Reviving Bronzeville: Energy, Art, and Community Transformation

How a historic Chicago neighborhood is leading the way in solving the global energy trilemma.

When Andre and Frances Guichard first opened their namesake Gallery Guichard in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood 19 years ago, they were trailblazers. Sure, the South Side Community Art Center had been around since 1940, but no other gallery in the area had focused on the African diaspora. Nearly a decade later, when they put together a consortium to purchase a building and create the Bronzeville Artists Lofts joint venture, then took over the 7,000-square-foot ground floor, they revolutionized again, making the first artists’ live-work residence in Chicago.

“We selected Bronzeville because of its history,” says Frances Guichard, who, along with her husband, is also a visual artist. African Americans had come to Chicago in the early 1900s during the Great Migration trying to escape the Jim Crow South, and this “Black Metropolis” eventually became home to many cultural icons and music legends. “Dizzie Gillespie, the Ink Spots, and Josephine Baker used to hang out next door at the Palm Tavern after performing downtown, where they couldn’t live or stay because they were Black,” Frances adds. Now the former Jones Brothers Ben Franklin five-and-dime store that Gallery Guichard occupies showcases contemporary canvases and sculptures by Black artists, including Abiola Akintola, Stephen “Sayo” Olalekan, Pearlie Taylor, and Marlene Campbell, whose works are snapped up by world-renowned collectors. The couple hosts monthly gallery crawls which started with 50 patrons on trolleys nearly 20 years ago and now welcome 5,000 guests on double-decker buses every third Friday of the month. “The community has grown to include multiracial grandparents, parents, and kids in the same space,” says Andre. “You can experience multimedia collaborations with DJ Marcell and hear live music down the street during our ‘Artini’ happy hours in our Palm Garden next door. It’s very festive.”

Despite the lively streetscape visitors see today, Bronzeville wasn’t always a haven of arts and new initiatives. After the economic collapse of the 1960s and 1970s due to corporate disinvestment, affluent African Americans fled. By 2000, Bronzeville had lost approximately two-thirds of its population and almost all of its commerce. Developers then began investing in the nearly 2,000 vacant lots, constructing multi- and single-family homes. The redevelopment has attracted new residents and revitalized parts of the community. However, the rebirth of Bronzeville has taxed the existing power grid and created increased demand for reliable energy.

So when the Department of Energy put out a call for bids to test and develop innovative technologies that could address the “global energy trilemma”—balancing sustainability, energy reliability, and affordability — Illinois’ biggest utility company responded. Its solution: a hyper-local microgrid.

“It was the perfect fit for what we believed the potential is in Bronzeville,” says Gil C. Quiniones , President and CEO of ComEd, of the Bronzeville Community Microgrid (BCM) he helped envision. ComEd worked together with several partners, like global technology company Siemens to create this microgrid cluster that can operate when connected to Chicago’s larger electric grid or can act as an “island” when there’s a disruption on the main grid.

The BCM draws on distributed renewable energy resources, including 750 kilowatts of solar photovoltaic power and 500 kilowatts of battery energy storage, to serve customers within the microgrid footprint. Siemens’ software system allows ComEd to manage and optimize its grid and “cluster” it with other microgrids. In 2025, the BCM will plug into the microgrid at the nearby Illinois Institute of Technology to create the nation’s first utility-operated microgrid cluster, enabling a sharing of resources while enhancing resilience during ever-increasing severe weather disturbances.

The microgrid footprint also includes at least a dozen other facilities that deliver essential services to the city, including the Chicago Police headquarters, as well as those that are critical to weaving the threads of a neighborhood into a cohesive fabric, like libraries, public works buildings, galleries, restaurants, health clinics, public transportation centers, educational facilities, and places of worship. And like Gallery Guichard, the BCM is a trailblazer: It’s the nation’s first large microgrid serving a neighborhood with more than 1,000 customers s and a case study for scaling grid solutions as the world seeks to overcome global energy challenges.

According to the International Energy Agency, grids risk becoming the weak link of green energy transitions as the United States aims to reach 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035. The demand for electricity is expected to dramatically increase thanks to data centers required to increase digitalization, infrastructure for EVs, more public and private sector transition off natural gas, and so many other energy pressures. Projects like the Bronzeville microgrid—which continue to deliver resilient, dependable, and efficient power, even when the main grid is overstressed—are critical to solving the “energy trilemma”, providing sustainable, reliable and affordable energy for everyone. “When I think of what the future holds for a place like Bronzeville, I think about the energy transformation that’s ahead,” says Barbara Humpton , CEO of Siemens USA.

"This community is a model for how we’ll use technology to build a more resilient, sustainable, and equitable future in America. ComEd’s microgrid cluster, which Siemens is providing the software for, will serve over 1,000 residents and will change the way we use distributed energy resources to power a community.” Barbara Humpton — CEO of Siemens USA

The impact of the microgrid extends beyond energy security. It is also providing energy jobs—as well as opportunities to broaden the arts community in Bronzeville. The massive “Bronzeville Renaissance” mural was painted on the exterior wall of the ComEd facility that houses the battery energy storage for the microgrid. Photovoltaic panels on the rooftops of the Dearborn Homes residential property, operated by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), collect renewable energy that fills the batteries and switch on during brownouts or blackouts. Though what visitors notice aren’t the high-tech energy solutions, but rather the colorful wall art painted by top Chicago artists Shawn Michael Warren and Rahamaan Statik.

The massive artwork, which the Guichards project-directed, depicts Bronzeville’s past and future, including local pioneers such as NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson and civil rights champion Ida B. Wells alongside modern-day heroes, like young women testing COVID-19 vaccines. Andre and Frances Guichard worked with students at Bronzeville’s Little Black Pearl High School, providing them an opportunity to learn about the history of the neighborhood and prominent Black figures in the history of Chicago and of the nation.

The couple is jazzed about the new grid and its impact on the community: The Guichards recently installed artist Shala Akintunde’s “Solar Pyramid” in the gallery’s adjacent Palm Garden. Skinned with solar giclées ornamented with hieroglyphics imagined by local school children, the 16-foot-tall sculpture is illuminated entirely through energy captured by the sun. “The kids made up the symbols as part of their STEM program. The permanent sculpture is an amazing addition to our garden,” says Andre. “It’s a great example of collaboration with the community, and of educating young people on energy concerns, science, nature, and art.”

It’s also become a symbol of what’s possible in this historic arts neighborhood, whose star is once again on the rise.

This article was originally published in TIME magazine

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