Charnley family had two live-in Swedish servant girls. “You know,” Jean said. “You’re a servant girl until you’re at least 80.” The “girls” did the cooking, cleaning and everything else that needed to be done around the house.

The dining room at the Charnley-Persky House was much less elaborate than most in the Gilded Age. Photo by David Schalliol

The Dining Room

Wide, beaded paneling was all the rage back then. You could buy strips of beaded wood and simply glue them onto a surface. Sullivan kept the room plain and modern, aside from the fireplace. The richly carved mahogany mantle with a stylized four-point seed pod motif, surrounded by a vegetal pattern, is set above African rose marble tiles imported from England.

“I don’t know why they’re not from Chicago. We made everything else,” Jean mused. “But anyway, that’s where they’re from.”

The rose marble tiles of the fireplace in the dining room came from Britain, while pretty much everything else was locally sourced.

The buffet isn’t original, but the woodwork suggests that there was probably a built-in piece of furniture there at some point. So the folks at SOM custom-designed one to fit in. Look closely: Its design mimics that of the house exterior.

Unusual for the more-is-more Gilded Age, there are no parquet floors or ledges to be filled with statues, crystal and the like.

The Charnleys were quiet folk who didn’t entertain much. In addition to the deaths of their daughters, James was diagnosed with Bright’s disease in the mid-1890s. This chronic kidney inflammation had no treatment or cure — it was a one-way ticket to the grave. He survived only 10 years after his diagnosis.

Unfortunately, the Charnleys couldn’t catch a break. James’ brother and sister-in-law ran off with $100,000 from the Fourth Presbyterian Church. Their two sons felt such shame at their parents’ actions that they both committed suicide.

“Money really cannot buy you everything,” Jean said.

But there’s a glimmer of happiness in this sad tale. Enter Seymour Persky, the philanthropist who swooped in and saved the mansion from demolition. He was a lawyer-turned-developer who made a fortune and then dedicated his life to collecting architectural artifacts, bless his heart.

The servants would do prep work in the butler’s pantry, where they could stay out of sight but still keep an eye on how dinner was progressing.

Off the dining room is the butler’s pantry. My favorite detail: the narrow window in the door, where the help could keep an eye on the diners’ progress. 

“During the Victorian era, they say children should be seen and not heard. I think servants were supposed to be neither seen nor heard,” Jean said. “They just sort of floated in when they needed to take a plate away.”

The Charnleys’ sitting room is now home to the Society of Architectural Historians library.

The Sitting Room

The highlight of the sitting room (now the SAH library) is the gorgeous tiger stripe white oak paneling. It’s called “tiger stripe” because it looks like, well, a tiger’s stripes. The wood didn’t come cheap. It’s cut from quarter-sawn wood, which is basically like slicing a citrus fruit into wedges. This is wasteful, but it brings out the beautiful and distinct grain pattern. Keep in mind, though: Charnley was a lumber baron, and wood was certainly an area where he could splurge.

At the time, the biggest commodities in Chicago were meat, wheat and lumber. While at least 200 lumber schooners entered the Chicago River every day, the industry had started to decline. The northern forests of white oak in Michigan and Wisconsin had been depleted. And on the day of the Chicago Fire, there was also a huge fire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, a lumber mill town, which burned to the ground.

People switched to Southern yellow pine, and the industry dispersed instead of being centralized in Chicago.

The benches, cabinets and leaded glass in the sitting room are all original.

There’s another beautiful fireplace in here, this one with carved oak leaves. And again, African rose marble. 

Those scrolling leaves are pure Sullivan, but it’s believed that the geometric design in the middle of the sitting room fireplace woodwork was most likely a Wright touch.

One detail that experts believe came from Wright is the geometric ornamentation of the fireplace panels. It’s unlikely that Sullivan would have conceived the pointed arches and flat, almost Gothic stylized leaves, as this is an arrangement that one would expect from Wright.

The star of the show: The amazing screen that somewhat hides the staircase is one of the elements attributed to Wright in the home’s design.

Upstairs: The Staircase, Bedrooms and Balcony

In my opinion, the most striking part of the home is the staircase. The stairs are set back a bit behind a screen of slender oak spindles, so they appear to be floating. “It’s a beautiful way to illuminate the stairs without closing them off,” Jean said, adding that scholars believe this may have been a Wright touch as well.

