Getting inside Frank Lloyd Wright’s only design in South Carolina’s Lowcountry is not an easy feat. The legendary architect’s C. Leigh Stevens House on Auldbrass Plantation in Yemassee was previously only open for public tours every two years, but that’s changing. The Beaufort County Open Land Trust, which manages the site, announced this week that tours of the house will be given now on an annual basis, with the first round of tours scheduled for November 10-11. Tickets go on sale August 9 for $175 each. Built in 1939 for Michigan industrialist C. Leigh Stevens, Wright famously designed the residential structure without any right angles. He was supposedly inspired by the lean of the live oak trees found throughout the local region. Hexagonal shapes and inward-sloping walls define the main features of the house and the surrounding slender, one-story structures, including the caretaker’s residence, barn stables, kennels, and cabins—all linked by esplanades and largely clad in brick and local cypress. An elongated swimming pool and bathhouse were also constructed for the complex. The 4,000-acre plantation sits on the Combahee River in Yemassee, about an hour west of Edisto Island and 1.5 hours south of Charleston. The plantation fell into disrepair in the 1960s after Stevens passed away and was purchased by Hollywood producer Joel Silver in 1987. Over the last three decades, Silver has worked with the architect’s grandson, Eric Lloyd Wright, to restore the site to its original elegance and complete Wright’s vision for several other never-realized buildings planned for the complex. Before buying Auldbrass, Silver restored Storer House, one of Wright’s Mayan Revival style textile-block houses in Los Angeles. Auldbrass Plantation was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and is one of only two buildings Wright designed in South Carolina. The other is an additional residential project called Broad Margin upstate in Greenville.

Chicago’s beleaguered Cook County Hospital is slated for redevelopment after sitting idle for 16 years. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill will transform the Chicago landmark into a dual-branded Hyatt House/Hyatt Place hotel, accompanied by medical office space and retail. Leading the project is the Civic Health Development Group (CHDG) along with Chicago-based developer John T. Murphy. Walsh Construction is the general contractor with Koo Architecture as the interior designers. According to Cook County, the development plan is valued at over $1 billion dollars. Cook County Board President Tony Preckwinkle participated in a ceremonial groundbreaking on June 12, along with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and several Chicago alderman and Cook County commissioners, as well as Landmarks Illinois president and CEO Bonnie McDonald. “This beautiful historic building has sat empty and unused for far too long.” Preckwinkle said during the event. “This project creates historic and lasting urban transformation in the heart of our County.” With construction commencing immediately on the National Register of Historic Places-listed building, the project is expected to receive approximately $24 million in federal historic tax credits. Designed by Cook County architect Paul Gerhardt, the 1916 Beaux Arts hospital was constructed to provide medical care to Chicago’s exploding population of Eastern European immigrants. It was also a renowned teaching hospital, with doctors pioneering the practices of blood banking, sickle cell anemia care, and modern laboratory work. Later rear additions to the two-block-long brick and terracotta structure grew the Near West Side hospital to over 3,000 beds. With the building proposed for demolition a year before its closure, Landmarks Illinois added Cook County Hospital to its annual list of threatened buildings in 2001, then again in 2002, 2003, and 2005. A reuse study published by Landmarks Illinois in 2003 noted that Cook County had earmarked between $20 and $30 million for asbestos remediation alone prior to the proposed demolition. That same study also noted that in 1999, Cook County felt non-medical use of the hospital wouldn’t fit the character of the neighborhood. The new development is slated to open as soon as late 2019.

