Historical Insight: Mid Century Innovation
Since its inception as a modern hotel in 1961, Hotel Essex has served travelers looking for a classic Chicago experience.
Created with the designs and amenities of the mid-twentieth century, the hotel became an iconic landmark of a new architectural style on South Michigan Ave adjacent to Grant Park and The Museum Campus. The shining glass and steel structure amidst the famed museums developed for the World’s Fair cannot be missed. Since the World’s Fair in 1893, Chicago has been known for its transformative designs and innovations large and small. But all have a grand impact – such as the birth of the modern zipper. Even famed design house Louis Vuitton traveled to the fair with its luggage, and was inspired to begin producing their trunks in a variety of patterns in the US. Design, art and artifacts inspired by this rich history of building and site further emphasizes Chicago’s international influence on design, architecture, and travel.
Physical Insight: Grant Park
Chicago’s Grant Park is home to a sprawling rose garden, public art, interactive paths for jogging and exploring, and green spaces for playing or relaxing-elements that feature a monumental, yet human scale. Views and direct access to the park and all it has to offer affirms the relationship between the hotel and the park. Our design incorporates inspiration from the park’s simple bold forms, and elements that represent its architecture, green spaces and the joinery of pathways and gardens evident through mapping of the expansive grounds.
A sense of movement and tranquility is reflective of the presence of water—from the park’s adjacent Lake Michigan to its central Buckingham Fountain.
Chic Connections
Our space features big design expressions that stand on their own, inspired by the art and architecture of Grant Park-like the large book-matched marble feature that greets guests upon check-in. Nods to the building’s mid-century modern architecture can be found in furniture, and accessories throughout the space. Vintage patterns from Louis Vuittons trunks inspire prints, while zippers inspire sculptural elements.
Geometric wooden shelving is reminiscent of repitition and shape found in the urban planning of the city and its parks.
Grant Park’s pathways and landscaping form patterns and shapes to inspire textural, layered artwork.
Social Insight: Festivities Inside and Out
The hotel’s central location provides great access to the many diverse festivals and social events that happen year round. Guests can explore cultural and music mainstays from day into night, like the Jazz Fest, before or after partaking in a flight of specialty cocktails and French bistro cuisine at the hotel’s Grant Park Bistro. The performers, participants and instruments of a show marry with the eclectic bistro experience, inspiring art with energy, smooth musicality, and a flourish of bold color layered in rich textures.
Lobby – LBY-701, Zipper Tapestry Commission by Experience Collective:
Inspired by the invention and innovative application of the zipper, this abstract and colorful artwork is composed of hundreds of zippers. Layered upon each other like dimensional paint strokes, the zippers create an interesting, modern, and unexpected texture that compels the viewer to look closer.
Experience Collective:
Nationally recognized contemporary artists Toni Dammicci and Ethan Conlon founded the Experience Collective with the mission to transform ordinary spaces into imaginative visual experiences. Capitalizing on their cross-disciplinary arts education and professional backgrounds in painting, fibers, mixed media, sculpture and fabrication techniques, the duo produces works with a refined aesthetic and meticulous attention to detail. Their works are recognized for their larger than life scale, use of vibrant colors and textures, unexpected materials and captivating compositions.
Guest Rooms: LM-GR-701 A – 1, Chicago Irspired Cartography by Morgan Swing:
This artwork is a representation of the Chicago area using abstract shapes and lines to suggest key landmarks and familiar roadways including the Congress Parkway Arc, the Loop L Track and the Buckingham Fountain. The Hotel is represented by the gold hexagon outlined in gray. The image pulls you in with its color, movement and fluidity, immersing one in the heart of the city.
Morgan Swing:
Professional Photographer & Graphic Artist located in Sarasota, FL. Her passion for the art of photography & graphic design developed long before she began her studies in Photography at East Carolina University, North Carolina. When creating imagery, she aims to capture the moment and emotion of the subject, whether animate or inanimate.
Determined to provoke an alternative and otherwise unexpected perspective. Her corviction is to capture delicate detail and engaging depth.
Meeting Room: LM-MTG-701B, Origami Folded Paper by Suzanne Creighton:
Louis Vuitton is a French Luxury brand founded in the mid 19th Century. The company began with Louis Vuitton himself, who started a trunk making business, and the luggage has been a favorite of clients dating as far back as Napoleon’s wife Eugenie and artist Henri Matisse.
It was John Wanamaker who began to sell Louis Vuitton luggage in America, after meeting Louis’ son at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
This three dimensional origami piece utilizes LV Signature Monogram pat tern printed onto tobacco paper and illustrates an interesting connection between the City of Chicago and Louis Vuitton’s introduction to being sold in the United States.
Suzanne Creighton
Suzanne Creighton is an Atlanta, Georgia based artist who works predominantly in the medium of acrylic painting as well as mixed media, drawing, painting, sculpture and sewing. Creighton completed a BA in Studio Art at the College of Charleston in South Carolina winning a Tate Fellowship for continuing art studies. She has been employed creating artworks professionally for the Hospitality Industry and taking on private commissions for nearly two decades. Her work can be found in numerous hotels and cruise ships in the United States and Internationally as well as at the Swan Coach House and the Kibbee Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia and In the Mix Magazine.
Meeting Room: LM-MTG-701F, Mid Century Stitched Paper by Mark Mangione:
This piece is inspired by the many hours spent as a child gazing into a kaleidoscope. As you look deeply into the many geometric shapes, mix of colors and hand stitching a magical world develops and changes depending on your view. No matter which angle you choose, you see something new and inspiring just like the City of Chicago, signifying the cities strength, resiliency and vibrancy.
Mark Mangione:
A native of Atlanta, Georgia, I have always appreciated artistic abilities, probably because my father was very gifted in so many ways. I enjoy expressing myself in many different formats including jewelry design, paper, fabric and mixed media arts. After many years vorking in the corporate world I am enjoying the benefits of life out from behind a desk.
