Second Presbyterian Church (Chicago)

Historic church in Illinois, United States

Second Presbyterian Church is a landmark Gothic Revival church located on South Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, United States. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some of Chicago's most prominent families attended this church. It is renowned for its interior, completely redone in the Arts and Crafts style after a disastrous fire in 1900. The sanctuary is one of America's best examples of an unaltered Arts and Crafts church interior, fully embodying that movement's principles of simplicity, hand craftsmanship, and unity of design. It also boasts nine imposing Tiffany windows. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and later designated a Chicago Landmark on September 28, 1977. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in March 2013.

Second Presbyterian Church organized in 1842 as an offshoot of the city's first Presbyterian congregation, which had formed in 1833. From 1851 until 1871, the congregation worshipped in a church at the northeast corner of Wabash Avenue and Washington Street in downtown Chicago. Known as the spotted church because of the tar deposits in its limestone blocks, this building was designed by the noted eastern architect, James Renwick Jr. Renwick later designed St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and the original building of the Smithsonian Institution. Already in the late 1860s, downtown Chicago was becoming more commercial and less residential, and Second Presbyterian's leaders prepared plans to follow its membership to the near South Side. Just a few weeks before the Great Chicago Fire in October 1871, which destroyed the spotted church, the congregation had merged with another congregation and had relocated to the South Side. Many wealthy Chicago residents attended Second Presbyterian, including members of the George Pullman, Silas B. Cobb, Timothy Blackstone, and George Armour families. These were men who moved to Chicago from New England or New York State in the mid nineteenth century to make their fortunes and build a new metropolis on the prairie. Proud of their adopted city, they endowed cultural institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. Robert Todd Lincoln, the president's son, was also a church trustee. When the South Side emerged in the 1870s as the city's premier residential neighborhood, the business elite built imposing houses on South Prairie Avenue, South Michigan Avenue, South Calumet Avenue and other streets. As of 2023, the diverse church had about 125 members. The church "also serves many visitors seeking meals, music, and community" in addition to after school tutoring, practice space for the South Loop Symphony Orchestra, and a basketball gymnasium.

Shaw, working with his friend, the painter Frederic Clay Bartlett, and several other designers and craftsmen, gave Second Presbyterian a sanctuary firmly rooted in Arts and Crafts principles. Abandoning the original neo Gothic approach, Shaw lowered the pitch of the roof by 14 feet The Austin Organ Co. reworked the instrument in 1917 as its Opus 767, providing it with a two manual console and ten ranks. The organ today has 43 ranks and 2,600 pipes. Second Presbyterian Church occupies a prominent place in Chicago's social and industrial history and its artistic heritage. Its glorious interior is now being seen by a wider audience after decades of semi obscurity. Tours featuring the art and architecture of the building are offered on a regular schedule. Friends of Historic Second Church, organized in 2006, was formed to guide the accurate restoration of the building and to oversee tours and events.

Bartlett's pre Raphaelite murals are one of the glories of the sanctuary, and they were widely published after their completion. From a well to do Chicago family, Bartlett had studied painting at Munich's Royal Academy and with masters in Paris. For Second Presbyterian, Bartlett sought inspiration in the work of medieval church painters. He consciously rejected the post Renaissance artistic tradition, with its emphasis on perspective and verisimilitude. Bartlett preferred to focus on expressiveness and spirituality, which he found in the flat and serene figures painted on the walls of medieval Italian churches. Bartlett painted directly on the dry plaster of the sanctuary's vertical walls. The paintings in the ceilings of the arches were done on canvas in his studio and then mounted in the church. Bartlett's figures have bold outlines and sumptuous robes of muted blue, crimson, and green. He used gold leaf extensively and supplied relief to features like haloes with a plaster technique known as pargeting. The majestic 40 foot wide mural behind the altar represents the tree of life surmounted by a heavenly rainbow. Above that is a celestial orchestra in medieval robes. Bartlett's care in blending decoration to the sanctuary's architecture is evident; his rainbow echoes the curve of the ceiling. Bartlett's work in the twelve bays of the balcony centers on the themes of praise, abundance, and sacred music. Texts from scripture are painted on the walls below the figures. Other sanctuary windows were designed by Louis J. Millet and McCully & Miles. The two Edward Burne Jones windows in the lobby tie Second Presbyterian directly to the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Burne Jones was a close associate of William Morris, founder of the Arts and Crafts in Britain. Morris and Co. crafted these two windows from the designs of Burne Jones. The subjects are St. Margaret of Antioch, in robes of rich crimson, and St. Cecilia, in blue robes, a portable organ in her arms. These windows were displayed in the William Morris Memorial Room of Chicago's Tobey Furniture Co. before being purchased by the Franklin Darius Gray family and made into memorials. Burne Jones windows are rare in the United States; these are the only ones known outside of the East Coast. In a multi million dollar project, several windows have completed extensive renovation and repair and additional window repair was ongoing as of 2023.