Chicago Design Museum, Illinois

What is Chicago Design Museum?

The museum is devoted to design, the thinking behind the things people see and use every day. It goes by the short name DMoC and has had a permanent gallery since 2014. Today it occupies the ground floor of Expo 72 on East Randolph Street in the Loop, the city's downtown core.

Because the shows change, each visit can look quite different from the last. That makes it a good fit for travelers who have seen Chicago's big museums before and want something smaller and newer.

History of Chicago Design Museum

Tanner Woodford started the museum in 2012 as a temporary pop-up, and for its first two years it moved between venues around Chicago. In 2014 a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign raised enough support for a permanent space in the Block 37 building downtown. Toward the end of 2018 the museum relocated to its current home at Expo 72.

After fourteen years leading the museum, Woodford left the director's job to start an independent design studio called Iterative Work.

Visiting Chicago Design Museum: tips

The museum is listed as wheelchair accessible. A visit usually takes under an hour, so it fits easily between bigger downtown sights. The American Writers Museum is about 0.2 mile away, the Pritzker Military Museum & Library about 0.3 mile and the Chicago Architecture Center about 0.4 mile, making this a good part of a walking loop before or after you pick up Route 66. Food and a hotel are both within about 0.1 mile.