Union Station light
Beautiful illumination from wartime necessity
Alex Q. Arbuckle
January 1943
Begun in 1913 and finished in 1925, Chicago Union Station is one of the three busiest rail terminals in the United States. Based on a Beaux-Arts design by architect Daniel Burnham, the centerpiece of the station was the western headhouse, which featured the spectacular Great Hall. The cavernous space was topped by a 300-foot-long vaulted skylight, arching 115 feet above the marble floor, supported by 18 Corinthian columns. The station saw its peak during World War II, when it serviced as many as 100,000 passengers a day. During this wartime period, the skylight was blacked out to make the building less identifiable to potential enemy aircraft. As a result, the huge space was lit only by shafts of light streaming through the clerestory windows on the sides of the building. The blackout paint was finally scraped away in 1991, and today the Great Hall, a city landmark, is regularly rented out for private events.
