Medinah Temple
- Architect
- Huehl & Schmid
- Year
- 1912
- Style
- Moorish / Mudéjar
- City
- Chicago, IL
Medinah Temple is a Moorish Revival meeting hall built in 1912 by Huehl & Schmid for the Medinah Shriners at 600 N. Wabash Avenue. It centered on a vast auditorium seating roughly 4,200 people across three levels, with the stage floor pushed out into a U-shaped seating bowl -- built for Shrine ceremonies and, for decades, the annual Shrine Circus.
the building
4,200-seat auditorium. The auditorium's stage floor extended well into the room, with seating wrapped around it in a U shape across three levels -- a layout built for circus performances and Shrine spectacle rather than conventional theater-going.
Austin organ, 92 ranks. An Austin Organ Company pipe organ installed in 1915, with 92 ranks and a five-manual fixed console, filled the hall; a second, four-manual movable console was added in 1931.
the style
Huehl & Schmid designed the temple in Moorish Revival, giving the Shriners' meeting hall the onion domes and exotic ornament associated with the fraternal order's self-styled Middle Eastern imagery.
More on Moorish / Mudéjarthe architect
Huehl & Schmid were known as Shriners architects, and Medinah Temple, built as a home for the order in 1912, was among their commissions for the fraternal organization.
significance
Medinah Temple was designated a Chicago Landmark in 2001. It later hosted WGN-TV's 'Bozo's 25th Anniversary Special' in 1986, and as of January 2025 serves as the temporary home of Bally's Chicago casino while a permanent $1.7 billion casino is built nearby.
nearby
- Tree Studios, Annexes and Courtyard
- Ransom R Cable House
- St. James Cathedral, Chicago
- (Former) Chicago Historical Society Building
- Boyce Building
- Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago