CHICAGO SCHOOL 1880s-1910s
The Chicago School comprises an intellectually elite group of progressive architects in late-19th-century Chicago, Illinois. They introduce the skyscraper, a new building type for the new 20th century. New technology, improvements in communication and transportation, and new or improved manufacturing processes usher in a period of extraordinary growth in industry and commerce. They also recognize that a different structure is needed to conduct business effectively nationally and internationally, so the modern corporation is born.
Louis H. Sullivan, Kindergarten All life is organic. It manifests itself through Chats, 1901–1902 organs, through structures, through
functions. That which is alive acts, organizes, grows, develops, unfolds, expands, differentiates, organ after organ, structure after structure.
Until the invention of the passenger elevator in 1857 by Elisha Graves Otis, buildings are seldom more than four or five stories high. Other new inventions, such as the typewriter (1868), the telephone (1876), incandescent light (1879), and the dictaphone or gramophone (1888), transform office planning, types of workers, and their methods of working. The city becomes an important railroad hub and manufacturing center in the 1850s. Many new buildings are constructed with wood frames and castiron columns and façades.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, 1941.
Changes in how businesses do business also affects the development of the skyscraper and its interior planning and furnishing. Companies now require managers to developand oversee a greater variety of jobs, from marketing strategies
to transportation arrangements to tracking sales. Besides being more socially acceptable than previously, office pay is better than that of factory or domestic work. However, women still are paid considerably less than men are.
Louis Sullivan gave America the skyscraper as an organic modern work of art. While America’s architects were stumbling at its height, piling one thing on top of another, foolishly denying it, Louis Sullivan seized its height as its characteristic feature, and made it sing; a new thing under the sun! One of the worlds greatest architects, he gave us again the ideal of a great architecture that informed all the great architecture of the worlds.
CONCEPTS T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Good-bye, Mr. Chippendale, 1944
Once the technology and construction methods are in place and prototypes appear, the architect’s dilemma becomes how to articulate a multhistory building to reflect a human scale. These first manifestations of modern architecture often express the structure on the exterior. American architects have
increased training at home and abroad in architectural theory. At the forefront in Chicago, architect Louis Sullivan believes that the building’s form should express the interior function. He creates an architectural language for tall buildings.
In the First Leiter building, the Manhattan, Marquette and Reliance buildings, and the Carson Pierre Scott department store, for the first time in the world, engineer and architect collaborated and produced new forms in which construction and architecture became indissoluble. These Chicago buildings were the beginning of the modern business buildings of the world; with their creation, architecture took on a new and splendid lease for its future life.
Land size and the need for light in interior spaces drive overall shape and configuration. Louis Sullivan uses stringcourses, projecting cornices, richness of detail and decoration as a part of the structure. Entries, lobbies, and atriums are large impressive spaces with expensive treatments and materials. IMPORTANT TREATISES ■ The Autobiography of an Idea, 1924; Louis Sullivan. ■ Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings, 1901; Louis Sullivan. ■ The Modern Office Building, 1896; Barr Ferree. ■ A System of Architectural Ornament According to a Philosophy of Man’s Powers, 1924; Louis Sullivan. ■ The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered, 1896; Louis Sullivan. Periodicals: Architectural Record, Engineering Magazine, Engineering Record, and the Journal of the Franklin Institute.
DESIGN CHARACTERISTICS
ARCHITECTURE Steel skeletons to replace masonry bearing walls or piers, foundations that can support tall buildings, and elevators to access upper floors come together to create the first skyscrapers, or buildings 16 to 20 stories high. Curtain walls permit large windows formore light, a design characteristic exploited by members of the Chicago School. Construction improvements occur incrementally, so some early skyscrapers retain load-bearing masonry walls combined with wooden or metal beams.
In 1916, New York City passes a setback ordinance mandating that new buildings in selected zoned districts can rise upward two and a half times the street width and then must have a setback.
■ Baltimore, Maryland: —One South Calvert Building, 1901; Daniel H. Burham and Company.