Upstairs are two bedrooms, access to the balcony and beautiful (if a bit precarious) woodwork looking down to the first floor. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

The bedrooms are now offices for the architectural society. The rooms themselves aren’t overly impressive, with small unadorned fireplaces ordered from a catalog. There was no need to impress others, you see; it’s the idea of private vs. public space. But they do boast unheard-of amenities at the time: Each has an en-suite bathroom and walk-in closet. 

One interesting tidbit: Unlike most homes of the wealthy at the time, James and Helen shared a bedroom. But we knew they had modern sensibilities when they hired Sullivan to design the home.

Another staircase in the back corner of the landing leads all the way from the basement to the fourth floor, where the servants’ bedrooms were located. They were about half the size of the other bedrooms. While you might think the servants had it nice since the top floor has the best view, just remember that there wasn’t any air conditioning — and heat rises.

The only real outdoor space found at the Charnley-Persky House is the front balcony. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

The balcony was the only outdoor space. Because the house is close to the lake (and this is the Windy City, after all) there’s always a nice breeze. It looks west, to what was a shop across the street. “Not much was going on,” Jean said. “And then Little Hell. So you didn’t need to see too far.”

That pinkish-putty brown color (Jean’s not a fan) matches the original hue of the balcony.

The house was given to the SAH, but unfortunately, there’s no endowment to support its upkeep. Tours, donations and the efforts of the architectural society subsidize the preservation of this magnificent house so that it can continue to be enjoyed for generations to come. 

If you are a Chicagoan interested in architecture or history, or are visiting Chicago and looking for something to do after you’ve seen the Bean, book a tour to experience the birth of the modern home, designed by two of the world’s most famous architects.

The home is open for docent-led tours every Wednesday and Saturday at noon year round. There’s an additional Saturday tour at 10 a.m. from April to October. Tours are free on Wednesdays and cost $10 on Saturdays. Reservations are required and tours are limited to 10 people. –Wally

Look for this fence to enter the small sunken courtyard that leads to the visitors center to start your tour. Photo by Leslie Schwartz

Charnley-Persky House Museum

1365 North Astor Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
USA

 

Fabyan Villa Museum and Its Frank Lloyd Wright Connection

Tour the picturesque Riverbank estate, with the Fabyan Forest Preserve, a Japanese garden, a windmill, quirky curios (a suspect mummy!) — and a codebreaking legacy.

The Fabyan Villa can thank Frank Lloyd Wright for its cruciform shape. The house and its grounds are worth exploring if you want to take a day trip from Chicago.

Before my parents make their annual visit to Wally and me in Chicago, we plan an interesting day trip, do a little research and look for something quirky to do. Typically it’s somewhere a bit farther afield since neither of us has a car. I can’t recall how we settled on the Fabyan Villa in Geneva, Illinois. It’s entirely possible that I came across it on the Atlas Obscura website, given Wally’s and my proclivity for attractions that don’t always make their way into guidebooks. Or it could've had something to do with Frank Lloyd Wright, the Japanese garden or the circa-1850 Dutch-style windmill located on the grounds of the sprawling estate. 

Colonel George Fabyan

George Fabyan, Country Squire of Riverbank

In 1905, Colonel George and Nelle Fabyan purchased 10 acres of land in Geneva, including a Victorian-style farmhouse, as a country retreat from their residence in Chicago. Fabyan (pronouced like Fay-bee-yen) came from a wealthy and prominent Boston family. His father was a co-partner at Bliss, Fabyan and Company, one of the country’s largest dry goods and textile merchants, known for Ripplette, a lightweight, crinkly fabric similar to seersucker, which needed no to minimal ironing after washing. 

Fabyan inherited his father’s wealth — around $2 million dollars (equivalent to over $57 million today). He acquired an additional 300-plus acres over the next 20 years and named the estate Riverbank. 

George and Nelle indulged in a variety of unconventional interests, including cryptology, Japanese gardening and the construction of a scientific laboratory complex that let them pursue their research interests.

“Some rich men go in for art collections, gay times on the Riviera or extravagant living. But they all get satiated.

That’s why I stick to scientific experiments, spending money to discover valuable things that universities can’t afford. You can never get sick of too much knowledge.”

