The Auditorium Building

Commissioned by Ferdinand Peck and produced by architects Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler--soon to be leaders of the Chicago School--in 1889, the Auditorium Building was a wondrous complex, housing a hotel, offices, stores, and a theater. Adler's engineering skills overcame the problem of a foundation that had to support an unevenly distributed weight; Sullivan designed the stunning theater, which was spanned by four elliptical arches studded with 3,500 incandescent electric lights and decorated with gold leaf. Adler created a hydraulic stage--with twenty-six lifts--and one of the first air-conditioning systems in a public building. Among the many design features in the interior of the Auditorium were murals, onyx, marble, open loggias, stained glass, filigreed vents, wainscoting, and bronze-plated posts. Scholars considered the Auditorium Building the most important single structure in Chicago. The Auditorium thrived until its closing in 1940. In 1946 Roosevelt University purchased the building, and the Auditorium Theatre Council restored the theater to its former glory. Today, the Auditorium Building is thriving as a showcase for major theatrical events, Roosevelt University concerts, and other events.

Winner of the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award from the Society of Architectural Historians When the magnificent Auditorium Building opened on Chicago's Michigan Avenue in December 1889, it marked Chicago's emergence both as the leading city of the Midwest and as a metropolis of international stature. In this lavishly illustrated book, Joseph M. Siry explores not just the architectural history of the Auditorium Building but also the crucial role it played in Chicago's social history. Covering the Auditorium from the early design stage to its opening, its later renovations, its links to culture and politics in Chicago, and its influence on later Adler and Sullivan works (including the Schiller Building and the Chicago Stock Exchange Building), this volume recounts the fascinating tale of a building that helped to define a city and an era.

Chicago has long captured the global imagination as a place of tall, shining buildings rising from the fog, the playground for many of architecture's greats--from Mies van der Rohe to Frank Lloyd Wright--and a surprising epicenter for modern construction and building techniques. In this beautifully illustrated volume, Alexander Eisenschmidt and Jonathan Mekinda have brought together a diverse pool of curators, artists, architects, historians, critics, and theorists to produce a multifarious portrait of the Second City. Looking at events as far back as the 1933 exhibition "Early Modern Architecture in Chicago," Chicagoisms is remarkable for the breadth of its topics and the depth of its essays. From more abstract ventures like tracking the boom-and-bust cycle of Chicago's commitment to architecture and the influence of the Chicago grid system of Mies van der Rohe, to more straightforward studies of the "Americanization" of Berlin, the editors have chosen essays that convey the complex and varied history and culture of Chicago's architecture. More than simply an architectural biography of the city, Chicagoisms shows Chicago to have an important role as a catalyst for international development and pinpoints its remarkable influence around the world. The contributors explore topics as diverse as Daniel Burnham's vision and OMA's  student center for the Illinois Institute of Technology, and show them to all be indelibly products of Chicago. This volume is published to coincide with the exhibition Chicagoisms: The City as Catalyst for Architectural Speculation opening at the Art Institute of Chicago, opening in June 2013.

For the first time, the interiors of some of the Chicago area's greatest buildings, designed by celebrated architects, are brought together and featured in truly stunning original photographs. These Chicago-area homes, religious spaces, and commercial and public structures give visual meaning to Frank Lloyd Wright's belief that "the space within becomes the reality of the building." Beginning with the Clarke House of 1836 and continuing to the present, every type and style of building is presented. Famous residences such as Wright's Robie House and Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House are here, but so are more modest (and not so modest) homes by Walter Burley Griffin, George Washington Maher, and Paul Schweikher. The ornate warmth of Adler & Sullivan's Auditorium Building provides striking contrast to the modern, towering underground stacks of Helmut Jahn's Mansueto Library. The soaring Bahá'í Temple, by Louis Bourgeois, is elegantly highlighted alongside a humble chapel in St. Procopius Abbey Church, by Edward Dart. And commercial buildings by Daniel Burnham, John Wellborn Root, John Holabird, Martin Roche, and many more reaffirm Chicago's position as a great business center. These architects and their contemporaries have made the Chicago area a mecca for both architects and lovers of architecture from around the world. Text by author Patrick F. Cannon, who has lived and worked in Chicago and its suburbs for more than sixty years, discusses each building's architecture, architect, and place in history. James Caulfield, a noted architectural photographer, leads a visual tour into both the intimate and grand interiors of the Chicago area's finest buildings. Now the duo's fifth book, The Space Within demonstrates that good design comes in many styles. While many of these architectural masterpieces are open to the public, others--particularly the private homes--can only be seen here.

This volume brings together for the first time all the papers Louis Sullivan intended for a public audience, from his first interview in 1882 to his last essay in 1924. Organized chronologically, these speeches, interviews, essays, letters to editors, and committee reports enable readers to trace Sullivan's development from a brash young assistant to Dankmar Adler to an architectural elder statesman. Robert Twombly, an authority on Sullivan's work and life, has introduced each document with a headnote explaining its significance, locating it in time and place, and examining its immediate context. He has also provided a general introduction that analyzes Sullivan's writing style and objectives, his major philosophical themes, and the sources of his ideas. With the help of headnotes and introduction, readers will get a thorough sense of Sullivan's concerns, discover how his ideas evolved and changed, and appreciate the circumstances under which new interests emerged. This collection is a handy introduction to the full range of Sullivan's thinking, the book with which readers interested in the architect's writings should begin. As a companion volume to Robert Twombly's biography of Sullivan, it gives a comprehensive picture of one of America's most important architects and cultural figures.

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