The Art Institute of Chicago Building opened to the public on December 8, 1893, after first serving as the World’s Congress Auxiliary Building for the World’s Columbian Exposition, and became the institution’s third home as its museum and school expanded. Built on the site of the temporary Illinois Interstate Exposition Building, its original Beaux-Arts design by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, with its Italian Renaissance façade and Edward Kemeys bronze lions, created one of Chicago’s most recognizable civic fronts. Successive additions, preserved architectural fragments, and the 2009 Modern Wing transformed it into a vast museum campus that embodies more than a century of Chicago’s cultural ambitions.