— Colonel George Fabyan

The Fabyan Villa Museum

A Tour of Fabyan Villa

The four of us arrived at the forest preserve, parked the car and followed the steps leading up to the house, which sits on a hillside overlooking the Fox River. We purchased tickets ($10 per person) and met a docent from the Preservation Partners of Fox Valley (PPFV) outside who told us about the historic home. In 1907, the Fabyans commissioned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to enlarge and remodel the existing farmhouse in the Prairie style. While it’s no Fallingwater or even Graycliff, it has its charms.

Additions included the two-story south wing, which added symmetry to the dwelling’s long, low cruciform shape, three projecting porches, wood-spindle screening and overhanging eaves, adding to the horizontality of the overall design. 

Our tour began in the Fabyans’ reception room, which is paneled in dark walnut and furnished with Victorian-era wood and glass display cabinets, showcasing the couple’s memorabilia, taxidermy and Asian ephemera. Among the notable acquisitions on display are a white marble statue of Diana and the Lion (Intellect Dominating Force) by American sculptor Frank Edwin Elwell, which stands in the dining room and was originally exhibited in the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. There’s also a Japanese samurai suit and a vitrine filled with bodhisattva statuettes.

On the back porch is a display case holding a mummy. Its body is wrapped in strips of linen and clutching what uncannily resembles an infant. Turns out the mummy is actually a forgery. In 1982, an expert examined the mummy, and an X-ray revealed it to be fabricated with nails, plywood, sawdust and a single bone inside the wrappings — and that bone came from a dog. Apparently, no one’s certain of its provenance or if the original owners knew it was a fake. One theory is that it may have been featured as a sideshow oddity or was an artifact purchased by Fabyan from the Field Museum. 

The Fabyans’ mummy turned out to be a hoax.

Beyond the dining room is Nelle Fabyan’s bedroom and en suite bathroom with custom furniture designed by Wright. Nelle had a hanging bed, suspended from the ceiling like a giant swing, and it’s speculated that this was to promote air circulation and protect her from contracting tuberculosis. Many of the original furnishings were auctioned off when the estate was sold in 1939, but locals who owned pieces donated them back to the landmark, which is managed by the PPFV. 

Frank Lloyd Wright didn’t build the Fabyan Villa from scratch — but he did renovate it, infusing it with Prairie style aesthetics and symmetry.

Wright’s Prairie style aesthetic is also evident in the open floor plan and warm earth tone color palette used on the walls of the interior. 

Upstairs is the music room, where Nelle’s Victor Talking Machine aka Victrola, encased in a wood cabinet, stands sentinel. Only the wealthy could afford the innovative Victor-Victrola model, whose initial selling price was $200, expensive for the time.

Duke and Wally explore the estate.

Duke and his parents in the rose arbor (which was noticeably lacking roses at the time of our visit).

Connected to the music room is the sleeping porch, where the pet monkeys, Mike, Patsy and Molly, would stay during the winter months. The floor of the room is tinplate, with drainage incorporated for obvious reasons (monkey waste). Perhaps the simians filled the vacant role of children to the childless couple?

Furniture, art and light were an integral part of Wright’s conceptual philosophy, creating compositions that functioned as a cohesive whole. As such, he would have most likely despised the ornate Victorian bed in the second floor bedroom. Wright’s leaded glass cathedral-style windows or “light screens” as the architect called them, fill the room with light. They’re not the intricate geometric stained glass affairs he was famous for elsewhere, as, out here in the countryside, he didn’t want to obscure the beauty of the natural view. 

The house’s grounds lead down to the Fox River.

Fabyan’s Animal Kingdom 

In addition to that trio of monkeys, a menagerie of animals lived on the estate, including Cayman alligators, a pair of black bears (named Tom and Jerry after a popular Midwestern milk punch served at the holidays), cows and dogs. A bear cage remains southwest of the garden, and according to local lore, loaves of bread were baked in the basement of the windmill to feed Fabyan’s pet bears. 

Japanese gardens were a craze with the elite in the early 1900s, and the Fabyans added a lovely one to Riverbank.

Turning Japanese: The Fabyan Japanese Garden

Awaiting visitors outside and just beyond the villa are the Japanese gardens and rose arbor, which lead from the bottom of the slope at the rear of the villa down to the banks of the Fox River. After the Japanese embassy created a garden for the 1893 World’s Fair, they became a status symbol among the wealthy. 

