Please note that donations to support the marketing of this campaign go to Change.org, and not to any other nonprofit. While your donations to the campaign are appreciated, donations are not required in order to add your name to the petition. 

The Kogen-Miller Studios and the Glasner Studio make up one of the most remarkable apartment buildings in the City of Chicago, the State of Illinois, and the United States, and they are more than deserving of landmark designation to ensure their long-term protection. 

Add your name and voice to the petition as we call on the Commission on Chicago Landmarks to designate the property at 1734 North Wells Street an official Chicago Landmark.

Current Status

Recently, the Kogen-Miller and Glasner Studios building was featured in a cover article in the Chicago Sun-Times on December 26, 2022, unfortunately concerning litigation stemming from allegations of improper management and neglect by the controlling majority owners of the property’s condo association. A second article in the same edition, The Glasner Studio, a true Chicago gem, accurately describes the building as an incredibly significant and unique architectural achievement in the City of Chicago, worth protecting.

Take Action!

You can make your voice heard by signing this petition calling for the landmarking of this incredible, irreplaceable building. 

After you’ve signed this petition, please consider writing and sending a letter to the Commission on Chicago Landmarks explaining in more detail why you think the building deserves landmark designation. Writing a personal letter is an additional step that goes a long way towards helping to landmark the Kogen-Miller and Glasner Studios.

You can find more instructions on how to write a good letter to Landmarks here.

To send a letter to the Commission:

Ernest C. Wong, Chair 
Commission on Chicago Landmarks
Historic Preservation Division
121 North LaSalle Street, Room 905 
Chicago, IL 60602

You can also email your letter to landmarks@cityofchicago.org.

Don't forget to share this petition with your friends, family, and colleagues and urge them to sign the petition and send a letter!

History of the Kogen-Miller and Glasner Studios

Starting in the mid-1920s, Sol Kogen, Edgar Miller, Jesús Torres, with the assistance of many other artist-designers and craftspeople, converted a 19th-century building into artist lofts and studio spaces, in the manner of early 20th-century Parisian art colonies. Sol Kogen is credited with arranging and financing the project; Edgar Miller is credited with most of the interior and exterior design, art direction and artistic installation; and Jesús Torres, who had immigrated to Chicago from Mexico, is credited with numerous artistic installations throughout the property, as well. 

The style of the building is eclectic, fusing medieval European and colonial Mexican influences, while also incorporating Modernist architectural and design trends of the period.

The complex is made up of three buildings surrounding an inner courtyard. Two buildings, which are partially attached, contain eight 1-bedroom artists lofts; six of which were converted from an older building constructed in the 1880s, and two of which were newly constructed between 1928-32. The four-story coach house building, also newly constructed in 1928, known as the Rudolph W. Glasner Studio, is considered Edgar Miller’s masterwork of art, design, and architecture, and has been the subject of numerous articles and publications over the past century.

Many works of Edgar Miller and his Old Town cohort have been previously vetted by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. The Carl Street Studios at 155 West Burton Place, a precursor building to the Kogen-Miller and Glasner Studios, was designated a Chicago landmark in 2016 along with eleven other properties as part of the West Burton Place Historic District. Another property by Edgar Miller and Andrew Rebori, the Frank Fisher Apartments at 1209 North State Parkway, was landmarked in 1996.

The property’s history is well-documented in Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home: Chicago’s Forgotten Renaissance Man, by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams (2009), a monograph book which reintroduced the public to Edgar Miller’s distinctive and irreplaceable work in Chicago.

A Legacy of Inclusion and Activism

Notably, the significant history of the building not only encompasses the initial decades when Edgar Miller and his artistic cohort created the art colony, but it extends across generations into the 1960s and ‘70s when the building was owned by a prominent social activist, Lucy Hassell Montgomery, who used her home, the Glasner Studio, as an organizing space for numerous human rights causes. Montgomery, born in 1911, was a White woman originally from the South who became a social worker during the Great Depression. A second marriage to a successful lawyer named Kenneth Montgomery brought her to Chicago; after Mr. Montgomery received a significant inheritance, Lucy directed the funds primarily to Black rights causes and economic empowerment initiatives.  

During her many years living in the Glasner Studio at 1734 N. Wells St., Montgomery was known to have welcomed hundreds if not thousands of visitors who were involved in the Black rights movement, like Mayor Harold Washington, artist and organizer Margaret Burroughs, organizer Timmuel Black, and members of the Black Panther Party, such as Huey P. Newton, Fred Hampton, and Bobby Rush. Before her death in 2001, Montgomery ensured that her papers would be archived at the DuSable Museum of African-American History, where they remain to this day. For more information on Lucy Montgomery, view a previous Edgar Miller Legacy presentation here.

To see the inside of the property, which is also worth landmarking, visit the Glasner Studio Virtual Tour here!

Edgar Miller and the Glasner Studio in the News (TV)

WTTW Chicago Tonight

PBS/WTTW

Edgar Miller and the Glasner Studio in the News (Print)

The Glasner Studio, a true Chicago gem
By Bob Chiarito

A New Virtual Tour Takes Us Inside Architect Edgar Miller’s Masterwork 
By Liz Logan

Chicago resurrects its master craftsman
By Nancy Kenney

The Brilliant Artist That Chicago, and the World, Nearly Forgot
By Zach Mortice

Edgar Miller, the Designer
By Eric Allix Rogers

R.W. Glasner Studio and Edgar Miller's Arts and Crafts Legacy
By Aaron Betsky

Living Legacy
By Lisa Skolnik

Chicago's Forgotten Renaissance Man
NPR

A Touch of History in Handmade Homes
by Eve M. Kahn