Under Hutchinson 's watch , plans for expansion of the museum 's collection and the building program continued unabated . He used his influence as an organizer of the World 's Columbian Exposition to acquire property for a new building for the Art Institute on the east side of Michigan Avenue in Lake Park ( today Grant Park ) on landfill that had been created with debris from the Great Chicago Fire . On this property was then located a structure that was initially designed and built as a conference center for the fair , but that afterwards became the new home of the Art Institute . It was intended that proceeds from the sale of the VanBuren Street building and $ 200,000 from the directors of the fair would provide the Art Institute with " a permanent home for art works which will eclipse everything in the nature of fine structures Chicago has known hitherto " . This new structure ( now the Allerton Building ) replaced the Exposition Building ( built in 1873 ) that was standing on the site , and was designed by Shepley , Rutan and Coolidge , the later of whom was a friend of Hutchinson 's having been the architect of Hutchinson Hall at the University of Chicago ( 1890 ) . The Art Institute moved into the new structure in November 1893 after the fair closed , and Hutchinson spent the next several years leading the effort to reconfigure the interior of the new building . The work entailed the building of the Grand Staircase and the creation of space for the school , libraries , galleries , and the filling of that space with world-class art acquired locally or ( more frequently ) thru buying expeditions to Europe and Asia . As the Art Institute was not able to provide Hutchinson with the generous purse that would be required for that purpose in those early days , this feat was effected thru Hutchinson 's personal connections to Chicago 's wealthiest families . An early coup in this regard for Hutchinson and Martin A. Ryerson , a fellow trustee and his frequent companion in these forays , was the 1889 purchase , " at great sacrifice " to the seller , of thirteen seventeenth century Dutch paintings that were purchased for $ 200,000 , the money for which was advanced by Marshall Field , Philip Armour and others . '' The New York Press '' sniffed at this effort in what was perceived as an example of Chicago ’s cultural barbarism , considering the city ’s position as hog butcher to the world and its philistine reputation as a resolute accumulator of wealth for its own sake by whatever means : “ He ( Hutchinson ) probably paid $ 1,000 a front foot for them , and we assume the citizens of Chicago will give him a triumphal procession when they arrive , carrying them and him in huge floats , drawn by teams of milk-white Berkshire hogs that have been newly washed with a ten inch hose jet of water until their pink flesh shows under the clean bristles . ” Hutchinson 's connections would serve the Art Institute well over the next few decades . Among the notable additions to the museum 's collection acquired through them included bequests by Bertha Palmer , Martin L. Ryerson and Clarence Buckingham , whose gifts would add resources which respectively formed the basis of the museum 's notable Impressionist collection and augmented other collections with more than two hundred additional Old Master , Impressionist , and Post-Impressionist paintings and 1,400 Japanese woodblock prints . In 1912 a bridge was built to span the by-then suppressed tracks of the Illinois Central Railroad that ran immediately behind the 1893 building , and in 1916 a two-story structure was built on top of it , funded with a $ 50,000 donation made by railroad inventor William H. Miner . This structure was named Gunsaulus Hall to honor Frank W. Gunsaulus , museum trustee and the first president of the Armour Institute , and housed the museum 's industrial arts and related media collection ( the Alsdorf Galleries today occupy the first floor of that space ) . By 1920 there were talks in earnest regarding the addition of McKlintock Court and the Hutchinson Wing which surrounds it and the Goodman Theater/Goodman School of Drama , which was a gift of the family of the playwright Kenneth S. Goodman , who died in 1918 . Ground for the building of the latter pair ( by Howard Van Doren Shaw ) was broken in 1923 and the theater opened to the public in 1925
Great Chicago Fire
Great Chicago Fire
Charles L. Hutchinson