The Fabyans’ gardens were built between 1910 and 1913 by landscape architect Issei Taro Otsuka, a Japanese immigrant gardener who later redesigned the 1893 Wooded Island in Jackson Park for the Century of Progress International Exposition, the second world’s fair hosted by Chicago.

The gardens were closed on our visit, but we were able to see the torii gate, traditionally found at the entrance of a Shinto shrine and demarcating the passage from the earthly to the sacred. The gardens looked beautiful from afar, with conifer pine trees, traditional stone lanterns and a graceful curved bridge reflected in the pond beneath it. 

Although Fabyan didn’t serve in the armed services, he was given the honorary title of colonel by Illinois Governor Richard Yates out of gratitude for his public service work after Fabyan allowed the National Guard to use the estate as a training ground — and from that time on, George was known as Colonel Fabyan. He also received Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun, a decoration of honor awarded for his invaluable participation in peace negotiations with Japanese emissaries, a few of whom stayed on the property when the Colonel and Nelle hosted them. 

Riverbank Laboratories, owned by Fabyan, conducted acoustic research and later became instrumental in codebreaking.

Codebreaking at Riverbank Laboratories: Birth of the NSA

The Fabyan estate also carried on extensive scientific research, with greenhouses where they would grow exotic plants and conduct genetic experiments. Across the street from the villa is Riverbank Laboratories. This was Fabyan’s think tank. He was interested in subjects as diverse as acoustics and, perhaps the Colonel`s most famous legacy, the cryptology laboratory.

The acoustics laboratory, which is still in operation today, was built around an ultra-quiet test chamber for the study of soundwaves and was designed by the top acoustics expert in the country, Professor Wallace Sabine of Harvard University. 

One of the Colonel’s odder obsessions was a belief that Sir Francis Bacon was the true author of some (or even all) of Shakespeare’s literary works, and that Bacon had left coded messages within the plays and sonnets. Fabyan hired Elizabeth Wells Gallup, a scholar and author of The Bi-literal Cypher of Sir Francis Bacon, to decipher a binary alphabet to reveal secret messages in the works of Shakespeare. 

Fabyan was convinced that there were clues in Shakespeare’s plays that revealed that their true author was actually Sir Francis Bacon.

Gallup’s team included Elizebeth and William Friedman, who spent years honing their cryptology skills researching the Bard’s works using Bacon’s ciphers. Though largely inconclusive, their efforts weren’t entirely in vain: The couple was instrumental in breaking codes and ciphers during World War I and World War II. Because the U.S. military didn’t yet have a dedicated department devoted to codebreaking, Fabyan’s Riverbank Laboratories ended up being the foundation for the NSA, the National Security Agency.

Fabyan was quite proud of his windmill. Make sure you cross the Fox River and check it out.

Over the River to the Windmill

In 1914, Fabyan purchased a Dutch-style windmill for $8,000 from Yorktown, Illinois, about 20 miles from its current location, and spent around $75,000 reconstructing it on the east bank of the Fox River. The windmill stands at an impressive 68 feet high and was originally built by Louis Blackhaus, a German immigrant and craftsman, between 1850 and 1860. 

But it was mainly a toy for Fabyan, who enjoyed showing it off to his Chicago friends. In 1979, the windmill was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the following year, it was selected to be on a U.S. postage stamp as part of a series in a booklet called Windmills USA. 

Look for the fun Egyptianate benches on the lawn.

Preserving the Legacy of the Fabyan Villa and Forest Preserve

George died in 1936 and Nelle in 1939, and because they had no offspring, the Forest Preserve District of Kane County purchased the majority of the estate and opened the residence as a museum the following year. Starting in 1995, the nonprofit PPFV was enlisted to maintain and provide tours of the historic dwelling. The house was added to the National Registerof Historic Places in 1984. 

The four of us had a wonderful time wandering the paths that cross the bucolic park-like setting of the historic estate, with plenty of photo opportunities along the way. It’s an easy drive (just over 40 minutes from Chicago) and it’s remarkable to consider the lasting scientific achievements that germinated from the Fabyans’ private research center. If you’re looking for a fun place to visit that combines architecture and nature, the Fabyan Villa is open for tours from May to October. –Duke

 

Fabyan Villa Museum & Japanese Garden

Fabyan Forest Preserve
1925 South Batavia Avenue
Geneva, Illinois, USA 

The Beautiful Bahai Temple in Chicago

What is Baha’i? What’s the history of the Baha’i Temple in Wilmette, Illinois?

