Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist
- Architect
- Harry Weese
- Style
- Brutalism
- City
- Chicago, IL
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Completed in 1968 at 55 East Wacker Drive, Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist was designed by Chicago architect Harry Weese as a windowless concrete drum lit entirely from above. Built by the Sumner Sollitt Construction Company, its circular form and sunken entrance garden broke sharply from the glass towers around it.
the building
Oculus and conical roof. The interior amphitheater has no traditional windows; all outside light enters through a skylight set into the oculus at the peak of the building's conical concrete roof, washing the round sanctuary in even, shadowless daylight.
Bridge over a sunken garden. Visitors reach the entrance by crossing a bridge over a sunken garden. Weese designed the garden to bring daylight down to the subterranean Sunday School rooms below, which otherwise had no windows of their own.
764 seats, one focal point. The semicircular auditorium seats 764 people, and every seat was designed to sit no more than 54 feet from the Readers' Platform, the raised lectern that is the focal point of any Christian Science church service.
the style
Weese worked here in a Brutalist idiom, pouring the entire drum-shaped building in exposed concrete rather than dressing it in a historicist skin, an approach that let the sunken garden and oculus carry the building's light and drama instead of applied ornament.
More on Brutalismthe architect
Harry Weese was a Chicago-based architect best known nationally for designing the Washington Metro, but in his home city he is remembered for shaping the skyline and how Chicagoans thought about everything from the lakefront to historic preservation.
nearby
- Chicago Motor Club Building
- Mather Tower
- Carbide and Carbon Building
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- Old Dearborn Bank Building