Travel Through Space at the Art Institute of Chicago
Continuing a long-standing relationship with the Art Institute of Chicago’s Architecture Department, CSSI helped create the 2001 Space Travel Exhibit.

Designed by architect Doug Garofalo to be an other-worldly experience, the exhibit demonstrates the influence that architecture has had on space travel in both reality and fiction. CSSI built the three major components of the exhibit, consisting of a fabric wall, metal ribs, and pedestals. The fabric wall, stitched by CSSI’s Debbie Miller, is one continuous piece of fabric that stretches 150 feet around a curved wall. Each of the 32 ribs, created to symbolize the distinctive framework of a spaceship, was hand bent and painted at CSSI and placed every four feet opposite the curved wall. The final and most tedious component is the pedestals that displayed different items, including a prototype of the borg helmet featured in the movie Star Trek: The Next Generation. Wayne Adams ran the CNC router that cut 50 to 60 pieces for each of the 26 pedestals, amassing over 1,300 pieces.

Project Manager Gary Heitz and Job Lead Dan Yuen worked on this project with John Zukowsky, the Art Institute’s Architecture Department Curator. The exhibit will be open in Chicago for the next six months, and will then travel on to Seattle.

Future developments of the project include working with SkyLine Display to create a photographic exhibition consisting of a 60-foot-long wall of photos of this exhibit which will travel to four venues around the country over the next four years.

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