The beauty of the Bahai’i Temple makes Wally jump for joy.

Those of us who live in the Chicago area are familiar with the Baha’i Temple — though most know nothing about the religion itself. We’ve seen glimpses of the structure on the North Shore and have been drawn to it, where we discover that it’s a gorgeous building that makes for a pleasant visit to spend a short time wandering its gardens and admiring its intricate stonework. 

Which is exactly what we did one weekend with our friend Kate during the COVID-19 pandemic. We weren’t able to go inside the temple, but to be honest that’s not too big a disappointment. The interior isn’t all that impressive — a large, open space that’s unadorned, in stark contrast to the ornate exterior. OK, the interior of the dome is gorgeous. But that’s the extent of the beauty inside, I promise. 

“The Earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.”

— Bahá’ulláh, founder of Bahá’í

An illuminated manuscript of Baha’u’llah’s writings that was presented to the British Museum in 1913

What is the Bahá’í religion?

It’s a relatively new faith, having emerged in the Middle East in the 1840s. A Persian teacher known as Bahá’ulláh preached a religion founded on the principles of peace, equality and the unity of humankind. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? 

Bahá’ulláh, the founder of the Baha’i faith, might look stern — but he was really all about peace, love and understanding.

To Baha’is, the soul is eternal and should be illuminated by focusing on kindness, generosity, integrity, truthfulness, humility and selflessness. That’s exactly what this world needs more of, if you ask me.

At a Parliament of the World’s Religions meeting in Chicago in 1893, the United States was introduced to Baha’i. (By the way, it’s pronounced “Buh-high.”) Despite being proclaimed as one of the world’s fastest growing religions, it never caught on big time, and I’d wager that most Americans aren’t familiar with the faith. 

But by 1900, there were about 1,000 Baha’is living in the U.S. and Canada. Worldwide, the faith’s adherents now number around 5 million.

Duke and Wally spent a pleasant day with their friend Kate, circling (and admiring) the Baha’i Temple.

Do they have a prophet or savior like Mohammed or Jesus?

Like Muslims, the Baha’i believe that Mohammed, as well as Jesus (along with Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Krishna and Zoroaster, for that matter) was a prophet — just not God’s final prophet. Divine revelation, to them, is not final but ongoing; there will be other prophets in the future. Maybe the next one will be female.

The Baha’i faith sees all people as equal — a view that doesn’t fit with conservative Islam — and has led to persecution since its inception.

How have Baha’i been treated over the years?

It’s sad that a religion that preaches acceptance has suffered so much oppression and violence. Perhaps it’s telling that no temple exists in Iran, the birthplace of the faith. The Baha’i messages of religious tolerance, gender equality, universal education, and elimination of all prejudice and racism don’t jibe well with many conservative religious entities, and the faith is viewed as a heretical branch of Islam. As such, countries including Yemen, Egypt and Afghanistan have persecuted and imprisoned Baha’is on the sole grounds of their beliefs. And Iran has a history of torturing and killing Baha’is, closing their schools, banning their literature, and denying their rights and marriages.

Worship for Baha’is is very personal and freeform, devoid of rituals and clergy.

What is worship like for Baha’i?

The freeform, personal worship certainly won’t appeal to everyone, especially those who find comfort in religious rituals. My ex became interested in Baha’i, but the lack of any sort of pomp and circumstance never appealed to me. I have always been more drawn to Wicca, which has a similar acceptance of all faiths, seeing them as symbols, but has the flair of magic spells.

In keeping with the Baha’i philosophy of egalitarianism, everyone is welcome at their temples, and there isn’t any clergy. Ceremonies happen on only a few holy days each year. Typical worship consists of sitting there quietly, praying or meditating on your own. 

It’s also encouraged to get involved in social projects in your community. 

The COVID pandemic meant most people had to stay closer to home, so Wally and Duke headed up to give the Baha’i Temple another visit.

What is the Chicago Baha’i Temple’s history?

