Architecture of Chicago

Willis Tower

The architecture of Chicago has influenced and reflected the history of American architecture. The city of Chicago, Illinois features prominent buildings in a variety of styles by many important architects. Since most buildings within the downtown area were destroyed (the most famous exception being the Water Tower) by the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, Chicago buildings are noted for their originality rather than their antiquity.

Skyscrapers

Main article: List of tallest buildings in Chicago

Beginning in the early 1880s, architectural pioneers of the Chicago School explored steel-frame construction and, in the 1890s, the use of large areas of plate glass. These were among the first modern skyscrapers. William LeBaron Jenney's Home Insurance Building was completed in 1885 and is often considered to be the first to use steel in its structural frame instead of cast iron, but this building was still clad in heavy brick and stone. However, the Montauk Building, designed by John Wellborn Root Sr. and Daniel Burnham, was built in 1882–1883 using structural steel. Daniel Burnham and his partners, John Welborn Root and Charles Atwood, designed technically advanced steel frames with glass and terra cotta skins in the mid-1890s, in particular the Reliance Building; these were made possible by professional engineers, in particular E. C. Shankland, and modern contractors, in particular George A. Fuller.

Chicago Avenue Pumping Station in the Old Chicago Water Tower District along the Magnificent Mile

The Chicago Building is a prime example of Chicago School architecture.

Louis Sullivan was perhaps the city's most philosophical architect. Realizing that the skyscraper represented a new form of architecture, he discarded historical precedent and designed buildings that emphasized their vertical nature. This new form of architecture, by Jenney, Burnham, Sullivan, and others, became known as the "Commercial Style," but it was called the "Chicago School" by later historians.

In 1892, the Masonic Temple surpassed the New York World Building, breaking its two year reign as the tallest skyscraper, only to be surpassed itself two years later by another New York building.

Since 1963, a "Second Chicago School" emerged, largely due to the ideas of structural engineer Fazlur Khan.^[1] He introduced a new structural system of framed tubes in skyscraper design and construction. The Bangladeshi engineer Fazlur Khan defined the framed tube structure as "a three dimensional space structure composed of three, four, or possibly more frames, braced frames, or shear walls, joined at or near their edges to form a vertical tube-like structural system capable of resisting lateral forces in any direction by cantilevering from the foundation."^[2] Closely spaced interconnected exterior columns form the tube. Horizontal loads, for example wind, are supported by the structure as a whole. About half the exterior surface is available for windows. Framed tubes allow fewer interior columns, and so create more usable floor space. Where larger openings like garage doors are required, the tube frame must be interrupted, with transfer girders used to maintain structural integrity.

The first building to apply the tube-frame construction was the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartment Building which Khan designed and was completed in Chicago by 1966.^[3] This laid the foundations for the tube structures of many other later skyscrapers, including his own constructions of the John Hancock Center and Willis Tower (then named the Sears Tower) in Chicago and can been seen in the construction of the World Trade Center, Petronas Towers, Jin Mao Building, and most other supertall skyscrapers since the 1960s.^[4] Willis Tower would be the world's tallest building from its construction in 1974 until 1998 (when the Petronas Towers was built) and would remain the tallest for some categories of buildings until the Burj Khalifa was completed in early 2010.

Landmarks and monuments

Further information: List of Chicago Landmarks

Numerous architects have constructed landmark buildings of varying styles in Chicago. Some of these are the so-called "Chicago seven": James Ingo Freed, Tom Beeby, Larry Booth, Stuart Cohen, James Nagle, Stanley Tigerman, and Ben Weese.

St. John Cantius, one of Chicago's 'Polish Cathedrals'

Daniel Burnham led the design of the "White City" of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition which some historians claim led to a revival of Neo-Classical architecture throughout Chicago and the entire United States. It is true that the "White City" represented anything other than its host city's architecture. While Burnham did develop the 1909 "Plan for Chicago", perhaps the first comprehensive city plan in the U.S, in a Neo-Classical style, many of Chicago's most progressive skyscrapers occurred after the Exposition closed, between 1894 and 1899. Louis Sullivan said that the fair set the course of American architecture back by two decades, but even his finest Chicago work, the Schlesinger and Meyer (later Carson, Pirie, Scott) store, was built in 1899—five years after the "White City" and ten years before Burnham's Plan.

