1883 - 1983: 100 Years of Love, Medinah Temple A.A.O.N.M.S.
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1883 - 1983: 100 Years of Love, Medinah Temple A.A.O.N.M.S.. LANDMARKS DESIGNATION REPORT
600 North Wabash Avenue
Submitted to the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, May 200 1
CITY OF CHICAGO
Richard M. Daley, Mayor
Department of Planning and Development
Alicia Mazur Berg, Commissioner
Above
The Medinah Temple represents an architectural oasis on the southwest corner of Wabash Avenue and Ontario Street
Its lavish, sculptural masonry provides a marked contrast to surrounding concrete and glass highrises.
Cover
The ornately detailed entrance pavilion to the Medinah Temple includes arabesque ornament and Arabic script proclaiming:
"There is no God but Allah," which is a traditional inscription found on Islamic mosques.The title type (below photo) is taken
from the headline of a 1913 Architectural Record article.
The Commission on Chicago Landmarks, whose nine members are appointed by the Mayor; was established in 1968.
The Commission is responsible for recommending to the City Council which individual buildings, sites, objects or districts
should be designated as Chicago Landmarks.
The Commission makes its recommendations to the City Council following a detailed designation process. It begins with a staff
report on the historical and architectural background and significance of the proposed landmark The next step is a vote by the
Landmarks Commission as to whether the proposed landmark is worthy of consideration. Not only does this preliminary vote
initiate the formal designation process, but it places the review of city permits for the property under the jurisdiction of the
Commission until the final landmark recommendation is acted on by the City Council.
Please note that this landmark designation report is subject to possible revision during the designation process. Only language
contained within the designation ordinance recommended to the City Council should be regarded as final.
Medinah Temple
600 North Wabash Avenue
Built:
Architect:
1912
Huehl & Schmid
In the new Medinah Temple, recently erected for the Masonic
order of the Mystic Shrine in Chicago, is found one of those rare
instances in which a building designed in a historical style remote
from our 20th century civilization and ideals seems logical and
in harmony with its surroundings.
— The Architectural Record, April 1913
The views of this architectural critic still seem appropriate —
more than 85 years later — as the four-story tall Medinah Temple
remains one of the most distinctive structures on the Near North
Side of Chicago, due to its exceptional craftsmanship, exotic design
details, and its history as one of the city's longtime cultural centers.
The building was constructed to house a 4,200-seat auditorium
for the Chicago chapter (the "Medinah Temple") of the national
Shrine fraternal organization. The building's unique appearance
marks it as an extremely rare example of the Islamic Revival,
a style of architecture that was popularized during the first decades
of the 20th century by the Shrine organization. It is considered one
of the nation's finest examples of an Islamic-style temple and it
was ranked as one of the top 200 buildings in the city by the
Chicago Historic Resources Survey.
The building's exterior provides a textbook of Islamic details,
from horseshoe and ogival arches to arabesque-style ornament.
Its exquisite brick-and-terra cotta work is a tribute to the Shrine
organization's origins as a 16th century British stonemasons guild.
As one critic noted in 1913: "No member of the Shrine, or layman
who knows something of the ideals of this order, would ever
mistake this building for other than what it is."
The Medinah Temple occupies
a half-square block in the River
North neighborhood, two blocks
west of the famed North Michigan
Avenue retail district.
This 1893 photograph of the leadership
of the Chicago chapter ("temple") of
the Shrine fraternal organization was
taken nearly 20 years before the
construction of the Medinah Temple
building. From its earliest years, the
Shrine chose Islamic-inspired clothing,
rituals, and building decorations for
the imagery of its organization.
The Origins of the Medinah Temple
The Medinah Temple was built to serve as the Chicago headquarters
of a popular national fraternal organization, the Ancient Arabic Order
of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (a.k.a. the Shriners). Founded in
New York City in 1872, the Shrine was one of several organizations
established in the late- 1 9th century that restricted its membership
to men already active in "Freemasonry," an ancient British stonemason's
guild that had evolved into a social club of gentlemen, merchants,
and tradesmen.