The Chicago City Council recently approved the landmark designation for the Old Chicago Main Post Office. Built in phases from 1921 to 1932, the 2.3-million-square-foot structure is located on the western bank of the south branch of the Chicago River in Chicago’s Near West Side. The building’s brawny nine-and twelve-story art deco design is the work of Chicago architectural firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, a successor to D.H. Burnham and Company. The Old Chicago Main Post Office was constructed with a 40-foot-wide rectangular hole running through the center of the building, intended to accommodate a provision of the 1909 Plan of Chicago for a Congress Street extension from the South Loop to Chicago’s West Side. While various plans were floated for the extension in the 1930s, the space wouldn’t come into full use until 1955, when the Congress (now Eisenhower) Expressway was completed, connecting the Loop to the western suburbs. The building’s main lobby sports lavish details like white marble and gold glass mosaics, but its original function was utilitarian in nature, with the majority of the spaces dedicated to feed conveyors, hoppers, mechanical tables, and chutes that supported a variety of mail sorting operations. The Old Chicago Main Post Office remained in operation until a modernized facility was completed in 1996, leaving the building vacant. While the Old Chicago Main Post Office was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001, providing it with the opportunity to capitalize on Federal Historic Tax Credits, it is the local designation that provides a measure of protection from demolition and insensitive alteration, as a National Register listing is primarily used for planning purposes and is honorary. Local designation of commercial, industrial, and income-producing non-for-profit buildings also provides building owners with the opportunity to capitalize on Chicago’s Class L Property Tax Incentive, which reduces property levels for a 12-year period provided that half of the value of the landmark building is invested in an approved rehabilitation project. According to the City of Chicago, the property’s owner, 601W Companies, is implementing a $292 million rehabilitation of the building as retail spaces and offices led by Gensler. The interior and exterior spaces will be comprehensively updated. The work will also repair existing rights-of-way for the Eisenhower Expressway as well as the Amtrak railroad facility located underneath the building.

The Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center was built in 1889 as the Congregational Church. In 1912, it was converted into a lodge for the Scottish Rite Valley of Milwaukee, the local branch of the Freemasons. Throughout the years, the Richardsonian Romanesque building underwent a number of renovations and remodels. This year it will see its most drastic change yet. New Jersey-based Kraig Kalashian Architecture & Design and New Orleans–based Metro Studio have produced designs to renovate the original three-story building and add a glassy 14-story tower to its roof, converting it into a hotel. Scottish Rite Valley of Milwaukee recently sold the building to Madison, Wisconsin-based developer Ascendant Holdings, which is now investigating how best to convert the building. The center was once the base for 8,000 local Freemasons, but today that group is under 700, with even fewer active members. It is expected that the project will cost Ascendant roughly $60 million to complete, with a goal of opening in the next two years. The path to redeveloping the building was not a clear one. There is no doubt from any party that the building is a historic landmark. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1994, and more recently it has been up for local historic designation. In February 2017, the city’s Historic Preservation Committee approved initial plans for the hotel with a number of caveats. Those included changes to some exterior details in order to leave some of the ornately carved facade exposed. The building is covered in intricately carved figures, and the leaded-glass windows contain Masonic symbols and characters. Currently, the new design calls for maintaining as much of the interior detailing as possible, including wood and plaster finishes, and reusing a 350-seat auditorium. The proposed glass tower will sit on columns, set back from the street front. It will contain 220 rooms, with the original building holding the lobby, meeting spaces, a restaurant, the auditorium, and the possibility of a rooftop bar. When completed, Ascendant has indicated that it wants to continue the process of getting the city’s historic designation, which has been put on hold while the project is developed, and future demolition has been taken off the table. Milwaukee’s downtown is going through a building boom that hasn’t been seen in decades. Just blocks from the proposed hotel, a Pickard Chilton–designed 550-foot-tall office tower was recently completed, and on the other side of the downtown a new NBA arena and entertainment complex are well underway, to name just a few of the major projects happening in the area. Past development booms in Milwaukee have resulted in the loss of innumerable historic structures. It would seem that this latest push upward may be a fair bit kinder, if not just as ambitious.

