The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture in Chicago is accused of starting on a substantial capital project – creating a new building to hold its archives – without construction permission from the city’s landing authority or the Chicago Park District, the institution’s landlords.
The project has now been the subject of a ‘stop-work’ order by the City Hall throwing the planned completion date of summer next year into jeopardy.
Since 2002 the museum has been situated in a former nineteenth century stables which, built in an eye-catching mix of Queen Anne style and German baroque, has protected status. Complaints arose when the museum started construction on a squat rectangular brick building next door.
Critics say that the extension, branded by one local too WBEZ Chicago as ‘a disfigurement of the park’, also differs dramatically from the plans submitted to the state Illinois State Historic Preservation Office in terms of scale and area. They also claim that in not applying for construction permits, the institution sidestepped public scrutiny.
The museum says it needs the facilities to meet the Alliance of American Museum archival storage standards and that the Chicago Park District approved the project. It says failure to get the necessary construction permits was ‘an honest mistake’.
