WNDR Museum

The story

In September 2018, tech entrepreneur Brad Keywell set up what was supposed to be a temporary pop-up inside a low-slung brick warehouse at 1130 West Monroe Street. The premise was simple: scrap the white walls, velvet ropes, and silent gallery guards of traditional art spaces and replace them with code, motion sensors, and optical trickery. After more than 150,000 visitors packed the West Loop space in its first five months alone, management abandoned the closing date and made the experiment permanent.

The crown jewel of the layout remains a licensed Infinity Mirror Room by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. Inside, reflective walls fold spatial perception into an endless field of light, though Kusama’s strict protocol caps your visit at a hard 60 seconds (a timer that drops to 30 seconds when weekend foot traffic backs up into the hallway). Surrounding it are roughly 20 light-and-tech installations, including BrightLogic’s motion-activated LED light floor that maps your footsteps into glowing color trails, and high-resolution camera rigs that snap your iris and paste it onto a wall alongside thousands of prior guests.

Critics call it a glorified selfie backdrop, and you will certainly share the space with people framing photos for social media. But beneath the ring lights, the mechanics are genuinely clever—turning your body into a physical switch that triggers digital art, light waves, and soundscapes as you walk through.