In order to become a Shriner, a member had to have achieved either
the status of a "Knight Templar" in the Masonic York Rite or the
"32nd degree" in the Masonic Scottish Rite. The Shrine was conceived
of as a secret society that would honor the underlying seriousness of
Freemasonry while incorporating rituals filled with levity and entertain-
ment. It was structured around local groups, known as "temples," which
were the regional equivalent of neighborhood Masonic lodges. A temple
was given the exclusive right to draw membership from the region
in which it was located, and only one Shrine temple was given a charter
in any given city.
The historic Islamic culture of the Middle East was chosen as
the source for the symbols, motifs, and identities that would be used
by the Shrine organization. The temples were given exotic-sounding
names from Islamic history or geography, such as Mecca (New York
City), Kismet (Brooklyn), Murat (Indianapolis), or Al Malaikah
(Los Angeles) . The board of officers of each temple was known as
the Divan and officers were given titles such as "potentate," "rabban,"
or "high chief and prophet."
Initiation and other rituals utilized exotic set decorations and Islamic-
inspired clothes, such as the well-known red fez. The buildings that
the local Shrine temples built to house their activities were referred
to as "mosques" and were designed using Islamic-inspired architectural
forms and details. This appropriation of Islamic imagery provided
a stage within which American middle- and upper-middle-class men
could escape ordinary work and family responsibilities and enter
an imaginary world of the "carefree" Middle Eastern oasis.
The Medinah Temple, as the Chicago Shrine organization was called,
was founded on June 6, 1883, and was the 14th Shrine temple in
the United States. It was named for the city of Madina al-Nabi, where
the prophet Muhammad fled in 622 A.D. and founded the first Islamic
state, before mounting his conquest of Arabia. (The official location
of the Medinah Temple within the Shrine organization is in the
"Desert of Illinois; Oasis of Chicago")
Left The rapid growth of the Shrine's
local membership prompted this
humorous 1 907 Chicago Daily News
cartoon of what life would be like
"When Everybody is a Shriner," ranging
from the Islamic clothing of policemen
and baseball players to the design
of streetcars.
Above: Prior to the construction of
Medinah Temple, the Shrine occupied
the former Unity Church on North
Dearborn Street.
For the first few years, the members of the Chicago Shrine organization
met in rented public halls and local Masonic lodges. Between 1893 and
1 903 , the organization was housed on the top two floors of the Medinah
Building, an office building at Jackson and Wells (now demolished) .
Between 1903 and 1912, it occupied the former Unity Church
at Dearborn and Walton (now the Scottish Rite Cathedral and part
of the Washington Square Chicago Landmark District).
Membership in the Chicago Shrine organization expanded greatly
during the early 1 900s , reaching more than 1 1 ,000 by 1911, when
the need for a larger mosque was recognized. That year, the organization
bought the mansion of the late Judge Lambert Tree, which was located
on Wabash Avenue between Ohio and Ontario. It selected the Chicago
architectural firm of Huehl & Schmid to design a new mosque for
the site.
A building permit was issued on October 7, 1911, and the cornerstone
was laid three weeks later in an elaborate ceremony held at midnight on
Halloween, which was attended by about 5,000 members — nearly half
the totahmem her ship . The new Medinah Temple mosque was d edicate d
a year later, when it was called "the largest auditorium in the world
erected by a social organization."
Building Description
The plethora of Islamic and Middle Eastern ornament found both
on the exterior and interior of the Medinah Temple gives it a sense of
exotic fantasy that well suited the Shrine rituals the building sheltered.
