Holy Cross Monastery is a community of Benedictine Monks who have formed a contemplative monastery within the city of Chicago. A spiritual undertaking of this sort is rather unique in contemporary America. The Monastery sits on half a block of a traditional Chicago neighborhood and attaches itself to the existing Gothic church, originally built as a parish for Austrian immigrants. The monastic buildings are designed in the tradition of Renaissance monasteries as well as American public buildings. Corner bays project to relate to the scale of the residential neighborhood, while the rose brick and limestone are meant to both complement and defer to the architecture of the church.
The program of the Monastery is complex in function, accommodating guests, retreatants, visitors and laity while maintaining clausura for the monks. The major areas are the gatehouse, monastic cloister, garden court, guesthouse, and a bed and breakfast. The main entrance into the gatehouse focuses on a statue of St. Benedict with public rooms off to the left and the entry into the Monastery on the right. The center of the monastery is the arcaded cloister around which the major rooms are placed. It is a generous cloister with vaulted brick loggias and frescoes. In the center there is a fountain, a shrine to the Blessed Virgin and flowers and trees planted as a representation of paradise.
The main rooms are placed on the cardinal axes of the cloister. The schola room is to the right of the cloister while a main stair hall leading to the chapter room and church is to the left. The two story refectory is a miniature colonnaded basilica, with a raised reading desk placed at one end and an area for guests screened off at the other end. The two story library is placed above the main entrance with reading alcoves and clearstory windows. The main stair hall and elevator lead to a corridor for statio and the entrance into the chapter house which has a domed oculus, pilasters and built in seating. The two upper floors of the cloister have cells for both monks and novices with a recreation room and balcony on the third floor.
The interior of the church has been redesigned to accommodate the liturgical life of the monastery with the construction of a raised choir, new stalls and a choir railing. A new marble altar with a baldacchino and the tabernacle are placed in the sanctuary. The undercroft of the church will be reorganized with meeting and lecture rooms. A small plaza is placed on the side of the church for liturgical processions with a statue of St. Basil, the Father of Eastern Monasticism.