INTERIORS
—Second Leiter Building (later Sears, Roebuck & Company Building), 1889–1891; William Le Baron Jenney. —Stock Exchange Building, 1893; Louis H. Sullivan. —Tacoma Building, 1887–1889; William Holabird and Martin Roche. —Transportation Building, 1893; Louis H. Sullivan.
■ Buffalo, New York: —Ellicott Square, 1892–1896; Daniel H. Burnham and Company. —Guaranty Trust Building (later Prudential Building), 1895–1896; ■ New York City, New York: Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, with ornamentation designed by —Bayard-Condict Building, 1897–1899; Louis H. Sullivan. Sullivan and George Elmslie. —Equitable Building, 1912–1915; Ernest Graham of Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White Architects. ■ Chicago, Illinois: —Flatiron Building (Fuller Building), 1901–1903; Daniel H. Burnham. —Auditorium Building (Roosevelt University), 1887–1889; Dankmar —Produce Exchange, 1881–1885; George B. Post. Adler and Louis H. Sullivan. —Singer Building, 1907; Ernest Flagg. —Carson, Pirie, Scott, and Company Department Store (formerly —Woolworth Building, 1911–1913; Cass Gilbert. Schlesinger-Mayer Store), 1899–1904, with additions in 1906; Louis H. Sullivan, and additions by Daniel H. Burnham. ■ Owatonna, Minnesota: —Fisher Building, 1897; Daniel H. Burnham and John W. Root. —National Farmers Bank, 1907–1908; Louis H. Sullivan and George —Gage, Keith, and Archer Buildings, 1898–1900; Louis H. Sullivan Elmslie. (façade of Gage Building), with William Holabird, and Martin Roche. ■ San Francisco, California: —Home Insurance Company Building, 1883–1885; William Le Baron —Hallidie Building, 1917–1918; Willis Polk. Jenney. —Manhattan Building, 1889–1890; William Le Baron Jenney and ■ Sidney, Ohio: Louis E. Ritter. —Peoples Federal Savings & Loan Association, 1917–1918; Louis H. —Monadnock Building, 1889–1891, 1893; Daniel H. Burnham of Sullivan. Burnham & Root (north half), and William Holabird and Martin Roche (south half). ■ St. Louis, Missouri: —Montauk Building, 1881–1882; Daniel H. Burnham and John W. —Wainwright Building, 1890–1891; Dankmar Adler and Louis H. Root. Sullivan. —Reliance Building, 1890–1891, 1894–1895; Daniel H. Burnham and John W. Root. ■ Winona, Minnesota: —Rookery Building, 1885–1888, 1905; Daniel H. Burnham and John —Merchants National Bank, 1911–1912; Purcell, Feick, and Elmslie. W. Root, with Frank Lloyd Wright who was responsible for later changes to the lobby. —Schiller Building, 1891–1892; Dankmar Adler and Louis H. Sullivan.
IMPRESSIVE IRON OR MARBLE STAIRCASES LEAD TO UPPER FLOORS. SMALL, PRIVATE OFFICES MAINTAIN A DOMESTIC APPEARANCE WITH AREA RUGS, WALLPAPER, OR PANELING.
IMPORTANT BUILDINGS AND INTERIORS
FURNISHINGS AND DECORATIVE ARTS Furniture in other more public places reflects the character, scale, and importance of the particular space.
Later Interpretation: Atrium, Butler Square Building, 1906-1908; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Harry Wilde Jones; renovated in 1972 by Miller Hanson Westerbeck Bell Architects.
Office chairs and desk, c. 1900.
Paper, which comprises the majority of office work, is bound in books or stored in pigeonholes either inside roll-top desks, on open shelves, or in cabinets with doors.
Motion and efficiency studies scrutinize office tasks and procedures to increase productivity and profits. Office machines, such as typewriters and adding machines, become increasingly common.
UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE SINALOA FACULTAD DE ARQUITECTURA
Comprensión de Documentos de Arquitectura en Inglés. Arq. Claudia Aispuro Espinoza
Arce Cárdenas Ismael Espinoza Mercado Ciria R. López Heráldez Carmen M. Medina Rámirez Pedro A. SEMESTRE IV GRUPO 07