for Mecca
Inflatable monument revives the memory of Bronzville's historic Mecca Flats
United States
Floating Museum presents for Mecca, the latest in its Floating Monuments series, which revives Chicago’s cultural history by installing inflatable monuments across neighborhoods. These ephemeral structures host cross-disciplinary programs and travel citywide. for Mecca debuts at Illinois Tech’s S.R. Crown Hall on August 9, 2025, and will appear at multiple Chicago Park District sites through Summer 2026.
for Mecca is a ghostly apparition—a temporary structure that conjures the recent past and collapses time. It invites public engagement through exhibitions, performances, research, education, and storytelling. A collage of lost or repurposed architecture, the monument transforms archival photographs into form, offering a tactile encounter with forgotten histories.
The structure will be installed on the former site of Mecca Flats, a pivotal landmark in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Built for the 1893 World’s Fair and later converted to apartments, Mecca Flats was desegregated in 1911 and became a hub of the Chicago Black Renaissance. It fostered the lives of Louis Armstrong, Nat “King” Cole, Dinah Washington, Sun Ra, Mahalia Jackson, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others. The building was demolished in 1952 to make way for Crown Hall, designed by Mies van der Rohe, now home to Illinois Tech’s College of Architecture.
for Mecca is both celebration and reckoning—a communal act of remembrance that confronts systemic displacement and urban erasure. By drifting between park district sites, the monument raises questions about what we choose to remember and why. Its vivid, impermanent presence activates memory and resists the silencing effects of architectural loss.
Saturday, August 9: Public program
Siegel Field + IIT Crown Hall (3360 S. State Street, Chicago, Illinois 60616)
1pm: INFLATE for Mecca (Siegel Field)
Public performance and musical processional.
3pm: Panel: “But They’re Still Here in the Archival Evidence” (Crown Hall Lower Core)
Featuring Skyla Hearn, tiffany johnson, and christian reeder, Sherry Williams, and Dr. Marcia Walker-McWilliams.
4pm: Benediction / Right Hand of Fellowship (Crown Hall / Siegel Field)
5pm: Reception with BBQ and refreshments from Bronzeville Winery (Siegel Field)
Floating Museum is honored to partner with The Mellon Foundation, The Terra Foundation for American Art, Graham Foundation, and Poetry Foundation for the realization of for Mecca.