A developer who specializes in historic restoration is planning to breathe life into Ohio’s famous but vacant “Big Basket.” Ohio developer Steve Coon heads a development firm that purchased the 20-year-old building in Newark, Ohio, at the end of December and plans to renovate it for new uses. The seven-story, 180,000-square-foot building opened in 1997 as the headquarters of the Longaberger Co., which makes baskets and pottery. It was designed by NBBJ and Korda Nemeth Engineering to resemble the company’s biggest seller, the Longaberger Medium Market Basket. Known locally as the “Big Basket” and highly visible from State Route 16, the former Longaberger building has been vacant since the summer of 2016, when the company moved its headquarters to its manufacturing plant in Frazeyburg, Ohio. Founder Dave Longaberger, who had the vision for a basket-shaped building, died in 1999, and the company has had financial difficulties and layoffs in recent years due to decreased sales. It is now owned by Dallas-based JRJR Networks. Recognizing the building’s value as a local landmark, public officials have worked to get the basket building reoccupied and to get back taxes paid off. Coon, who heads Coon Restoration and Sealants, is working with Sandvick Architects of Cleveland to restore the building and find new occupants. He has not disclosed specific details of his project but indicated he plans to keep the basket-shaped exterior. “The Longaberger Basket Building is known all over the world, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to preserve and renovate this building and put it back into use,” he said in a statement. “I have a big vision in mind to bring it back to life and keep the Longaberger story alive.” According to Newark Development Partners, a business organization, a group of community members contributed to a fund to keep the utilities on after Longaberger moved out of the building so it wouldn’t deteriorate and a sale could take place. Its executive director, Fred Ernest, said the money raised was almost gone when the sale was completed. “We are very excited to help facilitate this transaction and make the Longaberger Basket Building a viable economic development asset again,” said Newark Mayor Steve Hall. According to Columbus Business First, the building and surrounding 21 acres sold for $1.2 million, a fraction of its appraised value. The buyer was Historic Newark Basket LLC. Based in Louisville, Ohio, the buyer has restored a variety of historic structures in Ohio, including the McKinley National Memorial in Canton and the Old Historic Jail in Newark. Last year he received the Preservation Hero award from Heritage Ohio, a statewide preservation advocacy organization. Peter Ketter, Director of Historic Preservation for Stanvick Architects, said, “It’s going to continue to look like a basket. The owner is excited about the iconic nature of the building and sees it as a positive.”  This includes the handle on top and the basket weave skin, which is an EIFS veneer. He added that the development team plans to nominate the building for listing on the National Register of Historic Places so the renovation could qualify for preservation tax credits. The team also wants to preserve a large interior atrium and possibly much of the cherry wood used inside, he said. Ketter said the new owner is exploring a variety of redevelopment options, including multi-tenant office use, a hotel or a mixture of uses.  “All options are on the table at this point,” he said. There is no firm timetable for construction but Ketter estimates it will take a couple of years to complete. “It is in good condition, so maybe it will move more quickly” than other restoration projects, he said. Sandvick specializes in unconventional restoration projects, and the Longaberger building is no exception, he added. “It’s one building you can define as one-of-a-kind.”

Landscape architect Lawrence Halprin loved cities, so it was only fitting that his cliffside Fort Worth, Texas, commission, Heritage Park Plaza (HPP), was the first-ever item on the National Register of Historic Places designated solely as landscape architecture.

Located on the northern edge of downtown Fort Worth, on a half-acre atop a bluff on the Trinity River, HPP is a series of concrete walls, a rambling collection of ceiling-less rooms on the original site of the 19th-century military fortification for which Fort Worth is named. At one time, water, funneled through concrete channels, unified the design and offered a symbolic connection to the river. If you’ve been to the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C. (unveiled in 1997), the design here will ring familiar to you; Halprin applied the approach honed in Texas to honor the 32nd president.