Sullivan's comments should be viewed in the context of his complicated relationship with Burnham. Erik Larson's history of the Columbian Exposition, "Devil in the White City" correctly points out^{[citation needed]} that the building techniques developed during the construction of the many buildings of the fair were entirely modern, even if they were adorned in a way Sullivan found aesthetically distasteful.

Chicago is well known for its wealth of public art, including works by such artistic heavyweights as Chagall, Picasso, Miro and Abakanowicz that are all to be found outdoors.

Under City Stone (1972) in Hyde Park by Caryl Yasko is one of the many murals that can be found painted on the viaducts in Chicago.

City sculptures additionally honor the many people and topics reflecting the rich history of Chicago. There are monuments to:

• Tadeusz Kościuszko by Kazimierz Chodzinski
• Nicholas Copernicus by Bertel Thorvaldsen
• Karel Havlíček Borovský by Joseph Strachovsky
• Pope John Paul II, several different monuments (including by Czesław Dźwigaj)
• Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk by Albin Polasek
• Irv Kupcinet by Preston Jackson
• Abraham Lincoln by Augustus Saint Gaudens
• The Heald Square Monument featuring George Washington, Haym Salomon, and Robert Morris by Lorado Taft, (completed by Leonard Crunelle)
• Christopher Columbus by Carl Brioschi
• General John A. Logan by Augustus Saint Gaudens
• Harry Caray by Omri Amrany and Lou Cella
• Jack Brickhouse by Jerry McKenna
• A memorial to the Haymarket affair by Mary Brogger
• A memorial to the Great Northern Migration by Alison Saar

There are also preliminary plans to erect a 1:1-scale replica of Wacław Szymanowski's Art Nouveau statue of Frederic Chopin found in Warsaw's Royal Baths along Chicago's lakefront^[5] in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Frederic Chopin's birth.

Residential architecture

Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie School influenced both building design and the design of furnishings. In the early half of the 20th century, popular residential neighborhoods were developed with Chicago Bungalow style houses, many of which still exist. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Illinois Institute of Technology campus in Chicago influenced the later Modern or International style. Van der Rohe's work is sometimes called the Second Chicago School.

Images

• 

  Krause Music Store in Lincoln Square

• 

  The Gateway Theatre's Solidarity Tower is a replica of the Royal Castle in Warsaw

• 

  Harold Washington Library

• 

  Emil Bach House, by Frank Lloyd Wright

• 

  McCormick Tribune Center, by Rem Koolhaas

• 

  Robie House, by Frank Lloyd Wright

• 

  S.R. Crown Hall, by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

• 

  A two-flat in Chicago's Portage Park neighborhood

• 

  St. Wenceslaus Roman Catholic Church in Avondale where Richard Nickel was married.

• 

  Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral

• 

  Interior of Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica, East Garfield Park

• 

  Fisher Building

• 

  Marina City

• 

  Tribune Tower

• 

  Wrigley Building

• 

  Merchandise Mart

Timeline of notable buildings

Before 1900:

Chicago Avenue Pumping Station

Chicago's Home Insurance Building is regarded as the world's first modern steel–framed skyscraper.

The Manhattan Building (right) on South Dearborn Street

The Chicago Merchandise Mart

Marina City from across the river

John Hancock

Buckingham Fountain.

• 1836 Henry B. Clarke House
• 1869 Chicago Water Tower, William W. Boyington
• 1872 Second Presbyterian Church 1936 S. Michigan, James Renwick 1900 Howard Van Doren Shaw
• 1877 St. Stanislaus Kostka Church 1327 N. Noble, Patrick Keely
• 1882–1883 Montauk Building, Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root. First building to be called a "skyscraper."
• 1885 Home Insurance Building, Chicago School, William Le Baron Jenney
• 1885 Palmer Mansion, early Romanesque and Norman Gothic, Henry Ives Cobb and Charles Sumner Frost
• 1886 John J. Glessner House, Henry Hobson Richardson
• 1887 Marshall Field Warehouse, Henry Hobson Richardson
• 1888 Rookery Building, Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root, 1905 lobby redesign by Frank Lloyd Wright
• 1889 Monadnock Building, Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root
• 1889 Auditorium Building, Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler.
• 1889 St. Mary of Perpetual Help Church, Henry Englebert
• 1890 and 1894–1895 Reliance Building, Charles B. Atwood of Burnham & Root
• 1890–1899 Gage Group Buildings, Holabird & Roche with Louis Sullivan
• 1891 Manhattan Building, William Le Baron Jenney
• 1892 Masonic Temple, Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root
• 1892–1893 World's Columbian Exposition, Daniel Burnham, director of Works
• 1893 Palace of Fine Arts, later Museum of Science and Industry, Beaux-Arts, Charles B. Atwood
• 1893-1898 St. John Cantius Church, Alphonsus Druiding
• 1894 Tree Studio Building and Annexes, Judge Lambert & Anne Tree via Parfitt Brothers; 1912 annex: Hill and Woltersdorf
• 1895–1896 Fisher Building (Chicago), D.H. Burnham & Company, Charles B. Atwood
• 1897 St. Paul Church 2234 S. Hoyne, Henry Schlacks
• 1897 Chicago Library (now Chicago Cultural Center), Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge
• 1899 Sullivan Center, Louis Sullivan; 1905–1906, twelve-story south addition, D.H. Burnham & Company