This decor also provided a memorable setting for the many concerts,
circus performances, lectures, and other events that have been held
here over the years. Nonetheless, the primary purpose of the Medinah
Temple was to function efficiently as the Chicago headquarters of a
rapidly growing social organization. As an article in the April 1913
issue of the Architectural Record noted:
The Medinah Temple is thoroughly modern, while the Arabic
elements are so woven into the design as to become an integral
part of it. This building is, in fact, a modern structure, with Arabic
decorative expression, just as the Shrine itself is an organization
modern in its ideals, but possessing an Arabic ritual.
A four-story building, the Medinah Temple covers the eastern half
of a city block bounded by Wabash, Ontario, State and Ohio streets.
Its original footprint is roughly 150x218 feet, and the building's
exterior form clearly expresses its primary interior space, which
is a 4,200-seat auditorium — termed at the time as "the largest
and most impressive in the West."
This 1913 photograph (left) depicts the building's main
entrance pavilion and one of its original comer domes.
The contrast between square and curved forms (above)
gives the building a dynamic street presence.
The building's central feature is a large rectangular pavilion facing
Wabash, which marks the main entrance and lobby area. At the four
corners of the building are smaller pavilions that provide secondary
entrances and house the building's main staircases. In between these
entry pavilions — and above a one-story base — the walls of the building
curve to the contours of the auditorium within. This combination of
rectilinear and curved building forms gives the exterior of the building
a dynamic street presence on its very tight urban site.
Built of reinforced concrete, the exterior of the Medinah Temple
is faced with brick walls of unusually high quality and craftsmanship,
which is appropriate since the building was constructed to house
a fraternal organization whose origins were rooted in the art and craft
of traditional stonemasonry.
The brick itself is orange-brown colored and mottled with dark flecks.
Its "wire-cut" finish gives it the impression of handmade bricks, rich
in color and texture. This appearance is further heightened by the style
of the masonry work. The bricks were laid in a variation of the Flemish
bond, featuring alternating headers and stretchers in each course,
with each header centered above and below a stretcher.
What is particularly unusual, however, is the size of the "bricks," which
were formed by combining groups of four (for the stretchers) and two
(for the headers) regular-sized bricks. By finishing the mortar joints
flush with the face of the bricks, the result was alternating rectangular
and square "superbricks."The building's scale is large and blocklike,
The Medinah's sculptural, monumental
quality is enhanced by its decorative
terra cotta and distinctive brickwork.
Each of its "superbricks" (detail, top)
is actually composed of two or four
regularly sized bricks. Their "wire-cut"
finish complements the building's Islamic-
style ornament (above).
The Medinah is literally encrusted
with terra-cotta ornamental designs
common to Islamic-style mosques.
Clockwise, from top left a muqarnas-
filled niche, a horseshoe-arched comer
entrance, arabesque details surrounding
a lattice-filled arch, and Arabic script
Medinah Temple is lavishly detailed with Islamic ornament. The
entrances and many of the second-floor windows are framed within
horseshoe-shaped arches, which was a common detail on such Spanish
Moorish buildings as the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the Alhambra
Palace complex in Granada. Pointed ogival arches, another common
Moorish detail, were used for first-floor windows. Intricate patterns
of geometric forms or stylized plants (referred to as arabesques) form
decorative surrounds around the doors and windows.
The building's main entrance (see cover) is dominated by a four-story
rectangular arch, bordered with bands of terra cotta contrasting in color
and ornament. Within this arch is a smaller, two-story horseshoe arch
that shelters the entrance.
mcgeeandmebooks ✉️ (137) 100%,
Location: Zephyrhills, Florida, US,
Ships to: US & many other countries,
Item: 386883965205
1883 - 1983: 100 Years of Love, Medinah Temple A.A.O.N.M.S.. LANDMARKS DESIGNATION REPORT
600 North Wabash Avenue
Submitted to the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, May 200 1
CITY OF CHICAGO
Richard M. Daley, Mayor
Department of Planning and Development
Alicia Mazur Berg, Commissioner
Above
The Medinah Temple represents an architectural oasis on the southwest corner of Wabash Avenue and Ontario Street
Its lavish, sculptural masonry provides a marked contrast to surrounding concrete and glass highrises.
