2023 Year-End Review: South Side Community Art Center (Chicago)
wrkSHap kiloWatt’s 2023 Year in Review continues with:
the South Side Community Art Center of Chicago, IL (also on Instagram) and LinkedIn)
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The South Side Community Art Center is the longest-running, continuously operating African American art center that is a product of the Works Project Administration (WPA). Since its founding in 1940 by Black artists, it has been home to a diverse array of the arts: photography, visual arts, dance/performance art, and more.
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SSCAC has a multi-layered history that is not just Black History but is US History. A huge contributor to this history is its physical home – an 1892 masonry mansion. The original architect, Lawrence Gustav Hallberg, Sr. (1844-1915), led a design and construction team that completed the two buildings in 1892, in the Classical Revival Style. Mr. George A. Seaverns, Jr. and his wife, Mrs. Clara Seaverns, commissioned Hallberg to design this mansion. Seaverns, Jr. was in the grain elevator business and found success in elevators and real estate. In 1940, designers Hin Bredendieck and Nathan Lerner led the renovation of the mansion in the New Bauhaus Style.
Many artists have made SSCAC their art home and residence in its Coach House, including photographer Gordon Parks, artist/sculptor August Savage, and one of its founders, artist/writer/educator/activist Dr. Margaret Taylor Burroughs. There’s a fantastic timeline of the Center’s history on their website – be sure to check it out!
Weeks after returning to NYC from visiting Chicago for the mothball and stabilization of SSCAC’s Coach House, kennedy saw an exhibit at the New York Public Library’s flagship location, the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. The exhibit featured SSCAC and Harlem Renaissance artist/sculptor August Savage and her “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (“The Harp”). Ms. Savage made “The Harp” for the 1939 New York World’s Fair, hosted in Flushing Meadows of Queens, NY.
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And, Fun Fact: In addition to being one of the founders of SSCAC, Dr. Margaret Burroughs collaborated with colleagues to found another Chicago cultural institution on the South Side – the DuSable Museum Black History and Education Center. In 1961, they established the first independent museum celebrating Black culture in the US.
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The South Side Community Art Center is a Chicago Landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places. To support its preservation efforts, SSCAC has applied for and received multiple grants including from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, private foundations, and state and city grants.
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wrkSHap kiloWatt was pleased to receive an invitation to collaborate with the architect, Future Firm, on this monumental rehabilitation project. wrkSHap kiloWatt worked with Future Firm on a different historic site on Chicago’s West Side with Preservation Chicago and is thankful to support SSCAC’s team as the historic preservation consultant.
Services provided by wrkSHap kiloWatt include: (1) a Preservation Plan that built upon the work completed by SSCAC’s previous preservation consultant, Bauer Latoza, (2) a Historic Structures Report for its Coach House, (3) preservation oversight of the mothballing + stabilization of the Coach House, (4) preservation design review of Future Firm’s design, and (5) coordination with the historic preservation agencies with project oversight: Chicago’s Historic Preservation Department and the IL State Historic Preservation Office.
wrkSHap kiloWatt is a Black woman-owned and operated historic preservation studio in NYC. It is home to @blackinhistpres, @unredacthefacts, and @beyond.integrity. Its principal + founder, k. kennedy Whiters, AIA (@iamkennedyw) hails from the “Land of Lincoln”, the “city of DuSable,” + the unceded ancestral land of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations, which makes this project all the more special.