In Chicago’s Michigan Avenue corridor, the McCormick mansion has long stood as a relic of the Gilded Age, most recently serving a utilitarian stint as a Lawry’s steakhouse. But a $50 million intervention has stripped away the white tablecloths and stodgy dining rooms, replacing them with a 35,000-square-foot immersive environment titled The Hand & The Eye. It is now the largest magic venue in the world, an ambitious exercise in adaptive reuse that trades culinary tradition for choreographed wonder.
The transformation, led by the architecture firm Rockwell Group and the design powerhouse Pentagram, reimagines the historic mansion as a series of nested, tactile experiences. Guests enter through sliding wooden doors and engage with physical prompts—such as a ringing telephone—to begin a three-hour journey. The $225 entry fee buys a strictly analog evening; cameras are prohibited, forcing a rare, unmediated focus on the illusions performed across a sequence of intimate chambers and grand theaters.
Behind the project is Glen Tullman, a Chicago venture capitalist and lifelong magic enthusiast who views the venue as a "100-year venture." By blending high-end hospitality with the rigorous spatial demands of professional illusionists, Tullman is betting that the future of urban entertainment lies in physical, high-friction experiences. In an era of digital saturation, The Hand & The Eye offers a return to the tangible, housed within a structure that has finally found a purpose as grand as its architecture.
With reporting from Fast Company.
Source · Fast Company
