Toward a Sustainable Preservation Environment at the Chicago History Museum
FAIN: PF-266683-19
Chicago History Museum (Chicago, IL 60614-6038)
John Yelen (Project Director: January 2019 to January 2022)
Terrance Lewis (Project Director: January 2022 to present)
The replacement of an outdated chiller and
associated mechanical controls at the Chicago History Museum’s Clark Street
facility, which houses diverse collections of artifacts, archival material,
textiles, and decorative arts that reflect nearly 300 years of Chicago and
Illinois history.
The Chicago History Museum (CHM) requests a $350,000 Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections implementation grant to replace our aging and obsolete primary chiller with units that can reliably sustain optimal preservation conditions for our nationally significant collection. Based on a two-phase assessment beginning in 2015,CHM has developed an achievable strategy to address the preservation quality of the areas of our primary facility that house artifacts for exhibition and research. Chiller replacement has been identified as the clear priority in advancing the Museum’s near- and long-term environmental goals and will play a critical role in making our mechanical systems more efficient and effective. This proposed implementation project is the first step in establishing holistic control over the Museum’s preservation environments. By improving dehumidification and cooling performance, preservation conditions throughout the building will be improved.