Cover
The ornately detailed entrance pavilion to the Medinah Temple includes arabesque ornament and Arabic script proclaiming:
"There is no God but Allah," which is a traditional inscription found on Islamic mosques.The title type (below photo) is taken
from the headline of a 1913 Architectural Record article.
The Commission on Chicago Landmarks, whose nine members are appointed by the Mayor; was established in 1968.
The Commission is responsible for recommending to the City Council which individual buildings, sites, objects or districts
should be designated as Chicago Landmarks.
The Commission makes its recommendations to the City Council following a detailed designation process. It begins with a staff
report on the historical and architectural background and significance of the proposed landmark The next step is a vote by the
Landmarks Commission as to whether the proposed landmark is worthy of consideration. Not only does this preliminary vote
initiate the formal designation process, but it places the review of city permits for the property under the jurisdiction of the
Commission until the final landmark recommendation is acted on by the City Council.
Please note that this landmark designation report is subject to possible revision during the designation process. Only language
contained within the designation ordinance recommended to the City Council should be regarded as final.
Medinah Temple
600 North Wabash Avenue
Built:
Architect:
1912
Huehl & Schmid
In the new Medinah Temple, recently erected for the Masonic
order of the Mystic Shrine in Chicago, is found one of those rare
instances in which a building designed in a historical style remote
from our 20th century civilization and ideals seems logical and
in harmony with its surroundings.
— The Architectural Record, April 1913
The views of this architectural critic still seem appropriate —
more than 85 years later — as the four-story tall Medinah Temple
remains one of the most distinctive structures on the Near North
Side of Chicago, due to its exceptional craftsmanship, exotic design
details, and its history as one of the city's longtime cultural centers.
The building was constructed to house a 4,200-seat auditorium
for the Chicago chapter (the "Medinah Temple") of the national
Shrine fraternal organization. The building's unique appearance
marks it as an extremely rare example of the Islamic Revival,
a style of architecture that was popularized during the first decades
of the 20th century by the Shrine organization. It is considered one
of the nation's finest examples of an Islamic-style temple and it
was ranked as one of the top 200 buildings in the city by the
Chicago Historic Resources Survey.
The building's exterior provides a textbook of Islamic details,
from horseshoe and ogival arches to arabesque-style ornament.
Its exquisite brick-and-terra cotta work is a tribute to the Shrine
organization's origins as a 16th century British stonemasons guild.
As one critic noted in 1913: "No member of the Shrine, or layman
who knows something of the ideals of this order, would ever
mistake this building for other than what it is."
The Medinah Temple occupies
a half-square block in the River
North neighborhood, two blocks
west of the famed North Michigan
Avenue retail district.
This 1893 photograph of the leadership
of the Chicago chapter ("temple") of
the Shrine fraternal organization was
taken nearly 20 years before the
construction of the Medinah Temple
building. From its earliest years, the
Shrine chose Islamic-inspired clothing,
rituals, and building decorations for
the imagery of its organization.
The Origins of the Medinah Temple
The Medinah Temple was built to serve as the Chicago headquarters
of a popular national fraternal organization, the Ancient Arabic Order
of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (a.k.a. the Shriners). Founded in
New York City in 1872, the Shrine was one of several organizations
established in the late- 1 9th century that restricted its membership
to men already active in "Freemasonry," an ancient British stonemason's
guild that had evolved into a social club of gentlemen, merchants,
and tradesmen.
In order to become a Shriner, a member had to have achieved either
the status of a "Knight Templar" in the Masonic York Rite or the
"32nd degree" in the Masonic Scottish Rite. The Shrine was conceived
of as a secret society that would honor the underlying seriousness of
Freemasonry while incorporating rituals filled with levity and entertain-
ment. It was structured around local groups, known as "temples," which
were the regional equivalent of neighborhood Masonic lodges. A temple
was given the exclusive right to draw membership from the region
in which it was located, and only one Shrine temple was given a charter
in any given city.
