The Driehaus Museum announced that its John B. Murphy Memorial Auditorium has received City of Chicago landmark designation. The Driehaus Museum is now comprised of two landmarked buildings – the 1926 Murphy Auditorium and the 1883 Nickerson Mansion. Following the Museum’s restoration of the historic building, it will officially reopen the Murphy Auditorium as part of its campus on June 21.
Located at 50 East Erie, the six-story, 32,193-square-foot French Renaissance-style building, purchased by the Driehaus Museum in 2022, was built between 1923 and 1926 by the American College of Surgeons. Designed by noted Chicago architects Benjamin Marshall and Charles E. Fox of Marshall and Fox, the Murphy was used originally to host meetings and serve as a center for education in surgery. Its iconic exterior is Marshall’s interpretation of the double-columned, two-story façade and flanking entry staircase of the Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Consolation (1900) in Paris.
The building features a pair of cast bronze doors designed by Tiffany Studios at the front entrance, comprised of six panels depicting prominent figures in the history of medicine. It also has a towering, multicolored stained-glass window inside the auditorium. It was built as a memorial to founding member John B. Murphy, MD, FACS. Dr. Murphy was regarded worldwide as the greatest clinical educator of his generation, and known for performing a life-saving surgery on President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.
More information: driehausmuseum.org
