Shedd Park Field House
(Recreation Building)
3660 W. 23rd St.
1917, William Drummond
1928, Gymnasium addition, Michaelsen & Rognstad
By 1885 John G. Shedd had re-subdivided part of Millard & Decker’s subdivision and set aside just over an acre for a private park. After unsuccessful efforts to assess local homeowners for improvements, the land was transferred to the city in 1888 and to the Chicago Board of Park Commissioners ten years later. Although nothing remains of Jens Jensen’s landscape (1917), the field house is one of the best examples of Prairie School architecture in the Chicago Park District. Above the south entrance, a large but delicately detailed wood pediment contains a fine tympanum with thin glass windows between vertical wooden slats. The sensitively realized gymnasium is recessed forty feet behind the main entrance and repeats the horizontal massing and stringcoursing of Drummond’s original.
Text and photo via AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition.