Direct answer: The Interstate Exposition Building was a large 1872-era exhibition hall on the east side of Michigan Avenue at Adams Street in Chicago. It served as the city’s early convention center until it was razed in 1892 to make way for the Art Institute of Chicago, which opened its current site in 1893. Overview

• Location and design: Located on Michigan Avenue at Adams Street, designed by William W. Boyington, and notable for a vast glass-and-iron roof and decorative cupolas. This structure stood where the Art Institute building now sits and anchored Chicago’s mid- to late-19th-century exhibition activity.

• Purpose and uses: Built to host industrial expositions, trade shows, concerts, political meetings, and other public events, functioning as Chicago’s first major convention center before permanent arts facilities there existed.

• Transition and legacy: The building was intended to be temporary in concept but stood for about two decades. It was demolished in 1892 to enable the construction of the Art Institute’s current campus, with the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 contributing to the Art Institute’s expansion plans.

• Historical context: The Interstate Exposition Building is a significant precursor to later Chicago exhibition venues (notably McCormick Place) and illustrates Chicago’s rapid post-fire rebuilding and cultural development in the 1870s–1890s.

Key sources for deeper reading

• Great Chicago Fire and the Interstate Exposition Building: background on the building’s construction, location, and uses.

• Chicago’s early exposition sites and the transition to the Art Institute: details on the 1892 demolition and 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition-era planning that shaped the Art Institute’s building.

• Visual and archival records: photographs and maps from Chicago History materials showing the building’s footprint and appearance around 1890–1892.

If you’d like, I can compile a concise timeline with dates and architectural details, or pull primary-source images and drawings from the cited sources to illustrate the building’s appearance and site.