The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies is a leading center for Jewish learning and culture in Chicago, Illinois. Not affiliated with any single branch of Judaism, Spertus offers opportunities for people of all backgrounds to learn about and explore the Jewish experience. Its main campus is located at 610 South Michigan Avenue in an award-winning facility designed by Chicago’s Krueck and Sexton Architects.
Spertus offers graduate degrees in Jewish Studies, Jewish Education, and Nonprofit Management – accredited by North Central Association of Colleges and Schools – as well as a range of public educational and cultural programs, including lectures, exhibits, live performances, and films. The building houses a 400-seat theater, space for community events, kosher catering facilities, and a book and gift shop.
Honorary degree recipients from 1949 to 2011 have included Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan; Abba Eban, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States; Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel; author, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel; Nobel Literature Laureate, author Isaac Bashevis Singer; feminist author Betty Friedan, actor Leonard Nimoy, and cantor Hazzan Alberto Mizrahi.
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Spertus opened an award-winning,[1] new, environmentally sustainable facility at 610 S. Michigan Avenue in November 2007. Designed by Chicago-based Krueck and Sexton Architects, the building features interconnected interior spaces and one-of-a-kind, ten-story faceted window wall that provides spectacular views of the Chicago skyline, Grant Park, and Lake Michigan. This window wall is built from 726 individual pieces of glass in 556 different shapes[2].
Like the surrounding buildings, many constructed in the period of architectural innovation that followed the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, this building is forward-looking in its design and use of materials, while maintaining respect for its important setting. Like the bays of its 19th- and 20th-century neighbors, the facets that create the façade’s dynamic crystalline form allow light to extend into the narrow building, while expanding the views enjoyed from inside. The geometry of the façade is unique because the surface is constantly tilting in three dimensions, resulting in individual units of glass that are parallelograms rather than rectangles. At the same time, the average size of each of the façade's individual panes of glass is consistent with the standard size of the windows in the buildings up and down Michigan Avenue.
The Spertus building was the first new construction in the Historic Michigan Boulevard District after the area was designated a Chicago Landmark in 2002. The cost of the Spertus project was more than $50 million.[3]