Completed in 1980, Heritage Park Plaza was the first project where Halprin began to think in a postmodern way. On-site, he worked with artisans to interpret the location’s history and, by extension, the city’s heritage. In a 1971 master plan for the City of Fort Worth, Halprin originally conceived of HPP as one of a series of public spaces linking the Trinity River to Philip Johnson’s Water Gardens, fewer than five miles away.

The city-owned parklet had deteriorated badly by 2007, when it closed to the public. But why was such an important work allowed to fall apart in the first place?

Reasons abound. Unlike the Water Gardens downtown, HPP’s relative remoteness makes it harder to visit, while people who do come must cross roads and traffic to access the site. The original concrete, though, is in pretty good shape. The real problem, surprisingly, came from the trees themselves. Halprin planted a central bosque with 11 live oaks, a species that sheds its leaves gradually, and consequently a basin for the water feature’s mechanical system became clogged with debris. The new trees proposed for the site—cedar elms—drop their leaves all at once, making cleaning easier to plan.

To address these issues and others, the city hired two local firms to collaborate on a comprehensive restoration: Landscape architects at Studio Outside and architects at Bennett Benner Partners will restore the park, using Halprin’s original specifications (some unrealized in the final built form).

It will cost an estimated $3 million just to repair HPP, but plans are on hold—for a good reason. Although almost all of the construction documentation for the restoration was complete, stakeholders realized that to ensure the park’s long-term survival, a master plan was needed for attracting people to and rebuilding the landscape of the whole area.

Among the changes, the team is moving Main Street and adding a forecourt that can be used for events. The move, said Tary Arterburn, principal of Studio Outside, “will bring life to the park that it never really had.”

As New York City’s federally mandated cleanup of the toxic Gowanus Canal continues to ramp up, efforts to install sewage tanks at the head of the canal could end up destroying several buildings that would help the neighborhood qualify for a national historic district designation. The decision to buy out three private parcels along the canal comes after local community pushback canceled the Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) initial plans to install the 8-million-gallon detention tank under the nearby Double D Pool and Thomas Greene Park. Instead, the DEP will now buy out the three parcels for a cost of up to $70 million. If the owners refuse to sell their land, the city will begin a lengthy eminent domain process to seize them. Apart from the monetary costs, leveling the existing buildings at 234 Butler Street, 242 Nevins Street and 270 Nevins St. for use as a staging area during the construction could damage the neighborhood’s standing in the eyes of the National Register of Historic Places. If local officials were to submit Gowanus’s low-lying, historically industrial waterfront for preservation, it’s likely that the construction of the tank would affect the area’s eligibility. The 100-year-old 234 Butler St. in particular stands out for its terra cotta and brick façade, with the Gowanus name emblazoned in brick on the building’s cornice. Residents of the Brooklyn neighborhood rallied to protect the former Gowanus Station upon learning that the EPA and DEP would be tearing it down. In a press release to the borough president, Linda Mariano of Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus, said, "Its design and sculptural elements tie directly into the history of the Gowanus neighborhood's relationship with water. It can and should be saved." In a letter to the EPA, Olivia Brazee, Historic Site Restoration Coordinator with State Historic Preservation Office, wrote that “Its demolition would adversely affect both the building and the National Register eligible Gowanus Canal Historic District.” While an attempt was made to have the neighborhood officially realized as a state and national historic place in 2014, community intervention ultimately led to the plan being shelved. The DEP and EPA will need to come to an agreement on the location of the detention tank before the canal’s dredging finishes in 2027, but if installed, would reduce wastewater runoff into the canal by up to 91 percent.

Although debating the ideal size, role, and scope of the federal government is one of America’s great national pastimes, there has typically been surprisingly broad and consistent support for the Antiquities Act of 1906, a landmark conservation law passed by Congress and enacted by President Theodore Roosevelt 111 years ago.

