Jane Addams Hull-House Museum projects earn architecture award

Visitors at theJane Addams Hull House Museum in the new bookstore. (Photo: Sara Larson)

The historic Jane Addams Hull-House Museum on UIC's campus has had some fresh additions - a new welcome desk at the entrance and an attractive bookstore befitting the museum's 19th-century style. Now both have won a prestigious architectural award for their designs.

The project by award-winning designers and builders Michal Koszycki and UIC alum Titus Wonsey earned the most votes in the cultural category of the Lerch Bates People's Choice Awards, sponsored by the American Institute of Architects' Chicago chapter and the Chicago Architecture Center.

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The welcome desk and bookstore, installed in 2024, were designed to enhance the historic interior of the museum, which originally served as the home of social reformer and Nobel Prize winner, Jane Addams. The home became the first building in the Hull-House settlement in 1889.

The desk was designed to be located near the entrance of the museum in order to evoke the former settlement home's welcoming spirit, said Matthew Randle-Bent, associate director of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.

"With the welcome desk, there's this philosophy associated with Hull-House of a kind of hospitality and a real generosity of spirit where if you come to Hull-House anytime between 1889 and 2025, you should feel welcome," said Randle-Bent.

The curved wood desk blends in with the molding that runs throughout the home. It appears to be connected to the sweeping staircase, original to the home, that links the main floor to the second floor, where Addams' bedroom and other more intimate exhibition rooms are. The desk bears an oversized copy of Addams' signature as an ornamentation.

The bookstore, established in a parlor room of the 1856 building, pays homage to the literary aspects of the home's history. Dialogue and the cultivation of knowledge were at the center of the Hull-House settlement. A sign at the bookstore entrance notes that one of the country's first kindergartens was established in the room when the settlement began. It also once served as a library.

"Placing a bookstore at the heart of the museum was one way for us to show the public these are the conversations that Hull-House has always been part of; these are the conversations Hull-House wants to be a part of moving forward," said Randle-Bent.

UIC alum Titus Wonsey (from left), Jane Addams Hull-House Museum Curatorial Manager Ross Stanton Jordan and Michal Koszycki accept the Lerch Bates People's Choice Awards recently. (Photo: Kai Brown Photography) A new welcome desk along the original stairway at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. (Photo: Michal Koszycki, Titus Wonsey)

Koszycki said the design for the bookstore, which includes nicely proportioned, well-lit lattice shelves, is intended to evoke the work that was done there.

"The shelves are really a humble infrastructure for these ideas, and the museum speaks through there," said Koszycki. "It definitely doesn't feel like a commercial bookstore, but it is an open, well-lit library."

Wonsey said the award was important because it honored the collaborative experience the designers found at the museum as they worked to highlight the museum's historical significance.

"It's great to be recognized for something you felt so good about doing with the people you did it with," said Wonsey. "This was really special."

Wonsey, who earned his bachelor's degree in fine arts at UIC, said being able to return to his alma mater for the project was meaningful because UIC was pivotal in the beginning of his career.

"UIC feels like a home place for me," he said. "And to be able to come back to campus and contribute something to Hull-House was a great opportunity."