Understanding Modern Architecture in Chicago

Paul McLeod

18 April 2012

State Street, looking south, 1907, Library of Congress Image

Human Evolutionary Tree

Chicago Fire, 1871

Burn Zone, Chicago, 1871

Water Tower, 1869,

W.W. Boyington

Typical post-fire architecture, 1870s

Louis Henri Sullivan (1856-1924)

Louis Sullivan (Adler & Sullivan), Borden Block, 1880, Chicago, IL

Demolished 1917

Jewelers Block, 1882Louis Sullivans earliest extant building

H.H. Richardson, (1838-1886)

H.H. Richardson, Glessner House, Chicago, IL, 1886-87

H.H. Richardson, Marshall Field Warehouse, Chicago, IL, 1885-1887

(Demolished 1930)

Chicago Historical Society, 1892, Henry Ives Cobb

Daniel Burnham

(1846-1912)

Burnham & Root, WCTU building, 1891, Chicago, IL

Demolished 1926

Burnham & Root, The Rookery, 1885-88, Chicago, IL

Burnham & Root, Monadnock Building, 1888-1891, Chicago, IL

Projecting Bays on Dearborn Street, 1890s – Before the curtain wall

William LeBarron Jenney, Home Insurance Building, 1883, Chicago, ILFirst steel-framed skyskyskraperDemolished, 1932

Sears Building, 1890

Louis Sullivan, Auditorium, 1887-89, Chicago, IL

Louis Sullivan, Auditorium, 1887-89, Chicago, IL

Sullivan’s Auditorium

Louis Sullivan (Adler & Sullivan), Wainwright Building, 1890-91, St. Louis, MO

Louis Sullivan, Gage Block, 1898, Chicago, IL

Louis Sullivan, Carson Pirie Scott Department Store, 1899-1904, Chicago, IL

Sullivan at Graceland Cemetery

Architectural Fragments, Chicago Art Institute

World’s Columbian Exposition architectural committee, Chicago, 1892

The White City, Chicago, 1893

Louis Sullivan, Transportation Building, Chicago World’s Fair, 1893

Burnham Plan, 1909

Axis leading to Buckingham Fountain

Chicago Art Institute, 1892, Shepley, Rutan, & Coolidge

Chicago Public Library, 1897, Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge

Field Museum, 1912, D.H. Burnham & Co

Union Station, 1925, Graham, Burnham & Co

Burnham & Root/ Daniel Burnham, 1890/1894, Reliance Building, Chicago, IL

Marshall Field Store, Daniel Burnham, 1893-1907

Daniel Burnham, 1902, Flat Iron building, New York, NY

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), Part 1 of his life (1902) and Part 2 of his life (1950s)

Frank Lloyd Wright, Unity Temple, 1902-04, Oak Park, IL

Frank Lloyd Wright, Heurtley House, 1901, Oak Park, IL

Frank Lloyd Wright, Robie House, 1909, Chicago, IL

Frank Lloyd Wright, Robie House, 1909, Oak Park, IL

Cass Gilbert, Woolworth Building, 1913, New York, NY Howells & Hood, Chicago Tribune

Tower, 1922-25, Chicago, IL

“Losing” entries for the Chicago Tribune Tower competition, 1922: Eliel Saarinen on left, Walter Gropius in center.

Howells & Hood, Chicago Tribune Tower, 1922-25, ChicagoHowells & Hood, McGraw Hill Building, 1930, New York, NY

Art Deco Skyscrapers:Chicago Board of Trade, Carbide & Carbon Bldg, both 1929-30

Art Deco ornament, late 1920s

Late Art Deco (aka Streamlined

Moderne), late 1930s

Mies, Federal Center, 1959-74

Bertrand Goldberg, Marina City, 1964

Late Modern Skyscrapers, John Hancock Tower (1969), Sears Tower (1974), both SOM

Postmodernism, Washington Public Library, 1987

Deconstructivism of Frank Gehry

Thanks for the parks, Burnham!