Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
A museum by the lake.
An introduction to the Field Museum’s building and its place on Chicago’s lakefront.
On this page
The Museum Campus
The Field Museum shares the Museum Campus on the lakefront with the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium, a short distance south of downtown.
A guide can give context without turning a neighbourhood into a backdrop. Notice how the museum faces the city across the parkland, with Lake Michigan beyond.
A Classical Revival front
Daniel Burnham and Pierce Anderson designed the building in the Classical Revival style, and it was completed in 1921 when the museum moved from Jackson Park.
Begin with a detail and ask how it was designed, built and maintained. A photograph alone cannot tell you who carved a column or the conditions in which they worked.
A Field Museum chapter
The museum shows one way to understand Chicago: a city that turned a world’s fair into a lasting institution.
Look at the meeting of the two: a building made for a collection, and a collection that has grown to more than 24 million objects.
Make room for context
Pair this reading with the museum’s history and the Journal. This is an introduction for visitors, not a claim that our team manages these places or represents the museum.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