It began with the purchase of a couple of plots of land along Lake Michigan in 1907, north of Chicago in what is now the town of Wilmette. Because it was funded by individual contributions, the project was delayed, much like Gaudí’s La Sagrada Família cathedral in Barcelona, Spain (which is still being built, by the way). The Chicago Baha’i Temple was further held up by the two World Wars and the Great Depression. The foundation stone was laid in 1920 and construction ended with the temple’s formal dedication in 1953. 

The temple was built from 1920 to 1953 and is composed of a variety of architectural styles.

Who designed the Chicago Baha’i Temple?

Louis Bourgeois, a French Canadian who had been a Baha’i for over a decade at the time, got the commission. He wanted the building’s design to reflect the beliefs of the faith: the oneness of humanity and the unity of all religions. To really run with this symbolism, he designed a conglomerate of various architectural styles: Neoclassical symmetry, Gothic ribbing, a Renaissance dome, Romanesque clerestory and Islamic arabesques on pillars that hint at minarets. And while that sounds like an unpleasing Frankensteinian mishmash, it somehow all comes together gracefully.

The carvings on the nine pillars feature symbols of the world’s biggest religions: the Christian cross, the Jewish Star of David, the Islamic star and crescent moon — even the swastika of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. 

That swastika causes a lot of controversy — but that’s just because people don’t understand that Buddhists and Hindus have used that symbol long before the Nazis co-opted it.

Bourgeois’ vision was to create “a gathering place for all humanity.” When describing his design, the architect said, “There are combinations of mathematical lines, symbolizing those of the universe, and in their intricate merging of circle into circle, and circle within circle, we visualize the merging of all religions into one.”

Ornate scrollwork depicting symbols from major world religions covers the building’s façade.

What’s with the repetition of the number nine?

To a Baha’i, nine is the most sacred number. As the highest single digit, it’s a potent symbol of comprehensiveness as well as unity. In addition to the nine columns, there are nine entrances, nine verses above the doors and alcoves and nine fountains. 

Each column is topped by a nine-pointed star, the symbol of Baha’i.

The nine columns around the exterior are each topped with a nine-pointed star, the symbol of the Baha’i faith.

Small pools and fountains surround the Baha’i Temple.

How many Baha’i temples are there?

The original idea was to have one house of worship on each inhabited continent (sorry about your luck, Antarctica), and the one in Wilmette, known as the Mother Temple of the West, remains the only one in North America. It’s also the oldest Baha’i temple in the world. (The first temple was built in Ashkhabad, modern-day Turkmenistan, in 1908 but was commandeered by the Soviets and later badly damaged by an earthquake before being demolished in 1963.)

The temple outside of Chicago is the only one on the continent and is supposed to serve all of North America.

Here’s a list of Baha’i temples around the world:

• Wilmette, USA

• Santiago, Chile

• Panama City, Panama

• Kampala, Uganda

• Langenhain, Germany

• Sydney, Australia

• Apia, Western Samoa

• New Delhi, India

Other national or local Baha’i houses of worship are planned for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, India, Kenya, Colombia and Vanuatu.

If you’re in the Chicago area, consider a trip north of the city to visit the Baha’i Temple.

What about the gardens?

The gardens are an essential design element at all the temples. There’s one in front of each of the nine entrances to the temple, featuring rectangular as well as rounded elements, revealing influences both Western and Eastern.

Wandering through the gardens with our friend Kate, we kept circling the temple, admiring its beauty. The circumambulation can be meditative.

Who’d have thought that the delicate beauty of the Baha’i Temple was achieved using concrete?!

What is the Chicago temple made of?

Would you believe that various materials were suggested, including limestone, granite, terracotta and even aluminum, before they decided upon concrete?

This didn’t go over so well, as people feared the material lacked beauty. But a fifth-generation stone carver named John Earley devised a technique inspired by Italian mosaics. He exposed the larger pebbles in the aggregate of the mixture, which gave the concrete an unusual warmth. And when you see the final product nowadays, there’s no denying its lacelike beauty that seems to glow, earning its nickname as the Temple of Light and Unity.

Sadly, neither Bourgeois nor Earley lived to see the temple’s completion. –Wally

Kate wasn’t the biggest fan of this shot. “It looks like you’re in front of some office building,” she said. Wally looked at the pic and replied, “That’s some office building!”

