An inflatable building recreates the iconic Mecca apartment in Chicago’s Black Renaissance core – Huge
With the World’s Fair looming over the Chicago horizon, the Romanesque Revival Building with a large central courtyard was converted into an apartment and known as the Mecca Apartments after the completion of the Expo.
Chicago complies with strict 19th-century apartheid regulations, and Mecca Flats in the Bronzeville community at 3360 S. State Street are not immune. The complex initially allowed only white residents, and then black residents were allowed in 1911. Rapidly, the building became a site for well-known creatives in the Black Renaissance. Gwendolyn Brooks famously titled “After Property”, while Luminaries Muddy Waters and Katherine Dunham are called Mecca Flats Home.
Although the Illinois Institute of Technology is a historical beacon of black creativity, it was razed to the ground in 1952.
Although the Mecca Apartments long gone, its memory has been throughout Chicago, and the new artwork restored the cultural center because of its collective name as the Floating Museum. “For Mecca” is a large-scale inflatable structure that reproduces the once-occurring complex in a grayscale polyester layer. Shrinking, this iteration extends 41 feet long and has a U-shaped passage for viewers to walk through.
The Floating Museum is co-directed by Avery R. Young, Andrew Schachman, Faheem Majeed and Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford, who share the project provides a “tangible artifact” of Chicago’s lost history. They said:
“For Mecca” represents our collective interest in the complex history of Bronzeville. We can no longer see the nostalgic image of Mies van der Rohe (inspiring cigars in the void of SR Crown Hall), and no longer imagine Mecca Flats, collapsed at his feet and recalled the slow strategic displacement of the African-American community conquered by its absence.
The project also includes several nods to the former south side institution, including the jazz dance hall Savoy Ballroom and Regal Theatre, a popular nightclub and performance venue.
It debuted in the original location the past weekend, the project will travel to the city’s parks in the summer of 2026. “For Mecca” is the latest project of the collective Floating monument The series aims to reveal critical cultural and historical heritage within Chicago through public installations.
Find more from the floating museum on its website.
