Pictorial Chicago

New York firm Kohn Pedersen Fox seems to have a gift for extremes, having created one of Chicago's most reviled buildings (311 S. Wacker- The "White Castle" or "Wedding Cake" structure south of the Sears Tower) and this absolute gem, 333 W. Wacker, which is one of the city's favorites. Following the curve of the river on its north side, the 333 W. Wacker building offers reflective views and a melding of curve and geometric line. It is visually striking from many locations: make sure to walk around the entire building.

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Designed by Holabird and Root (the sons of Chicago School pioneers John Wellborn Root and William Holabird), this building was the last structure built in what is now known as The Michigan Avenue Bridge Group. Heavily influenced by Eliel Saarinen's second place entry in the 1922 Chicago Tribune Tower design contest (universally acclaimed as the "Most Influential Building Which Was Never Built"), this narrow Art Deco offering features lovely relief carvings by Fred M. Torrey.

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This beautiful building, now known by its address, has a design based on the chapel of an Italian monastery from the fifteenth-century. It had an ingenious elevator/parking system when it was first built which would take the tenant's car up to the same floor where they had their offices. Marketed as a security feature to the wholesale jewelers the building hoped to attract, the system was discontinued in 1940, partly due to lack of interest from tenants but mostly because it was an immense hassle to keep working properly.

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Chicago's second tallest building (1,136 feet) began its existence as the Standard Oil Building, then as the Amoco Building when the company changed their name. British Petroleum merged with Amoco and moved their headquarters to London, bringing on yet another name change. The sleek pale tower is now known as the Aon Center, as the financial services megalith is currently the building's primary tenant.

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This Art Deco edifice sits at the end of the section of LaSalle Street known as the LaSalle Street Canyon. The canyon is also Chicago's financial district, and the Board of Trade looms over the street's collection of classical bank buildings and office towers like a patriarch at the head of a long table.

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The Chicago Cultural Center began its life as the home to both the Chicago Public Library and the Grand Army of the Republic, a national Civil War veteran's organization. It contains the world's largest Tiffany stained glass dome (worth a trip inside all by itself) and what seems like acres of Tiffany mosaics. Its lovely and eclectic interior has made it a favorite with visiting Hollywood filmmakers. Hidden treasures abound in its many nooks and crannies!

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Designed by Holabird and Roche and located at 77 West Washington Street, directly across the street from Daley Plaza. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, this is the tallest church in the world. Home to the First United Methodist Church (sanctuary and sky chapel), the Swedenborg Library, and other offices. Sky Chapel tours take place every day, Monday through Saturday, at 2:00 p.m. and on Sundays at 9:45 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. Visit the Temple Website for other activities.

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The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago sits at the end of LaSalle Street across from its near twin, the Bank of America building. The two create a lovely columnized bookend effect which nicely frames the Board of Trade building. Both banks were designed around the same time by Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, but the Federal Reserve is more imposing (with Corinthian Columns instead of Doric) and less opulent (more befitting a public institution). Of course, there's no need to be ornate when you contain between 10-13 billion dollars on any given day. Not surprisingly, it's regarded as the most secure building in Chicago.

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Completed a year after his much celebrated Reliance Building, Charles Atwood's design for the Fisher Building is similar in appearance to its more famous cousin, but with a dazzling array of Gothic ornamentation throughout the facade.

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The Harold Washington Library Center is named after the late great Mayor Harold Washington (the city's first Black Mayor). Much like a hip-hop DJ expropriates beats and musical passages from various sources, this postmodern leviathan "samples" elements from a slew of Chicago's most famous structures, altering them to fit into its own larger context, yet leaving them recognizable to the discerning viewer. The Auditorium Theater, the Rookery, and the Monadnock are just a few of the buildings "quoted" here. It is also the world's largest public library, if you're into the "size thing."

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This recently completed building at 71 S. Wacker Drive is already one of our favorites. Designed by Harry Cobb of the firm Pei Cobb Freed and Partners. View complete construction history photos at Emporis.com.

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Designed by an architect more known for building factories than office towers (Alfred Alschuler), this classical yet forward looking edifice presages 333 W. Wacker 's use of a curved facade to match the bends of Wacker Drive and the river (albeit concave instead of convex). It has a charmingly ornate lobby to match the Corinthian exterior.

