Open House Chicago Opens 13 Near West Side Doors This Weekend — Including the Blackhawks' Practice Rink and a Mushroom Farm Supplying Michelin Kitchens
By Socialhood News · Near West Side ·
Near West Side neighbors, one of the year's best free events has arrived at exactly the right time. Open House Chicago 2026 is running this Saturday and Sunday, and the Near West Side is one of the city's richest stops on the map — with 13 sites opening their doors to the public, three of them making their festival debut.
The Chicago Architecture Center organizes Open House Chicago, the annual citywide event that gives Chicagoans access to more than 200 buildings and spaces across the city, many not typically open to the public. This weekend is your chance to step inside places in your own neighborhood that most residents have only ever seen from the sidewalk — and this year's Near West Side lineup is one of the most varied the festival has ever offered here.
Leading the three first-timers is the Blackhawks Ice Center, the practice facility of Chicago's NHL franchise and a building that hockey fans and curious neighbors alike have long wanted to see up close. It joins the Open House Chicago roster for the first time in 2026, offering a rare look at the infrastructure behind one of Chicago's most storied sports organizations. Also making their festival debuts this year are Olson Kundig, the acclaimed architecture firm with a studio at 954 W. Washington Blvd., Suite 700 — a chance to walk through a working design office from one of the most recognized architecture practices in the country — and Windy City Bird Lab, a site that brings an entirely different kind of science into the neighborhood spotlight.
Then there is Four Star Mushrooms at 320 N. Oakley Blvd., one of the more genuinely surprising destinations in this year's Near West Side lineup. As Block Club Chicago noted in its preview, this is a mushroom farm that supplies Michelin-starred restaurants — operating quietly in the neighborhood while stocking the kitchens that Chicago diners pay top dollar to visit. Open House Chicago gives residents the rare opportunity to see where that supply chain actually begins, inside an urban farm that most people didn't know existed a few blocks from their front door.
The full Near West Side list spans institutions that are core to the neighborhood's history and identity. The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum at 800 S. Halsted St. — one of the most significant social reform sites in American history — is open as part of the festival. So is the Church of the Holy Family at 1080 W. Roosevelt Road, Saint Ignatius College Prep at 1076 W. Roosevelt Road, and the National Hellenic Museum at 333 S. Halsted St., which anchors the neighborhood's Greektown corridor. The National Public Housing Museum at 919 S. Ada St. rounds out the civic and historical anchor sites.
For design and creative industry visitors, 345 N. Morgan St. and Field Notes Brand at 401 N. Racine Ave. — the beloved Chicago-born notebook company whose graph-ruled memo books have a devoted following among writers, architects, and designers — are both on the tour. The Roof Crop at 1516 W. Carroll Ave. is participating on Sunday only, adding an urban agriculture angle that pairs naturally with the Four Star Mushrooms stop across the neighborhood.
Open House Chicago is free and open to the public. No tickets are required for the vast majority of sites; visitors simply show up during the open hours, which the Chicago Architecture Center lists on its official site and app at architecture.org. The festival runs both Saturday, October 17 and Sunday, October 18 — making this a genuine two-day neighborhood itinerary if you want to hit all 13 Near West Side locations without rushing.
For a neighborhood that is adding new buildings and new residents at one of the fastest rates in Chicago, Open House Chicago is a useful reminder of what was already here. A social reform museum on Halsted. A Michelin-supplier mushroom farm on Oakley. A hockey practice rink. A notebook company. A Greek cultural institution. An architecture firm. These are not recent arrivals — they are the layered, unexpected texture that makes the Near West Side worth living in, and this weekend is the one time a year the city invites everyone inside to look around. Take the weekend, pick your sites, and go.
Sources:
1. https://blockclubchicago.org/2026/10/12/heres-what-to-see-on-the-near-west-side-during-open-house-chicago-2026/