Fine Arts Building Book

Chicago’s Fine Arts Building: Music, Magic, and Murder

by Keir Graff

In this beautiful coffee table book from Trope Publishing, let author Keir Graff take you inside Chicago’s Fine Arts Building — a building that hides worlds behind its doors.

Exploring the Fine Arts Building’s warren of hallways is like stepping into a time machine. It’s not a museum — it’s a place of work. The walls reverberate with timeless music. Sopranos soar up to the high notes as violin bows draw tunes from strings. Someone plays a piano so busily they must have twelve fingers. Dancers’ feet thud against wooden floors. A tuba burps out “Ride of the Valkyries” as the doors of the manually operated elevators provide percussive slams. And more quietly, behind closed doors, painters paint, writers write, and luthiers shave soft ribbons from billets of spruce.

In Chicago’s Fine Arts Building, celebrated writer and Fine Arts Building tenant Keir Graff takes readers behind the scenes of this cultural hub, exploring the building’s history, its revitalization, and its cultural place in the city of Chicago. Featuring interviews with current tenants and access to the building’s archives, including historical photos and artifacts, and a foreword by bestselling author Gillian Flynn, Chicago’s Fine Arts Building sheds a new light on this storied building and its long history.

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Images courtesy of Trope Publishing.