History
In 1912, Chinese businesses began relocating from the Loop to Chicago's South Side. Starting this trend, the On Leong Chinese Merchants Association appealed to deed-holder and former Illinois State's Attorney Jacob J. Kern to hire architect H. J. Swanson to design a building large enough to house 15 stores, 30 apartments and office space on the 200 block of West 22nd Street (now Cermak Road). Built in 1912 for $200,000, the building's design was typical of the period; however, it featured white tile trim adorned with Chinese dragons and a third floor balcony. The Association relocated to the building's third floor by 1914.
In the 1920s, Chinese community leaders secured approximately 50 ten-year leases on properties in the newly developing Chinatown. Jim Moy, director of the Association, then decided that a Chinese-style building should be constructed as a strong visual announcement of the Chinese community's new presence in the area. With no Chinese-born architects in Chicago at the time, Chicago-born Norse architects Christian S. Michaelsen and Sigurd A. Rognstad were asked to design the On Leong Merchants Association Building in the spring of 1926. Moy decided to employ the pair again after Michaelsen and Rognstad's firm built Moy's Peacock Inn in Uptown in 1920.
After studying texts on Chinese architecture, Michaelsen and Rognstad's final design was an example of Orientalism, a Western architect's interpretation of Chinese architectural forms. A good substitute for the liu li glazed ceramic found in traditional Chinese architecture, Rognstad designed exterior Teco sculptural accents, a type of terra cotta produced by Crystal Lake, Illinois's American Terra Cotta Company. When the building plans were announced in the Chicago Tribune on July 4, 1926, the building was called, "One of the most expensive and elaborate buildings ever erected in America by the Chinese". Construction began in 1926 and was completed a year later for the cost of $1 millon.
When the building opened in 1928, the On Leong Merchants Association used it as an immigrant assistance center that housed various meeting halls, a school, a shrine, and the Association's offices. It was often informally referred to as Chinatown's "city hall". In 1941, the On Leong Association offered Reverend John T.S. Mao space in the building to open St. Therese Chinese Catholic School, a Catholic grade school. By the 1950s, the school had become overcrowded, but it remained in the building until construction of a new, devoted school building was completed in 1961.
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