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CITY REPORT
CHICAGO
Raising Modern Architecture
By Edward Keegan
Architecture is central to Chicago’s image of itself. Its citizens are remarkably well educated and highly opinionated about its architecture and place in the world of design. Chicago without its architecture would be like Los Angeles without the entertainment industry, Washington without government, New York without commerce. Its claim to being the birthplace of modern architecture may be debatable, but in this city with nary a structure older than 14 decades, you’d be hard pressed to consider any as not truly modern.
Chicago’s prominence sprang from a potent combination of geographical advantages, commercial greed, political clout and relentless self-promotion. The city was incorporated in 1837, when it was still a small, fortified encampment on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Chicago River. The site was little changed from when the smelly, swampy locale was first explored by European visitors during the 17th century. Its strategic importance — and the impetus for its rapid growth — lay in the Chicago River’s easy portage via the Des Plaines River to the Illinois River. That transfer, simplified by a canal in 1848, linked the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean with the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico and made Chicago a critical link for commerce in the still young United States of the mid 19th century. Chicago’s fame as the “Windy City” endures — but the term was coined not about the city’s weather (which can be truly windy, since it’s perched on the shores of one of the largest lakes in the world). Rather, it’s an outsider’s appraisal of the penchant of the city’s boosters to extol its greatness. This perpetual self-promotion meant that other American cities with centralized locations — St. Louis, for example — never had a real chance in the battle for Midwestern supremacy.

The Cliff Notes version of Chicago’s architectural history pivots on the Great Fire of 1871, a catastrophic event that torched the city’s central business district and a large proportion of its better-situated lakefront housing. But there’s almost nothing left of the quickly built structures that the city’s merchant class built in the months after the fire. An exception is the cast iron structure located at 27 West Adams – still operating as a long and locally revered German restaurant and bar formerly known as the Berghoff (now called 17). Although often missing from the history books, this simple façade assembled from a commercially available kit was the prelude to Chicago’s remarkable architectural adventure.

One of the earliest significant buildings still extant in Chicago is Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan’s Auditorium (1887-89). As originally conceived and built, the immense structure was a virtual city unto itself with a hotel, office building and performance space fit within a single, somewhat dourly articulated limestone block. But its interiors are where the immensely gifted Sullivan found his voice as an architect. Aided by a young draftsman, Frank Lloyd Wright, Sullivan created a 4,200-seat theater that sings loudly even when it’s empty. He based his megaphone shaped room on partner Adler’s acoustical prowess (it’s still the best sounding hall in the Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125
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