Building Design Fact Sheet

The four-story, 40,000-square-foot National Hellenic Museum opens to the public on Dec. 10 in a space that is contemporary, but timeless. Below are details about the building, the green elements/LEED-certification process and the Museum’s principal designer Demetrios Stavrianos.

The Building

• The Museum is a four-story, 40,000-square-foot-LEED-certification-pending building home to interactive permanent exhibits, high-profile traveling exhibits, a children’s education center, research library, oral history center, rooftop terrace, museum gift store and special events hall.
• The Museum is constructed with natural limestone and glass, materials that respond to the artistic and technological traditions Greeks have experienced from the Classical Age to the modern day.
• The building incorporates historic architectural references such as a covered walkway, or stoa, found in classical pagan structures and natural wood accents and elements common to Byzantine monastic structures.
• The symbolic heart of the new building is a dramatic, sky-lit east-to-west-staircase leading to the permanent exhibit that represents the immigrant experience, cultural ties to Greece and the limitless potential of Greek Americans in the United States.
• The Museum contains design elements associated with Aristotle such as earth, wind and fire. Although water is not physically present, light and glassy surfaces are utilized to represent the importance of water.
• The design of the windows provides transparency and connection between Greektown and downtown.
• The 3,600-square foot rooftop terrace provides panoramic views of Greektown and downtown.
• The first floor is set back to create a buffer between the Museum and bustling Halsted St.

Green Elements

• The building was built to LEED-Silver-certification status with a number of green design elements:
• With the exception of select materials imported from Greece, all wood, marble and stone elements are sourced within 500 miles of the NHM. For example, all limestone was sourced from Indiana. Recyclable materials were used whenever possible.
• The design features an all-wood door and wood veneer. At least 50 percent of the wood-based product and material value is FSC certified. No construction lumber was used.
• Air handling units are equipped to maintain temperature and humidity levels in occupied spaces at acceptable levels. Temperature and humidity sensors enable monitoring and control of thermal conditions in all occupied areas. Temperature and humidity are controlled 24/7 to protect the Museum’s valuable collections.
• The Museum reduces water consumption by more than 40 percent using washroom lavatories with automated sensor, and low-flow toilets, urinals and faucets.
• The green roof features three gardens, including an Illinois prairie garden with native and adapted plant species indigenous to Northeastern Illinois.
• The total restored habitat accounts for more than 20 percent of the total site area.
• A 60-square-foot recycling area at the receiving/storage room for separation, storage, and collection for paper, metals, plastic, glass and corrugated cardboard. Individual recycling containers in kitchen, employee lounge and administrative offices.
• The Museum is located along a major CTA bus route (Halsted – within walking distance of the CTA Blue Line’s UIC-Halsted station. The Museum also features parking for nine bicycles.

The Architect

• Demetrios Stavrianos is the National Hellenic Museum’s principal designer. Stavrianos is a principal at the Chicago office of RTKL, a worldwide architecture, engineering, planning and creative services organization.
• A Greek American, Stavrianos’ grandfather emigrated from Greece. He grew up on the south side of Chicago and knows Greektown well.
• Stavrianos drew inspiration for the building from Greek monasteries and “The Meteroa,” which means “suspended in the air” or “in the heavens above.”
• Other notable projects by Demetrios Stavrianos: Riverwalk at Port Imperial (Weehawken, N.J.), US Capitol Visitors Center (Washington, D.C.) Food and Drug Administration Headquarters (White Oak, MD), Tangdao Bay Yach Club (Qindao, China), Cleveland Flats Master Plan (Cleveland, Ohio) and the Orland Park Main St. Triangle (Orland Park).

About

The National Hellenic Museum’s mission is to preserve and explore Hellenism and to chronicle the Greek American journey through exhibitions, oral histories, archival collections and education programs. Our purpose is to inspire in people of all backgrounds a curiosity for their own story through a greater connection to Greek history, culture and the arts. Located at the corner of Halsted and Van Buren in the heart of Chicago’s famed Greektown, the Museum celebrates its grand opening in December 2011. For more information, visit nationalhellenicmuseum.org.

# # #

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Media Contacts:
Veronica Jackson
PCI
312/558-1770, ext. 128
vjackson@pcipr.com