The Forthcoming Center on Halsted

Thanks to the Chicago Architecture Foundation, here's a first look at the design for the Center on Halsted that will host cultural and social services for (primarily) gays, lesbians, and transgendered persons.

The Center is being designed by Gensler. As best as I can tell from the Center's website, it's being funded with private funds and a generous nod from the city with regard to the acquisition of the property. In many regards, the center marks a wonderful milestone for the city and its progress in supporting the GLBT community.

However, after my initial look via this photo, I found myself asking this: If a core group of citizens from the gay, lesbian, and transgendered communities and another group of supporters of the Museum of Contemporary Art won't commission architecture that's something more than elegantly safe, who in this town will?


Read the Center's mission here.

Photos of "Queer Eye for the Staight's Guy's" Ted Allen helping to raise funds on for the center here. Looks like they had a blast.