Building History

The First Presbyterian Church is the oldest church in Champaign county.  In 1867, a Presbyterian congregation of 137 erected the current sanctuary, the distinctive second floor “Upper Room” being considered a testament to their vision.  In the same year, the State of Illinois chartered the Illinois Industrial University (which later came to be known as the University of Illinois).

Preservation and Building Pathology Challenges

The goal of the project is to restore the windows and frames and to return them to full operability. The lower operable panels were fitted with chain hardware restricting the extent of the opening to not allow children or objects falling out. The upper operable windows have chain pull hardware in keeping with the original. The church elected to not have secondary glazing in order to have natural ventilation. The window frames have been painted per the historic color analysis changing from the 1950s white paint to a deep hunter green.

Design Solution

The First Presbyterian Church of Champaign retained Brush Architects to provide a condition assessment of 200+ windows. We provided a building envelope assessment including thermal imaging, masonry, and roofing conditions. Our team included Solstice Art Source for art glass expertise. All windows were catalogued per the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (CVMA) is the numbering system developed in 1949 for
the systematic cataloging of art glass