For all its Châteauesque grandeur–and as Chicago’s only French Renaissance Revival commercial building, it’s certainly grand–the initial version of the Bush Temple of Music was…kind of a failure? The piano company that built it–Bush & Gerts–moved out after only a decade, and the auditorium, studio space, and recital halls they hoped would drive demand for their pianos were demolished only twenty years after the building opened in 1902. For nearly a century, this extravagant exterior contained very ordinary offices, until the building was converted into apartments in 2017–it seems likely that this third iteration of the Bush Temple will be the most successful.