Bahá'í House of Worship
100 Lindon Ave.
Wilmette, IL 60091

 

Bloodletting and Trepanation: A Tour of the International Museum of Surgical Science

12 fascinating, freaky facts about early medical science.

You can’t miss the strange statue in front of the International Museum of Surgical Science just north of the Magnificent Mile shopping district.

We had heard about the International Museum of Surgical Science’s spooky Halloween tours for years and had passed by the colossal figure holding a limp and seemingly lifeless body out front numerous times on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.

So when something called Morbid Curiosities showed up as a suggested event in our Facebook feed, we couldn’t resist. The museum smartly offers tours year-round, though their Halloween event is legendary.

“We were surprised to hear that George Washington died from bloodletting.

The reason this was prescribed? He had woken up with a sore throat.”

The tour starts in the coolest room in the museum: the hall of statues of famous physicians.

Housed in a mansion built in 1917 near the shore of Lake Michigan, just north of downtown Chicago, the museum contains three floors of macabre medical paraphernalia. For this event, a guide walked us through the displays, calling out gruesome fun facts about the various medical techniques of the past.

Here are a dozen creepy cool things we learned on our tour.

Doctors swear to healing gods that they will obey certain ethical standards in the famous oath named for the Greek physician Hippocrates.

1. Ancient doctors believed illnesses were attributable to an imbalance of the four humors.

This notion dates back to Ancient Greece and the teachings of Hippocrates. Often referred to as the Father of Medicine, his code of ethics, known as the Hippocratic Oath, is still used today. Hippocrates developed the theory of the four humors and their influence on the body and its emotions.

This woodcut from Leonhard Thurneysser’s Quinta Essentia (1574) shows the four humors.

Humor: Black bile

Organ: Spleen

Trait: Melancholic

Humor: Phlegm

Organ: Brain

Trait: Phlegmatic

Humor: Yellow bile

Organ: Gallbladder

Trait: Choleric

Humor: Blood

Organ: Heart

Trait: Sanguine

Hippocrates believed that by paying attention to the balance of these four humors, we could maintain a healthy body and mind — and an imbalance could result in disease or death.

2. One of the best-regarded doctors of the Dark Ages recommended a medical bath involving the blood of blind puppies.

In Flowers of Bartholomew, written around 1375, the monk and doctor Johannes de Mirfield wrote:

Here is a bath which has proved to be of value. Take blind puppies, gut them and cut off the feet; then boil in water, and in this water let the patient bathe himself. Let him get in the bath for four hours after he has eaten, and whilst in the bath he should keep his head covered, and his chest completely covered with the skin of a goat, so he won’t catch a sudden chill.

If you decide to try it, let us know how it works! (Kidding, obviously.)

If you get poisoned, don’t expect the bezoar, which comes from a goat’s stomach, to be a miracle cure.

3. A stone that grows in a goat’s stomach was thought to be the ultimate antidote to any poison.

The bezoar comes from the Persian word for “counter poison.” And while the bezoar works miraculously in the world of Harry Potter, it doesn’t have quite the same power in real life. The French surgeon Ambroise Paré decided to put the bezoar’s antidotal properties to the test (with the help of an unwilling condemned criminal). The poor fellow was given sublimate of mercury, a nasty poison, to see if a bezoar would counteract it. Things didn’t work out too well. Paré wrote about the experiment in Apology and Treatise (1575):

An hour after, I found him on the ground on his hands and feet like an animal, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, his eyes wild, vomiting, with blood pouring from his ears, nose and mouth. Eventually he died in great torment, seven hours after I gave him the poison.

Patients risked blindness (and suffered a lot of pain) during the earliest cataract surgeries in India.

4. Cataract surgery can be traced all the way back to the 5th century BCE in India.

I’m not sure what current cataract surgery involves, but its origins are downright disgusting. The procedure started out pleasant enough, with an oil massage and a hot bath. But that’s when things got icky. The patient was tied down because of the excruciating pain to come. A knife or needle would dislodge the cataract — you’d know when this had happened because you’d hear a pop and see a gush of water. Surgeons would seal the cut with breast milk and a salve of clarified butter. If the patient could see after, it was considered successful. Not surprisingly, this didn’t happen all that often.

The most infamous book bound in human skin, Burke’s Skin Pocket Book, put a serial killer to good use.