The historic Islamic culture of the Middle East was chosen as
the source for the symbols, motifs, and identities that would be used
by the Shrine organization. The temples were given exotic-sounding
names from Islamic history or geography, such as Mecca (New York
City), Kismet (Brooklyn), Murat (Indianapolis), or Al Malaikah
(Los Angeles) . The board of officers of each temple was known as
the Divan and officers were given titles such as "potentate," "rabban,"
or "high chief and prophet."
Initiation and other rituals utilized exotic set decorations and Islamic-
inspired clothes, such as the well-known red fez. The buildings that
the local Shrine temples built to house their activities were referred
to as "mosques" and were designed using Islamic-inspired architectural
forms and details. This appropriation of Islamic imagery provided
a stage within which American middle- and upper-middle-class men
could escape ordinary work and family responsibilities and enter
an imaginary world of the "carefree" Middle Eastern oasis.
The Medinah Temple, as the Chicago Shrine organization was called,
was founded on June 6, 1883, and was the 14th Shrine temple in
the United States. It was named for the city of Madina al-Nabi, where
the prophet Muhammad fled in 622 A.D. and founded the first Islamic
state, before mounting his conquest of Arabia. (The official location
of the Medinah Temple within the Shrine organization is in the
"Desert of Illinois; Oasis of Chicago")
Left The rapid growth of the Shrine's
local membership prompted this
humorous 1 907 Chicago Daily News
cartoon of what life would be like
"When Everybody is a Shriner," ranging
from the Islamic clothing of policemen
and baseball players to the design
of streetcars.
Above: Prior to the construction of
Medinah Temple, the Shrine occupied
the former Unity Church on North
Dearborn Street.
For the first few years, the members of the Chicago Shrine organization
met in rented public halls and local Masonic lodges. Between 1893 and
1 903 , the organization was housed on the top two floors of the Medinah
Building, an office building at Jackson and Wells (now demolished) .
Between 1903 and 1912, it occupied the former Unity Church
at Dearborn and Walton (now the Scottish Rite Cathedral and part
of the Washington Square Chicago Landmark District).
Membership in the Chicago Shrine organization expanded greatly
during the early 1 900s , reaching more than 1 1 ,000 by 1911, when
the need for a larger mosque was recognized. That year, the organization
bought the mansion of the late Judge Lambert Tree, which was located
on Wabash Avenue between Ohio and Ontario. It selected the Chicago
architectural firm of Huehl & Schmid to design a new mosque for
the site.
A building permit was issued on October 7, 1911, and the cornerstone
was laid three weeks later in an elaborate ceremony held at midnight on
Halloween, which was attended by about 5,000 members — nearly half
the totahmem her ship . The new Medinah Temple mosque was d edicate d
a year later, when it was called "the largest auditorium in the world
erected by a social organization."
Building Description
The plethora of Islamic and Middle Eastern ornament found both
on the exterior and interior of the Medinah Temple gives it a sense of
exotic fantasy that well suited the Shrine rituals the building sheltered.
This decor also provided a memorable setting for the many concerts,
circus performances, lectures, and other events that have been held
here over the years. Nonetheless, the primary purpose of the Medinah
Temple was to function efficiently as the Chicago headquarters of a
rapidly growing social organization. As an article in the April 1913
issue of the Architectural Record noted:
The Medinah Temple is thoroughly modern, while the Arabic
elements are so woven into the design as to become an integral
part of it. This building is, in fact, a modern structure, with Arabic
decorative expression, just as the Shrine itself is an organization
modern in its ideals, but possessing an Arabic ritual.
A four-story building, the Medinah Temple covers the eastern half
of a city block bounded by Wabash, Ontario, State and Ohio streets.