1900-1939:

• 1902 Marshall Field and Company Building, north State Street building D.H. Burnham & Company, Charles B. Atwood
• 1903 Holy Trinity Cathedral, Chicago
• 1905-1906 Holy Trinity Polish Mission, Herman Olszewski and William G. Krieg,
• 1905 Chicago Federal Building
• 1906 Sears Merchandise Building Tower, George G. Nimmons - William K. Fellows
• 1907 Marshall Field and Company Building, south State Street building D.H. Burnham & Company, Charles B. Atwood
• 1909 Robie House, Prairie School, Frank Lloyd Wright
• 1912-1914 St. Adalbert's Church 1650 W.17th street, Henry Schlacks
• 1912 Medina Temple North Wabash Avenue
• 1912 Pulaski Park fieldhouse by Jens Jensen
• 1914 Navy Pier
• 1914-1920 St. Mary of the Angels Church 1850 N. Hermitage Ave, Worthmann and Steinbach
• 1915 Holy Cross Church, Joseph Molitor
• 1916 Navy Pier Auditorium, Charles Sumner Frost
• 1917–1920 Michigan Avenue Bridge, Edward H. Bennett
• 1917-1921 Basilica of St. Hyacinth 3636 West Wolfram Avenue, Worthmann & Steinbach
• 1919-1924 Wrigley Building, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
• 1921 Chicago Theatre, Beaux-Arts, Cornelius W. Rapp and George L. Rapp
• 1921 Old Chicago Main Post Office, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
• 1922 Tribune Tower, neo-Gothic, John Mead Howells and Raymond M. Hood
• 1924 Soldier Field, Holabird & Roche; extensive renovation 2003, Ben Wood and Carlos Zapata
• 1925 Uptown Theatre, Cornelius W. Rapp and George L. Rapp
• 1927 Pittsfield Building, Graham, Anderson, Probst and White
• 1929 Carbide & Carbon Building, Daniel and Hubert Burnham, sons of Daniel Burnham
• 1929 Palmolive Building, Art Deco, Holabird & Root
• 1929 John G. Shedd Aquarium, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
• 1930 Chicago Board of Trade Building, Holabird & Root
• 1930 All Saints Cathedral, J. G. Steinbach
• 1930 Gateway Theatre Mason Rapp of Rapp & Rapp; extensive renovation 1979-1984, "Solidarity Tower" addition in 1985
• 1930 Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, Ernest A. Grunsfeld, Jr.
• 1931 Merchandise Mart, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
• 1930s-1960s Illinois Institute of Technology, including S.R. Crown Hall, Second Chicago School, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill
• 1934 Field Building, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White

1940 to the present:

• 1940-1942 St. Wenceslaus church, 3400 N. Monticello Ave, McCarthy, Smith and Eppig
• 1952 860–880 Lake Shore Drive, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
• 1957 Inland Steel Building, Bruce Graham and Walter Netsch, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill,
• 1964 Marina City, Bertrand Goldberg
• 1968 Lake Point Tower, John Heinrich and George Schipporeit
• 1968 Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist. Harry Weese
• 1969 John Hancock Center, Bruce Graham, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
• 1973 330 North Wabash, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
• 1974 Willis Tower, Bruce Graham, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (previously the Sears Tower)
• 1974 Aon Center, Edward Durrell Stone (earlier names were Standard Oil Building and Amoco Building)
• 1977 St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
• 1979-85 James R. Thompson Center, Helmut Jahn
• 1982 NBC Tower, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill
• 1990 American Medical Association Building, Kenzo Tange
• 1990 Athletic Club Illinois Center, Kisho Kurokawa
• 1991 Harold Washington Library Center, Thomas Beeby
• 1991 U.S. Cellular Field, Home of the White Sox
• 1991 Museum of Contemporary Art, Josef Paul Kleihues
• 1992 77 West Wacker Drive, Ricardo Bofill
• 2004 Millennium Park, Frank Gehry, Kathryn Gustafson, Anish Kapoor, Jaume Plensa, and others, a showcase for 21st century modernism.
• 2009 Trump International Hotel and Tower, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
• 2010 Aqua Tower, Studio Gang Architects

Styles and schools

Chicago architects used many design styles and belonged to a variety of architectural schools. Below is a list of those styles and schools.

American Four-Square[6] Art Deco/Moderne[6] Arts & Crafts[6] Chateauesque[6] Chicago School[6] (Also called Commercial Style) Classical Revival[6] (also known as Neoclassical architecture) Colonial Revival[6] Craftsman[7] (also known as American Craftsman) Dutch Colonial[6] Eastlake/Stick[6] Gothic Revival[6] Greek Revival[6] International[6] (sometimes called Second Chicago School) Italianate[6]

Middle Eastern[6] Modern Oriental[6] Prairie School[6] Queen Anne[6] Renaissance Revival[6] also known as Neo-Renaissance Romanesque Revival[6] also known as Neo-Romanesque Second Empire[6] Spanish Revival[6] also known as Spanish Colonial Revival Sullivanesque[6] (for style elements and examples see Louis Sullivan) Tudor Revival[6] Workers Cottage[6]

Buildings - a "Top Forty" List

In 2010, Chicago Magazine selected 40 still existing properties for their historical and architectural importance,^[8] opening an on-line forum for debate. The top ten chosen, from number 10 to number 1, were:

• 10: Sears Tower

233 S. Wacker Dr. (1974)

• 9: Farnsworth House (Plano, Illinois)

14520 River Rd., Plano, IL (1951)

• 8: Frederick C. Robie House

5757 S. Woodlawn Ave. (1909)

• 7: Auditorium Building

430 S. Michigan Ave. (1889)

• 6: S. R. Crown Hall

3360 S. State St. (1956)

• 5: Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building

1 S. State St. (1899)

• 4: Monadnock Building

53 W. Jackson Blvd. (1891 and 1893)

• 3: 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments

(1952)

• 2: Rookery Building

209 S. LaSalle St. (1885–1888}

• 1: John Hancock Center

875 N. Michigan Ave. (1969)

See also

Chicago portal

• Chicago Loop
• Chicago neighborhoods
• Landmarks of Chicago
• List of tallest buildings in Chicago
• Parks of Chicago
• Polish Cathedral style
• Visual arts of Chicago

Notes

1. ^ Billington 1985, pp 234-235
2. ^ "Evolution of Concrete Skyscrapers". http://www.civenv.unimelb.edu.au/ejse/Archives/Fulltext/200101/01/20010101.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-14. 
3. ^ Alfred Swenson & Pao-Chi Chang (2008). "building construction". Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/83859/building-construction. Retrieved 2008-12-09. 
4. ^ Ali, Mir M. (2001). "Evolution of Concrete Skyscrapers: from Ingalls to Jin mao". Electronic Journal of Structural Engineering 1 (1): 2–14. http://www.ejse.org/Archives/Fulltext/200101/01/20010101.htm. Retrieved 2008-11-30. 
5. ^ "?". http://www.chopinmonumentinchicago.com/. 
6. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x} "Chicago Landmarks - Style Guide". City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development. http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/StyleGuide/StyleGuide.html. Retrieved 2009-05-09. 
7. ^ "Chicago Landmarks - Craftsman". City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development. http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/StyleGuide/Craftsman.html. Retrieved 2009-05-09. 
8. ^ http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/October-2010/Top-40-Buildings-in-Chicago/index.php?cp=4&si=48&cparticle=4&siarticle=3#artanc

References

• Billington, David P. (1985). The Tower and the Bridge: The New Art of Structural Engineering. Princeton University Press. ISBN 069102393X. 

Further reading

• Pridmore, Jay and George A. Larson, Chicago Architecture and Design : Revised and expanded, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 2005. ISBN 0-8109-5892-9.

External links

• Online tour of designated Chicago landmarks
• Walking architectural tours of Chicago
• Information on several major Chicago buildings
• Chicago Church Architecture
• American Institute of Architects