The Chicago School of Architecture: Building the Modern City, 1880–1910
4/5
()
About this ebook
Related to The Chicago School of Architecture
Titles in the series (27)
Confederate Currency Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClassic Video Games: The Golden Age 1971–1984 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Breweriana: American Beer Collectibles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPottery of the Southwest: Ancient Art and Modern Traditions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Muscle Cars: The First American Supercars Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mail-Order Homes: Sears Homes and Other Kit Houses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bridal Fashion 1900–1950 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Route 66: The Mother Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chicago’s Bridges Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCovered Bridges Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Amusement Parks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1950s American Fashion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fashion in the Time of the Great Gatsby Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chicago School of Architecture: Building the Modern City, 1880–1910 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 1950s American Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Barns Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClassic Candy: America’s Favorite Sweets, 1950–80 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Colonial Food Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Streetcars of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Golden Age of Train Travel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harley-Davidson: A History of the World’s Most Famous Motorcycle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Airstream: The Silver RV Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Presidents’ Gardens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaking Craft Beer at Home Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Shakers: History, Culture and Craft Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related ebooks
The Origins And Myths Of Modern Architecture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Obsolescence: An Architectural History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGothic Revival Architecture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Los Angeles Residential Architecture: Modernism Meets Eclecticism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of Architecture: Iconic Buildings throughout the ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House: The Illustrated Story of an Architectural Masterpiece Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A History of New York in 27 Buildings: The 400-Year Untold Story of an American Metropolis Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Architect, or Practical House Carpenter (1830) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Skyscraper Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Chicago Skyscrapers in Vintage Postcards Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Atlanta Architecture: Art Deco to Modern Classic, 1929-1959 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5New York City Skyscrapers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bridges of New York Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography, New and Revised Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Think Like an Architect Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wright and New York: The Making of America's Architect Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow Architecture Works: A Humanist's Toolkit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5History of Architecture Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wright Sites: A Guide to Frank Lloyd Wright Public Places Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Read a Building Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Four Books of Architecture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 50 Greatest Architects: The People Whose Buildings Have Shaped Our World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYou Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Volume I: A New Framework for Architecture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5British Architectural Styles Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Architect's Suicide: A Fictional Account Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secrets of Architectural Composition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsManual of Section Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Modern History For You
The Little Red Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Story of Christianity: Volume 2: The Reformation to the Present Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Notebook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of the Trapp Family Singers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5All But My Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 2]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Mother, a Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Titanic Chronicles: A Night to Remember and The Night Lives On Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Every Person Should Know About War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of the American People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Profiles in Courage: Deluxe Modern Classic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for The Chicago School of Architecture
2 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Chicago School of Architecture - Rolf Achilles
INTRODUCTION
IN ITS FIRST SEVENTYYEARS , Chicago was the fastest growing city the world had ever seen, with its population burgeoning from some three hundred people to 1.5 million between 1833 and 1900. Grappling with this unprecedented expansion, the city built to its horizons and its sky with machine-made iron and steel, bricks, terra-cotta, glass, cement, and all other materials demanded by a permanent boomtown that was contemporary by its own definition. Though only ten, eleven, and twelve stories high, the first steel-framed structures were taller than anything yet built. They seemed to go on forever, scraping the sky.
After the construction surge was over and some of the earliest buildings had already given way to new structures, historians had time to reflect on the recent past, calling what had happened the Commercial Style or Chicago School. Symbolizing civic unity and pride, the public’s aspirations of upward mobility, these buildings were awe-inspiring. Their architects were among the first in the world to implement the new British and French technologies of steel-frame construction in commercial buildings. They have easily discernible unifying characteristics: a steel-frame with terra-cotta, brick or masonry cladding; a curtain wall of unlimited ornamentation pierced for large plate-glass windows; and an inner, private court for light and air, elevators, and more decoration.
As the nation’s buildings began to multiply dramatically and grow ever bolder in their construction and use of materials, Barr Ferree spoke to the American Institute of Architects in 1893, telling them current American architecture is not a matter of art, but of business. A building must pay or there will be no investor ready with the money to meet its cost.
Not all were in agreement with this bold statement that buildings were strictly commercial ventures with little or no social responsibilities. Three years later Louis Sullivan penned his now famous lyrical essay in which he poetically argues that a tall building should be more than just functional, that it should be as beautiful as a tree, as stately as an ancient column, and most of all that its form should ever follow
its function.
A typical Chicago curtain wall designed by Louis Sullivan in 1900 for Schlesinger & Mayer, since 1904 known as the Carson Pirie Scott department store.
All agreed that tall buildings were built from the inside out, that elevators were the internal determinant, but it was the outside—the building skin—that everyone saw. And it was the skin that made all the difference.
Knowing full well that tall buildings were built around elevators, Sullivan pleaded for art and natural beauty in tall structures to uplift the minds of those seeing them, while Ferree saw no ideal, just a straightforward approach to architecture that boldly reflected the cultural milieu of Chicago, a chaotic Midwestern cosmopolis that was proud, western and nationalistic while exalting such nebulous ideals as American
and democracy.
All that and much more was accomplished by the First Chicago School of Architecture. Today, Ferree is forgotten, his message taken to heart. Sullivan is now acclaimed as the developer of a Chicago style that became European Modernism and then returned to Chicago as the Second Chicago School led by German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Variants of the style are still very much active today across the world.
The building of Burnham & Root’s Fisher Building set a construction speed record.
A steel-frame structure as it might have looked in the 1890s.
Today noted for its innovative foundation, the Washington Block, built in 1873–4, is one of the earliest post-Great Fire buildings remaining in the Loop.
AFTER THE GREAT FIRE—FIREPROOFING
BUILT ON SAND AND MUD , Chicago developed from a messy mélange of humans and animals into a grid system