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Aside from being one of the pioneers of steel frame construction, William Le Baron Jenney was arguably the most influential Chicago architect of the late 1800's. Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, William Holabird, and Martin Roche all apprenticed under him. Many Chicago Architecture tomes speak ill of The Manhattan's crazy-quilt facade, but we find it charmingly quirky (as if Jenney were a jazz musician trying to play every possible chord change in the new song that was the steel frame skyscraper), especially the faces under the bottoms of the bays.

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This flagship store of the venerable retail chain was built in separate sections over several years, but all by D.H. Burnham (or his firm) so it maintains (mostly) the impression of one building. The outside is undoubtedly imposing, but it is inside where the luscious Tiffany mosaics reside that is most impressive. The beautiful clocks on the State Street corners are Chicago icons (one was even depicted in a Norman Rockwell illustration). They also serve as a convenient meeting spot for State Street shoppers. "Meet me under the Field's clock," has been a common refrain for generations.

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Designed by Holabird and Roche and completed in 1894, the Marquette Building is perhaps the finest remaining example of the Chicago School. The lobby is the most beautiful in the city (Yeah, we said it!), a memorial to Pere Marquette, with sculptured heads above elevator doors designed by Edward Kemeys and mosaic panels depicting the French exploration of Illinois designed by J.A. Holzer and done by the Tiffany Glass Co. Now owned by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, it was designated a Chicago landmark in 1975 and a National Landmark in 1980.

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This stolid monolith sits between Wells and Orleans Streets and dominates the north bank of the Chicago River for several blocks. Its 4.2 million square feet of floor space made it the world's largest building until the Pentagon took that title away, now it's the world's largest commercial building (we Chicagoans love to adapt category parameters to keep the title of "World's Largest" for our structures). No matter how you slice it, however, it's one big beautiful building.

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The Monadnock Building is one of Chicago's most august edifices, functioning as a sort of "missing link" between traditional 19th Century masonry clad buildings and the steel frame skyscrapers that characterize the Chicago School of Architecture. The northern half, designed by Burnham & Root and completed in 1891, is still the world's tallest masonry building at 16 stories. Its walls, 6 foot thick at the base then curving sharply inward in a fashion said to resemble an Egyptian pylon, put one in the mind of a medieval fortress yet still contain the promise of the sleek structures to come. The steel framed southern half, built by Holabird & Roche after John Wellborn Root's death in 1891, seems more delicate and ornamented yet doesn't conflict with its hulking elder. As David Van Zanten aptly remarks on their interplay, "Steel and masonry are in balance. The old material has not yet been abandoned; the new material has not yet supervened."

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There once were several Chicago School buildings in the Loop that sported these elegant and graceful corner bays (the Women's Christian Temperance Union Temple was among the more striking), but the Old Colony is now the sole survivor. Aside from the aesthetic value they brought to the building, the corner offices were prized because of their increased light and air flow (important in the days before electric lights and central air conditioning). Holabird and Roche used arched portal bracing (another technique borrowed from bridge builders) to secure the building against the force of the wind. Check out Kate's awesome photo of the north cornice!

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This white terra cotta masterpiece is widely considered to be the ultimate example of the Chicago School of Architecture. Now home to the Burnham Hotel, this building's story is almost as interesting as its design. When William Hale purchased the lot in 1882, it was occupied by a four story masonry building. Hale wanted his close friend Daniel Burnham's firm to build a new skyscraper as soon as possible, but had to hold off because the building's tenants all had long-term leases. To complicate matters, the leases on the first two floors expired in 1890, but the top two were contracted until 1894. Burnham's brilliant engineer John Root proposed to jack up the top half of the building, demolish the bottom floors, and then construct the foundation and base of the new tower underneath the now suspended remnants of the original. The fact that Hale was a prominent manufacturer of hydraulic systems probably contributed to his acceptance of the scheme, which was put into motion. The new building was begun and then occupied, while the tenants upstairs went about their business as usual. The situation was made even more complex when Root died in 1891 and his plans for the rest of the building were lost. Charles Atwood then designed a new tower to finish the structure, and the Reliance Building was finally completed in 1895.

