the Spaces

Rockefeller Chapel hosts over 200,000 patrons per year and produces dozens of events each week from weddings and concerts to memorials and yoga. A South Side landmark, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke from our historic pulpit twice. The Rockefeller staff also manages beautiful Bond Chapel in the center of the campus quadrangles and the Office of Spiritual Life in neighboring Ida Noyes Hall.

Rockefeller Chapel

With a seating capacity of more than 1,500, this is a majestic chapel of the kind found at many of the world’s greatest universities: a gathering place for academic ceremonies and for a wide variety of events. It has been open to all for over 90 years, taking on a different character each day of the week and each week of the year. Major public lectures, Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols, special choral Shabbat services, Easter with brass and the masterwork E.M. Skinner pipe organ, the interfaith Thanksgiving service, and the University’s annual Martin Luther King Day celebration fill our space to the proverbial rafters.

Visitors from around the world come through for concerts, convocations, daily carillon tours, Hyde Park Jazz Fest, Chicago Architecture Center’s Open House weekend, Alumni Weekend, Sunday services, and interreligious events and concerts of every kind.

Rockefeller Chapel remains the largest indoor gathering space of the University of Chicago. Those who have spoken to great crowds here have included Albert Schweitzer, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jawaharlal Nehru, Jane Addams, Karl Barth, Martin Buber, Toni Morrison, Desmond Tutu, Angela Davis, Barack Obama, Wangari Maathai, Elie Wiesel, Jane Goodall, Cornel West, Jon Stewart, and Bernie Sanders. Presenting partnerships with the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, UChicago Presents, and Empty Bottle Presents have brought international talent to the chancel stage, from Sun Ra, Amir ElSaffar, and Peter Murphy (BAUHAUS) to Tegan & Sara, Anonymous 4, and the Bach Collegium Japan.

The architecture is sacred by design, but Rockefeller Chapel has always been more than a church of any one tradition. Please join us to explore what it means to you!

Bond Chapel

Bond Chapel, connected by a beautiful cloister to the University of Chicago Divinity School’s Swift Hall and managed by Rockefeller Chapel, likewise hosts a wide range of artistic, ceremonial, and spiritual events in its more intimate 150-seat setting. For information about holding a wedding at Bond, please see our weddings page.