5. There are books — mostly medical texts — that are bound in human skin.

The practice of binding books in human skin was once fairly common and has a fancy name: anthropodermic bibliopegy. The poor suckers whose epidermises have been cured to cover books were typically prisoners and other cadavers used for dissection. It’s tough to know if that leather-bound ancient tome is from a cow or a criminal.

How many books from the museum’s library are bound in human skin?

A famous (and morbid) example is Burke’s Skin Pocket Book. William Burke and William Hare were serial killers who murdered 16 people and sold the cadavers for anatomical study and dissection.

Burke was found guilty and hanged. He received a just punishment: His corpse was dissected, and some of his skin was used to fashion a small book, now part of the collection of the Surgeon’s Hall Museum in Edinburgh, Scotland.

An early C-section in Latin America, where they actually gave woman pain relievers, unlike Westerners at the time, who thought childbirth was supposed to hurt like hell (thanks, Eve!).

6. People didn’t think women should have anesthesia during childbirth because of a Bible passage.

Yes, there’s a lot of crazy shit in the Bible (read the story of Lot sometime, who offered up his daughters to be gang raped and was then seduced by them). In Genesis 3:16, God punishes Eve for her part in convincing Adam to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, declaring, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.”

Sorry, moms-to-be! Childbirth is gonna hurt — though a lot less than in the past.

In South America, at least, when a woman was to give birth, they’d use a sea sponge drenched in wine and mandrake root as anesthesia. It had one mild side effect, though: The woman would hallucinate and trip her balls off.

The first surgery ever was to create literal holes in the head, during a practice known as trepanning or trepanation.

7. The first surgery involved poking holes into the skull.

This fun practice, known as trepanation, seems as necessary as a hole in the head — pun intended. It was performed by Incan priests to let out evil spirits. They’d chew coca (the same plant from which cocaine is derived) and spit it into the open wound. What’s most shocking is that more than half of the victims, er, patients survived.

A portrait of Vesalius from De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543)

8. Andreas Vesalius, the father of modern anatomy, took to grave robbing for corpses to dissect.

Vesalius, who lived during the 1500s, used the bodies of convicted criminals to create his seminal works on human anatomy. But when that wasn’t enough, he started digging up bodies in graveyards. To be fair, many cemeteries were a mess at the time. Dogs would often be found gnawing away at the bodies piled up in mass graves, and Vesalius would have to fight them off for his prize.

Who’d’ve thunk a sore throat would lead to the death of the United States’ first president?!

9. Bloodletting was a popular practice — and led to the death of none other than George Washington!

For 3,000 years, surgeons have thought that blood gets old and stagnates, and that the best way to refresh it was to open a vein and start to drain. We were familiar with the practice of bloodletting but were surprised to hear that the first U.S. president died from complications of a bloodletting procedure in 1799, in which nearly 40% of his blood was drained. The reason this was prescribed? He had woken up with a sore throat.

10. Blood transfusions didn’t work so well in the past.

This surgical procedure had a high rate of mortality before blood groups were discovered by Karl Landsteiner in 1901. In fact, sometimes animal blood was used in transfusions because it was thought to be cleaner (in part because they don’t drink booze).

Dr. Liston, the Fastest Knife in the West End, was a master of amputation (though he had quite a few misfires as well).

11. Amputation used to be the most common surgery because of infection.

There was even an amputation superhero: Robert Liston, who earned the nickname the Fastest Knife in the West End in the earlyish 1800s. The London surgeon proudly wore his bloody apron and could hack off a limb in 90 seconds flat. Fast was good, what with the lack of anesthesia.

Nice gams! Check out these early artificial limbs from the museum’s collection.

Of course, the downside was that Liston had a high mortality rate. In fact, one of his surgeries killed three people: the patient, an assistant whose fingers were accidentally cut off and later became infected, and an elderly doctor watching the procedure whose coat was sliced in the excitement and died of a heart attack.

12. Maggots are still used to clean out wounds.

These disgusting little creepy-crawlies are actually really good at finding necrotic tissue and dissolving it. On top of that, they have antibacterial saliva. Maybe you should make out with a maggot next time you’re feeling sick? –Wally

If you’d like to learn the creepy origins of medicine, book a tour of the Chicago Surgical Museum.

International Museum of Surgical Science
1524 N. Lake Shore Dr.
Chicago, IL 60610
USA

 

---

More Strange Stuff