Making Place for the Arts at Home

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By Mariana Seda

Krannert Art Museum featured an exhibition highlighting the history of arts experimentation and performance through the lens of emergent architecture and university culture during the 1940s–1990s in the cities of Urbana and Champaign. Making Place for the Arts at Home: Performance and Midcentury Modern Architecture foregrounded, as case studies, four local houses designed by university-affiliated architects who played key roles in the development of midcentury modern architecture and aesthetics both locally and beyond, and whose buildings were part of a larger avant-garde exploration pushing the boundaries of artistic production in sound, dance, theatre, and more.

The exhibition showcased the modernist homes of three Architecture professors with potent connections to the arts: A. Richard Williams, Jack Baker, and John Replinger. Their designs—the Dot and John Replinger Home and Studio, the Jack Baker Loft and Studio, the Dick Williams House and Studio, and the Erlanger House (which Baker designed with and for dance professor Margaret Erlanger)—served as artistic laboratories for creativity and performance in the mid-to-late 20th century, often hosting artist gatherings, lectures, and dance performances on lofted stages and cozy sunken living rooms.

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Falling somewhere between an art show and a history exhibit, Making Place for the Arts at Home wove together creative works with the lived experiences and narratives of its moment. Kathryn Holliday, faculty with the School of Architecture and one of the exhibition curators, worked with students to investigate the history of the four homes as well as to uncover the lesser-known histories of how neighborhoods in Champaign-Urbana were developed in the post-World War II suburban boom. “For me, as an architectural historian, the initial focus is a house,” she said. “But that house is much more interesting if you’re thinking about who lives here, how it got built, what is the neighborhood’s story, and what else was happening at the same time. Why did someone hire this unconventional architect to build them this amazing home? And in the case of these houses, it’s because people were connected to the arts in various ways.”

The opening section of the exhibition, researched by David Hays, curator and head of the Department of Landscape Architecture, hosted an archival display about the University of Illinois Festival of Contemporary Arts. This student- and faculty-led series of visual, performing, environmental, and literary arts events and exhibitions grew exponentially during the years it flourished (1948–1974), eventually overflowing into nontraditional spaces like the homes of faculty and community members. This shift simultaneously fed into, and came of, houses like the ones featured in the exhibition.

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In addition to architectural drawings, 3D models, and historical photos of the houses, the exhibition also showed site-specific artwork like a dance filmed at Erlanger House and an elegant metal sculpture representing movement and expression that Shozo Sato, artist, professor, and founder of Japan House, created for his friend Margaret Erlanger. Also on display, a massive woven tapestry, Sante-Chapelle, by Dot Replinger (a prolific artist in her own right) emphasized bold colors and texture that countered the minimalism of the midcentury aesthetic.

In a map created by student Adeline Evans, museum guests could take a bird’s-eye view to the cities and find key homes built by notable architects over time. Champaign-Urbana Neighborhood Stories, a student-led project that emerged from a course taught by Holliday, unveiled how university expansion and racial housing restrictions shaped distinct experiences for white and Black families, blocking African Americans from accessing certain neighborhoods. “People found this part of the project very illuminating,” shared Holliday. “It expands people’s thinking about how the American suburban explosion in the 1950s and ’60s—the ‘American Dream’—was really uneven here. And the version of the story on the north end is really different from the version of the story in the neighborhoods where these architects are designing and building. And a lot of the inequity that had to do with structural racism and lack of access to capital persists.” The project is ongoing, inviting community members to visit the Champaign County Restrictive Covenants Project to uncover and remove any discriminatory language that may still hide in their property documents.

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To complement this timely exhibition, the museum partnered with campus and community groups on a series of events that embodied the spirit of these homes. Highlights included a museum performance of Good House Keep, a dance piece choreographed by Anna Sapozhnikov and later projected onto the facade of Erlanger House during the exhibition’s culminating celebration, Erlanger After Dark!. Sapozhnikov, faculty with the Department of Dance, created the work as a reflection on the role of women in the midcentury home. A community story circle invited artists, neighbors, and students to share memories of how modernist art took root and shaped Champaign-Urbana. The museum also hosted a panel on historic preservation with the Champaign County History Museum and sold out tours of four midcentury homes in Champaign-Urbana, including Erlanger House and Jack Baker Loft.

What started out as an exhibition morphed into a resurgent moment for the community. “This exhibition really connected with many people in the community who saw themselves in the show, whether their neighborhood was represented, or they had been to a house, or they knew that artist,” said Holliday. “There is just something about it that connects with our local space perhaps more than other exhibitions at the museum.”

Making Place for the Arts at Home reminded us that homes can be more than places to eat and sleep—they can become cultural havens for creativity, expression, and shared ideas. By highlighting gaps in the historical record, especially the overlooked stories of marginalized communities, it also reminds us of our shared responsibility to keep building a fuller, more inclusive history and future.

credits

Making Place for the Arts at Home: Performance and Midcentury Modern Architecture was on exhibition from January 30–July 12, 2025. It was curated by David Hays, Professor and Brenton H. and Jean B. Wadsworth Head, Department of Landscape Architecture; Kathryn Holliday, Randall J. Biallas Professor of Historic Preservation and American Architectural History, School of Architecture; Phillip Kalantzis-Cope; Jeffery S. Poss, Professor Emeritus, School of Architecture; and Jon L. Seydl, Krannert Art Museum Director. More information, video tours of the houses, and exhibition resources can be found at kam.illinois.edu/midcentury.