832 W Fulton Market

Chicago, Illinois

The building in Fulton Market that houses Punch Bowl Social, the Dalcy, Ada, Beatrix, and Kuma's? It was once a livestock building that played a central role in the city’s meat-packing history. 832 W Fulton Market was also one of the first buildings to undergo a significant renovation after the neighborhood adopted the historic Fulton-Randolph Market District Design guidelines.

This was an important pilot project for the city. The existing façade on the western half of the site was preserved, with the structure behind it removed and re-built to meet modern code requirements. The true challenge lay on the northeast quadrant of the site. The guidelines required that the existing façade be restored to match its original conditions. The construction team discovered that the load-bearing brick would not survive construction. With this in mind, the city requested that we remove each brick, catalogue them, and re-build the structure piece by piece, using as much of the surviving materials as possible.

The new design uses similarly scaled openings to complete the street wall without attempting to mimic the historic detailing of the existing buildings. The streetscape and pedestrian experience was imagined as well to meet the new city mandates.

Photography by Wayne Cable