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Truly one of our favorite buildings. From the intricate Moorish-inspired designs on the exterior to the jaw-droppingly beautiful light court/atrium lobby, this is Burnham and Root at their most opulent and stunning. The Rookery was built on the site of what was a temporary city hall after the Fire of 1871 and takes its name from the nickname given to the previous structure (an ingenious double pun referring both to the pigeons and politicians which roosted in the makeshift post-fire civic dwelling). Burnham and Root were so taken with their creation that they located their own offices there for several years. It was here that Burnham worked on the preliminary plans for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. A center view of the LaSalle Street facade is available here.

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This design came about as a result of the Chicago Tribune's 1922 contest for the "World's Most Beautiful Office Building" and was the winner among the 264 entries. Its Gothic design mirrors that of the Butter Tower of the Rouen Cathedral (a sassy little thirteenth-century French structure) and even features (so I've been told) secret passageways connecting offices on the upper floors.

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Chicago's last skyscraper begun before the stock market crash in October 1929. The Great Depression hit Chicago especially hard (Google: Samuel Insull), and one of the results (other than the whole widespread poverty and misery thing) was that the Art Deco Style was not fully realized in the city. The Century of Progress World's Fair was chock full of futuristic Art Deco creations, but they were all temporary and were dismantled after the Fair's run. This building, the Carbon and Carbide building and the Board of Trade are probably the most significant survivors of that particularly stylish architectural movement.

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Considered one of the most important buildings ever created by Frank Lloyd Wright, Unity Temple is so beautiful that its design seems to possess a palpable physical power. We attended a fabulous event hosted by the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation. Unfortunately, the dim evening light wasn't conducive to taking digital photos, but we'll be heading back ASAP to expand the gallery. Meanwhile, you can take this quick tour of the interior at the Unity Temple site, or this more elaborate virtual tour at the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation site.

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World Headquarters of the eponymous chewing gum empire, the Wrigley Building's ornament is Spanish Renaissance inspired, while the design of its eleven-story clock tower is influenced by the Giralda Tower in Seville, Spain. It was the first new building erected after the extending of Michigan Avenue north of the river with the completion of the Michigan Avenue Bridge. Illuminated by dozens of high-powered floodlights after dark, it gleams like an ivory palace in the Chicago night and remains one of the city's favorite edifices

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Perhaps the only commercial office building by architect Jens Jensen, who is known almost solely as a landscape architect (main founder of the Prairie Style of Landscape Architecture) and designer of parks. Jensen was so taken with his creation that he took one of the penthouses for himself. It became known as "The Lucky Building" because everyone who became a tenant there seemed to prosper, including a young Arthur Rubloff (a famous developer who coined the phrase "Magnificent Mile" for North Michigan Avenue).

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The Bahá’í Faith was first introduced to America at the World Parliament of Religions, held during the Columbian Exposition of 1893. The Bahá’í message of love and inclusion quickly gained adherents in this country and plans to construct a House of Worship in the US began in 1903. Architect Louis Bourgeois labored for eight years over his design, which was unanimously selected by a conclave of delegates from Bahá’í communities throughout North America. The building took over 30 years to construct, partly because funding could only come from Bahá’í members, but mainly because Bourgeois's ornate and delicate designs (some drawn on sheets of paper 109 feet long) were extremely difficult to actualize. The ingenious method finally devised was to cast panels of quartz crystal mixed with white concrete. The final effect (especially on a bright sunny day like when Kate took these photos) is absolutely dazzling.

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The Railway Exchange Building combines elements of two other famous D.H. Burnham and Company buildings, the interior light court of the Rookery Building and the ornamented terra cotta of the Reliance Building (although the design is blockier than that of the almost diaphanous Reliance). Burnham actually had his offices here during the period he was formulating the 1909 Plan of Chicago and several other of his later period buildings.

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The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks commissioned some of the top artisans, sculptors, and muralists of the era and spared no expense or embellishment when they created this monument to the thousands of Elks who lost their lives serving in WWI. The building was dedicated in 1926 to great fanfare and huge crowds, but in the intervening decades has slipped into an undeserved obscurity, with most Chicagoans nowadays unaware even of its existence. Poignant in its sincerity and stunning in its opulence, this splendid structure is Chicago's forgotten treasure.

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