Its original footprint is roughly 150x218 feet, and the building's
exterior form clearly expresses its primary interior space, which
is a 4,200-seat auditorium — termed at the time as "the largest
and most impressive in the West."
This 1913 photograph (left) depicts the building's main
entrance pavilion and one of its original comer domes.
The contrast between square and curved forms (above)
gives the building a dynamic street presence.
The building's central feature is a large rectangular pavilion facing
Wabash, which marks the main entrance and lobby area. At the four
corners of the building are smaller pavilions that provide secondary
entrances and house the building's main staircases. In between these
entry pavilions — and above a one-story base — the walls of the building
curve to the contours of the auditorium within. This combination of
rectilinear and curved building forms gives the exterior of the building
a dynamic street presence on its very tight urban site.
Built of reinforced concrete, the exterior of the Medinah Temple
is faced with brick walls of unusually high quality and craftsmanship,
which is appropriate since the building was constructed to house
a fraternal organization whose origins were rooted in the art and craft
of traditional stonemasonry.
The brick itself is orange-brown colored and mottled with dark flecks.
Its "wire-cut" finish gives it the impression of handmade bricks, rich
in color and texture. This appearance is further heightened by the style
of the masonry work. The bricks were laid in a variation of the Flemish
bond, featuring alternating headers and stretchers in each course,
with each header centered above and below a stretcher.
What is particularly unusual, however, is the size of the "bricks," which
were formed by combining groups of four (for the stretchers) and two
(for the headers) regular-sized bricks. By finishing the mortar joints
flush with the face of the bricks, the result was alternating rectangular
and square "superbricks."The building's scale is large and blocklike,
The Medinah's sculptural, monumental
quality is enhanced by its decorative
terra cotta and distinctive brickwork.
Each of its "superbricks" (detail, top)
is actually composed of two or four
regularly sized bricks. Their "wire-cut"
finish complements the building's Islamic-
style ornament (above).
The Medinah is literally encrusted
with terra-cotta ornamental designs
common to Islamic-style mosques.
Clockwise, from top left a muqarnas-
filled niche, a horseshoe-arched comer
entrance, arabesque details surrounding
a lattice-filled arch, and Arabic script
Medinah Temple is lavishly detailed with Islamic ornament. The
entrances and many of the second-floor windows are framed within
horseshoe-shaped arches, which was a common detail on such Spanish
Moorish buildings as the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the Alhambra
Palace complex in Granada. Pointed ogival arches, another common
Moorish detail, were used for first-floor windows. Intricate patterns
of geometric forms or stylized plants (referred to as arabesques) form
decorative surrounds around the doors and windows.
The building's main entrance (see cover) is dominated by a four-story
rectangular arch, bordered with bands of terra cotta contrasting in color
and ornament. Within this arch is a smaller, two-story horseshoe arch
that shelters the entrance.
- Condition: Like New
- Condition: 1883 - 1983: 100 Years of Love, Medinah Temple A.A.O.N.M.S.
- Book Title: 1883 - 1983: 100 Years of Love, Medinah Temple A.A.O.N.M.S.
- Book Series: Historical
- Original Language: English
- Item Length: 9 in
- Vintage: No
- Personalize: No
- Format: Hardcover
- Language: English
- Item Height: 11 in
- Personalized: No
- Features: Illustrated, Cloth Covered
- Topic: The Shriner's Love for Disabled Children
- Item Width: 0.5 in
- Signed: No
- Ex Libris: No
- Narrative Type: Nonfiction
- Publisher: Medinah Temple A.A.O.N.M.S.
- Intended Audience: Young Adults, Adults
- Inscribed: No
- Edition: First Edition
- Publication Year: 1984
- Type: Historical Documentary
- Era: 1883-1983
- Illustrator: na
- Author: Donald C. McClurg
- Genre: Antiquarian & Collectible, History
- Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
- Item Weight: 30 oz
- Number of Pages: 146
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