The law, generally speaking, grants the United States government—particularly, the President—broad authority in designating federally owned lands as national monuments. The effort is made as part of a federally recognized network of protections, which includes the National Park Service, in order to retain and perpetuate public use of wild, scenic, and culturally significant landscapes. The Antiquities Act is responsible for securing some of the most sublime and irreplaceable landscapes the country has to offer, such as the Grand Canyon, Giant Sequoia National Monument, Devils Tower, and Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, for current and future generations. The act, more or less, protects America’s—and Americans’—most literal and shared heritage: land.

But like so many other cultural and political norms and traditions under the new presidential administration, the Antiquities Act is facing an existential threat.

This April, President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Department of the Interior not only to review 27 specific national monuments created under the last three presidential administrations but also to review the law itself, calling the Antiquities Act a “massive federal land grab.” President Ronald Reagan has been the only president not to name any new national monuments; President Trump is threatening to be the first to rescind existing monuments.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spent the summer observing the new monuments—including Bears Ears National Monument, in Utah, which was expanded under President Obama and has drawn ire from local landowners and politicians. Zinke completed his review in late August but is keeping the findings close to his chest, revealing that “some changes” were in store, without making the report fully public (at press time). It is expected, however, that Bears Ears Monument will shrink in size—current estimates predict it will be reduced from 1.35 million acres to just 160,000—but that, according to Zinke, the government would “maintain federal ownership of all federal land and protect the land under federal environmental regulations.” The move is fiercely opposed by Native American communities, including the Navajo Nation and Hopi and Zuni reservations, which surround the monument.

For now, we wait to see the full extent of Zinke’s report. And while we do not know where the administration’s review of the Antiquities Act itself will head, the effort—when combined with unsuccessful motions to backtrack on Obama-era methane-emissions regulations, successful measures allowing for increased mining runoff into streams, and incentivizing programs for coal projects on federal lands—it is clear the president intends to tarnish the nation’s lands in concert with violating its institutions and norms.

In the same way that architects have led the way in saving architectural relics via support for historic preservation and the National Register of Historic Places—also administered by the Department of the Interior—we must become more vocal in our support for retaining and, in fact, expanding public access to public lands. The National Park System is currently languishing with a $12 billion backlog of repairs. Efforts like the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Hands-On Preservation Experience (HOPE) Crew, which connects young people to preservation-related trades through on-the-ground work, is a positive first step, but more work and support are needed.

As with historic preservation, national monuments exist to perpetuate and preserve our most meaningful and compelling spaces and can, moving forward, even work to highlight forgotten or marginalized histories and cultures. Natural landscapes, like cultural landscapes and historic structures and neighborhoods, are vital to the architectural profession and the country alike.

The federal government should keep its hands off these lands, and architects would do well to fight publicly for their protection. 

The architecture left demolished by hurricanes is sometimes difficult to measure in scale and cost, but one structure recently toppled by Irma on Florida's Sugarloaf Key has prompted an entire community's collective mourning. The Bat Tower is well-known for many reasons, chief among them the fact that it contains exactly no bats. It was commissioned in 1969 by a developer named Richter Clyde Perky who was hoping to curtail the rampant local mosquito population by propagating bats (a natural predator) within an artificial roost. Measuring 30 feet tall, the Gothic-inspired, shingled pine and cypress structure was adapted from a set of plans by "city bacteriologist" Dr. Charles Campbell, who developed the roost's design after studying bats in west Texan caves. The interior featured roosting units in a honeycomb pattern, and bats could enter through a tall array of shutters on a dormer-like protrusion. Its construction cost $10,000 in total, which was quite a sum for the time and even today. https://twitter.com/abandonedfl/status/908507959784824832 Campbell's goal was to eradicate malaria by reducing the mosquito population, using bats as the liquidating agent. In contrast, Perky  just wanted to draw recreational fisherman to the Florida Keys, and mosquitos were bad for business. The Tower was meant to function as a natural insecticide offering some relief to the residents of the adjacent travel lodge he built—named, creatively, Sugarloaf Lodge. What followed the Tower's construction was a series of trials in which Perky unsuccessfully tried a number of tactics to lure bat populations to his Chiropteran hotel. To aid in this process, Dr. Campbell supplied Perky "bat bait," a foul compound of guano and the genitalia of female bats meant to draw hordes to the structure. Alas—no dice. The rest of the failed attempts at bat introduction are merely lore; what is sure is that the Tower never succeeded at its goal. Instead, it became a beloved artifact for locals, and was even added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Its pinnacle was also reportedly home to ospreys for some time, a much fiercer predator feasting on fish from nearby waters. For preservationists, the Tower was an architectural rarity: Of the fourteen towers built worldwide from Dr. Campbell's designs, Sugarloaf's was one of just three still standing when Irma's winds razed it to the ground. Some of the others, fortunately, successfully hosted bats. https://twitter.com/CJ___/status/914575429050216449 Upon the Bat Tower's destruction, some locals and tourists have taken to toting away pieces of the tower as souvenirs, to the upset of Katchen Duncan, the tower's proprietor. It is not clear whether a reconstruction is possible or probable, but Duncan has hinted that it is being looked into. "Everyone has a special place in their heart for the bat tower," Duncan explained—and many have made their pilgrimage to the site to pay their respects to a beautiful failure.

