Pullman Palace Car Museum
Historic Pullman was built in the 1880s by George Pullman for his eponymous railroad car company, the Pullman Palace Car Company. Pullman's architect Solon Spencer Beman was said to be so proud of his creation that he asked George Pullman if the neighborhood could be named for himself. Pullman responded to the effect, "Sure, we'll take the first half of my name, and the second half of yours."
In a day when most workers lived in shabby tenements near their factories, Pullman seemed a dream, winning awards as "the world's most perfect town." Everything, from stores to townhouses, were owned by the Company. The design was pleasing, and all of the workers' needs were met within the neighborhood. The houses were comfortable by standards of the day, and contained such amenities as indoor plumbing, gas, and sewers.
Pullman's misfortune came during the depression which followed the Panic of 1893. When demand for Pullman cars slackened, the Pullman company laid off hundreds of workers, and switched many more to pay-per-piece work. This work, while paying more per hour reduced total worker income. Despite these cutbacks, the Company did not reduce rents for those that lived in the town of Pullman. The Pullman Strike began in 1894, and lasted for 2 months.
George Pullman himself died in 1897. The Illinois Supreme Court required the company to sell off the town which was annexed into the city of Chicago. Within ten years, all non-manufacturing property - the houses, the public buildings - was sold off to the individual occupants.
Along with the whole South Side, the town of Pullman had been annexed to the City of Chicago in 1889. After the strike Pullman gradually became a regular Chicago neighborhood, only with distinguishing Victorian architecture. The fortunes of the neighborhood rose and fell with the Pullman Company.
The Pullman factory made its last car in early 1982 for Amtrak. The neighborhood's decline that began in the 1950s continued, but that economic decline at least spared the district's architecture. In 1960 the original Town of Pullman, approximately between 111th and 115th Streets, was threatened with total demolition for an industrial park. The residents there formed the Pullman Civic Organization and saved their community. By 1972 the Pullman Historic District had obtained National, State, and City landmark status to protect the original 900 rowhouses and public buildings built by George Pullman.
Since the preservation, our studio project started where the residents left off--to turn the Pullman industrial and administration buildings into a museum to its railroad and community planning contributions.
The concept for the Pullman Palace Car Museum project was to create a museum addition that contrasted with the existing. This visually striking contrast would let each work programmatically together, but visually each stand on their own. This "standing on its own" is translated to the more public functions of the program by jutting/pulling/bulging out from the main mass of the museum--restaurant, cafe, entry, and gift shop. Some Pullman Palace cars are used as displays and signage to people passing by to add to let the train cars to stand out on their own. The landscape concept was to blend the museum back to a more indigenous approach of natural grasses and contrast it with a more rectilinear set of boxes to frame the types of plants the original Pullman residents would have planted. This concept is also shown in the back of the museum where a large 5 foot deep pit of slag was left and would be installed with raised train tracks over the planting off indigenous grasses to showcase the newly restored train cars.
Additionally, I used my programming class to do an extensive program research of transportation museums, specifically, the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.
Illinois Institute of Technology, fall, 2005
In a day when most workers lived in shabby tenements near their factories, Pullman seemed a dream, winning awards as "the world's most perfect town." Everything, from stores to townhouses, were owned by the Company. The design was pleasing, and all of the workers' needs were met within the neighborhood. The houses were comfortable by standards of the day, and contained such amenities as indoor plumbing, gas, and sewers.
Pullman's misfortune came during the depression which followed the Panic of 1893. When demand for Pullman cars slackened, the Pullman company laid off hundreds of workers, and switched many more to pay-per-piece work. This work, while paying more per hour reduced total worker income. Despite these cutbacks, the Company did not reduce rents for those that lived in the town of Pullman. The Pullman Strike began in 1894, and lasted for 2 months.
George Pullman himself died in 1897. The Illinois Supreme Court required the company to sell off the town which was annexed into the city of Chicago. Within ten years, all non-manufacturing property - the houses, the public buildings - was sold off to the individual occupants.
Along with the whole South Side, the town of Pullman had been annexed to the City of Chicago in 1889. After the strike Pullman gradually became a regular Chicago neighborhood, only with distinguishing Victorian architecture. The fortunes of the neighborhood rose and fell with the Pullman Company.
The Pullman factory made its last car in early 1982 for Amtrak. The neighborhood's decline that began in the 1950s continued, but that economic decline at least spared the district's architecture. In 1960 the original Town of Pullman, approximately between 111th and 115th Streets, was threatened with total demolition for an industrial park. The residents there formed the Pullman Civic Organization and saved their community. By 1972 the Pullman Historic District had obtained National, State, and City landmark status to protect the original 900 rowhouses and public buildings built by George Pullman.
Since the preservation, our studio project started where the residents left off--to turn the Pullman industrial and administration buildings into a museum to its railroad and community planning contributions.
The concept for the Pullman Palace Car Museum project was to create a museum addition that contrasted with the existing. This visually striking contrast would let each work programmatically together, but visually each stand on their own. This "standing on its own" is translated to the more public functions of the program by jutting/pulling/bulging out from the main mass of the museum--restaurant, cafe, entry, and gift shop. Some Pullman Palace cars are used as displays and signage to people passing by to add to let the train cars to stand out on their own. The landscape concept was to blend the museum back to a more indigenous approach of natural grasses and contrast it with a more rectilinear set of boxes to frame the types of plants the original Pullman residents would have planted. This concept is also shown in the back of the museum where a large 5 foot deep pit of slag was left and would be installed with raised train tracks over the planting off indigenous grasses to showcase the newly restored train cars.
Additionally, I used my programming class to do an extensive program research of transportation museums, specifically, the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.
Illinois Institute of Technology, fall, 2005