Symphony Center
Home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, built around Daniel Burnham's Orchestra Hall of 1904.
Symphony Center occupies a block of South Michigan Avenue and is built around Orchestra Hall, which opened in December 1904 as a purpose-built home for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra had been founded in 1891 by Theodore Thomas, who campaigned for a permanent hall of its own. Daniel Burnham designed the red brick and limestone building in a restrained neo-Georgian manner, and it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994. The main auditorium seats a little over two thousand people.
A large redevelopment completed in 1997 linked Orchestra Hall to neighbouring buildings, creating the wider Symphony Center complex with a glass-roofed rotunda, the smaller Buntrock Hall, rehearsal rooms, education spaces and a restaurant. The acoustics of the main auditorium were reworked at the same time, following earlier alterations in the 1960s. Besides the resident orchestra and the training Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the centre presents chamber music, jazz, piano recitals and visiting ensembles through its Chicago Symphony Presents series.
Highlights
- Orchestra Hall of 1904, designed by Daniel H. Burnham
- Resident home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since it opened
- Glass-roofed rotunda and Buntrock Hall added in the 1997 rebuilding
- Jazz, piano recital and chamber series alongside orchestral concerts