Correction 10/2/17: This article initially stated that the Peachtree Center was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It was added to the the Georgia Register of Historic Places, an initial step in National Register of Historic Places nomination process.  For most Georgians, the Peachtree Center is a defining feature of Atlanta. A transportation hub, a shopping complex, and public plaza densely thatched in by hotels and office buildings, the Peachtree Center is a point of reference in the downtown area. The buildings within the Center were largely designed by John Portman & Associates from 1961 through 1988, beginning with the Atlanta Furniture Mart and expanding outward. It is the largest mixed-use center in one of the most populated cities in the South. Now it has been added to the Georgia Register of Historic Places, a first step towards possible inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Spanning 14 blocks, the Peachtree Center includes the AmericasMart (1957), the Hyatt Regency Atlanta (1967), the Westin Peachtree Plaza (1976), and the Atlanta Marriott Marquis (1985), as well as eight office buildings, retail space, restaurants, and parking garages. Taken together, the complex is a constellation of Portman's Southern late modernism and exemplifies the developer-architect approach that Portman, now 92, has built. Visually, the buildings are unified by their precast concrete and reflective plate glass curtain wall panels, as well as poured-in-place concrete elements. Though the Center is criticized by contemporary planners for the 24 suspended glass catwalks that connect buildings but remove pedestrian traffic (and commerce) from the street, the mixed-use, all-in-one typology that Portman pioneered was innovative urban planning in its time. The forbidding brutalist architecture of buildings like the Merchandise Mart and the futuristic cylindrical glass column of the Westin Peachtree Plaza are connected by the infrastructure layering them together. Portman's chilly glass facades and plummeting interiors have proved irresistible to film and television producers. The Peachtree Center is frequently featured in sci-fi and fantasy TV footage, as well as films set in the future, including The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Walking Dead. As the site has evolved over the past 50-plus years, it has continually been redeveloped even when the surrounding downtown area was beset by economic change. Per Portman's plan to design supersize spaces to work at the pedestrian scale, the Peachtree Center is today a busy node of Atlanta's MARTA (mass transit) system and nearby bus terminal, funneling arrivals into an easily accessible network of restaurants, shops, markets, and more.

No building has been used to represent the decline of Detroit more than the Michigan Central Station. Towering over the Corktown neighborhood just south of the city’s downtown, the once bustling train station has lain vacant since the last train pulled away in January 1988. Today the building’s owners, the Moroun family of companies, is hoping the iconic building can become the symbol of the city’s renaissance. For the first time in decades, a private event will be held in the vacant building. Slated for later this summer and produced by Crain’s Detroit Business, the fourth annual Detroit Homecoming is an event which brings back Detroit “expats” in a bid to bring investment into the city. The event will take over three days, starting on September 13^th, and will bring together hundreds of former Detroiters and local business investors. The opening dinner will take place in the grand 53-foot-tall lobby. Tours up to the 13^th floor will allow guests to look out over Detroit. Opened in 1913, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975, the building has had brushes with restoration as well as demolition over the years. In the mid-2000s the city moved to demolish the building, which led to a lawsuit to protect the building. Designed by Warren & Wetmore and Reed & Stem, the 230-foot-tall Beaux Arts tower was once the tallest train station in the world. At one point, over 200 trains passed through the station every day and 3,000 office workers worked in the 500,000-square-foot building. In recent years, restoration has begun on the building. According to the Moroun’s, over $8 million has been spent on asbestos abatement, vandalism cleanup, initial interior work, and other early-stage renovations. Most visible of the changes to the building was the installation of 1,100 new windows in 2015. It is estimated that to complete the restoration will cost over $100 million. And though work has begun, no official word has been given on what the station may become. In the past, ideas have been floated including a convention center, a casino, Michigan State Police headquarters, and Detroit Police headquarters.

Atop a tall sand dune overlooking the southern shore of Lake Michigan sits one of the last remnants of the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress World’s Fair. In severe need of restoration, the House of Tomorrow, designed by Chicago architect George Fred Keck, is set to receive an update from a team of Chicago firms.

The announcement by Indiana Landmarks named bKL Architecture as the architecture and interior design lead. Bauer Latoza Studio will offer historic preservation services and Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates will be the structural engineer. Willoughby Engineering will handle mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering, and HJKessler Associates will act as the sustainability consultant.

In fall 2016, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Indiana Landmarks launched a $2.5-million campaign to restore the house after the Trust named it a National Treasure. At the time of the fair, the house was often referred to by the media as “America’s First Glass House,” and it was a beacon of modern technology for the World’s Fair’s 39 million visitors. The glass curtain walls came nearly 20 years before both Philip Johnson’s 1949 Glass House and Mies van der Rohe’s 1951 Farnsworth House, which sits only 90 miles directly to the west. Giving a view of an optimistic future, the home focused on how science and technology could improve everyday life. 

The house’s innovations include an “iceless” refrigerator, the first-ever General Electric dishwasher, and copious amounts of glass for passive solar heating. Keck would later go on to design 300 other passive solar houses, mostly in the Chicago area, throughout his long career, but the House of Tomorrow remains a standout for its uncanny design.

The 12-sided home radiates from a central hub that contains mechanical equipment. Spoke-like steel girders cantilever from the center, supporting the second and third-floor concrete slabs. This unusual structural system allows for an open floor plan, which is also rare for its time. The plan for the restoration includes removing deteriorated surfaces and revealing this steel framework. The house’s iconic glass facade will be replaced with contemporary smart glass.

The story of the House of Tomorrow after the fair is almost as eccentric as the house itself. After the closing of the World’s Fair, a Chicago developer named Robert Bartlett commissioned a fleet of barges and trucks to move the house and four other houses from the exposition to their current resting place in Beverly Shores, Indiana. Bartlett’s plan was to develop a vacation hotspot for Chicago. While this may not have worked out for him, they have become a pilgrimage point for architects and beachgoers alike as part of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

Though listed in the National Registry of Historic Places in the 1980s, the houses had fallen into severe disrepair by the 1990s. In order to save them, Indiana Landmarks was able to lease the homes from the National Parks Service and sublease four of them to individuals. Those sub-lessees were obliged to restore them, at their own expense, in exchange for long-term residency. The cost of restoration for the four houses was in excess of one million each, and the House of Tomorrow’s atypical materials and construction meant Indiana Landmarks would have to do the work itself.

But, with the naming of the restoration team and fundraising, the future of the House of Tomorrow is bright.