Tour: Hyde Park Urban Renewal & Modern Architecture
Join Docomomo US/Chicago for a 90-minute walking tour that explores the history and legacy of modern architecture and urban renewal in Hyde Park. Tour highlights include exterior visits to rowhouses and the University Park twin towers designed by I.M. Pei and Harry Weese, as well as other modern masterpieces designed by Keck & Keck, Edward Dart, I.W. Colburn, and Walter Netsch.
In the late 1950s, the South East Chicago Commission and the University of Chicago undertook a series of urban renewal projects that would dramatically transform Hyde Park and would become the model for other urban renewal housing projects across the country. Architect Harry Weese developed a master plan that targeted specific redevelopment areas while preserving existing structures that could be rehabilitated.
Weese and architect I.M. Pei designed a combination of townhouses and distinctive twin apartment towers, all located in a setting that emphasized suburban appeal: open space, private parking, convenient shopping, and an overall sense of security. While the Hyde Park urban renewal project was widely championed for preserving the neighborhood’s racial integration, it did so at the expense of socioeconomic diversity.
At the same time the neighborhood was being reshaped, the university began its own transformation, expanding beyond its Gothic quadrangles and commissioning buildings by significant modernist architects.
Join Docomomo US/Chicago for a 90-minute walking tour that explores the history and legacy of modern architecture and urban renewal in Hyde Park. The tour will include exterior visits to many of Weese’s and Pei’s buildings and will be led by Lisa Napoles, a historian, preservation planner, and member of Docomomo US/Chicago board of directors who has written and lectured on the Hyde Park A and B urban renewal projects. Tour highlights include exterior visits to rowhouses and the University Park twin towers designed by I.M. Pei and Harry Weese, as well as other modern masterpieces designed by Keck & Keck, Edward Dart, I.W. Colburn, and Walter Netsch.
This walking tour will be approximately 1.5 miles in length and will require standing and walking for the entirety. The tour will begin and end near E. 55th and E. 57th Streets in Hyde Park, all within easy walking distance of the Metra Electric and South Shore 55th-56th-57th St. train station. Participants will receive specific details on where to meet prior to the tour.
