MY CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE
GIL GARCIA

Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, I now live in the fair city of san Antonio, Texas. After 55 years in the Windy City I still consider myself a Chicago citizen and try to visit often, enjoying the sites, sounds, foods, energies, and ethnicities of this Midwestern metropolis. I have always had an interest in Chicago Architecture and have had so much interest in the subject lately, decided to do a paper or maybe a blog to document my experiences as they relate to Chicago Architecture while growing up in the city. I was born in an area of a famous early architectural movement in Chicago and each time I go back I focus my photography on it. I have been an armchair historian for years and just want to get some of my experiences and thoughts on paper. Many very famous landmarks were just blocks from me and I never knew it until many years later. I'm sure many people who still live there do not realize it either. I guess it took the cheap, boxlike, inartistic, flat, bland, plain architecture I see everyday to help me appreciate what I want to express here.

After the Chicago Fire the direction of Chicago building growth was forever altered. While the fire damage was devastating, it proved to be a benefit to the city and surrounding communities. New innovations like non union inexpensive labor, fireproofing, elevators, caissons, steel skeletal framing, and balloon framing made it possible to build fast and big. The realization that the area was becoming the rail, manufacturing, and business center of the Midwest reinforced Chicago’s attitude to become the biggest and the best. There was no lack of financial backing for these plans. Millionaires were made overnight in the real estate, meat packing, rail, grain, manufacturing, and trading sectors before the Fire. Names like Marshall Field, Potter Palmer, George Pullman, Philip Amour, Cyrus Hall McCormick, Martin Ryerson, and William Butler Ogden dominated the financial and social circles. All were ambitious investors and innovators eager to take advantage of the challenges and opportunities presented at the time. The growing complexity of large business in Chicago, along with the increasing costs of real estate led to a concentration of the business processes. This led architects to design buildings with these factors in mind. The pioneer architects in this movement were Jenny, Adler, Sullivan, Root and Burnham. Once the architectural die was cast, the growth of Chicago which began in the Chicago loop spread its steel and concrete tentacles in all directions including vertically.

I was born on 18th and Wabash Ave. on the near south side of Chicago. This was three blocks from the famous Prairie Ave. Historic District, where many of the city fathers favored to build their mansions at the turn of the century, and walking distance from the famous Downtown Loop, home to so many historic high rises and office buildings, and home to many early innovations that changed the direction of big city construction for years to come. It took me years to realize I was in a modern city-like museum of architectural wonders, built and inspired by architects who were to set the tone and direction modern American architecture was to follow for many years to come. While many of these steel and stone wonders were demolished over the years, there yet exist many examples of the times. On each visit to the city, I discover more of what I have missed in the past. What follows is a number of examples of these famous buildings along with my personal comments on them.
One of the most famous buildings in Chicago is the Chicago Auditorium. The extraordinary engineering talent of Dankmar Adler and the architectural genius of Louis H. Sullivan created this building to reflect the cultural maturity of Chicago. Combining hotel and office space with a splendid theater designed for an opera company, the Auditorium was a turning point in Sullivan's career and a milestone in the development of modern architecture. Sullivan's genius for architectural ornamentation is displayed in the building's interior, where most of the public rooms are lavishly finished. The grandest interior space is the theater itself, with four broad elliptical arches spanning the width of the theater and decorated by plaster reliefs covered with gold leaf.
Carson Pierre Scott is one of the most important structures in early modern architecture, famed for its influential modular construction and design. Visionary architect Louis Sullivan shaped this commercial building--originally built for the Schlesinger and Mayer department store--into a dramatically animated structure that inseparably merges beauty and function. The ornament of the lower two stories is frozen in cast iron, while at the same time giving the impression of being in fluid motion. It is an excellent example of Sullivan's genius for architectural ornament.

The Sears Building is renowned as one of the nation's most important early examples of skeletal-frame commercial architecture, this building is discussed in every major history of American architecture. A National Historic Landmark, it was designed by William Le Baron Jenney, the so-called "father of the skyscraper." This building was erected by Levi Leiter; later, it was leased by Sears, Roebuck & Co. for its flagship department store. It is the city's oldest surviving department store, a type of building that contributed to State Street's development as a retailing thoroughfare.
The Glessner House in the Prairie Historical District is a mature design by renowned architect Henry Hobson Richardson, Glessner House is famous for its site development, innovative floor plan, and rugged Romanesque Revival-style facade. A reminder of what Prairie Avenue looked like when it was home to some of the city's finest mansions, the Glessner House is the only remaining Chicago building by this Boston-based architect. The building was designed for John J. Glessner, an executive with the International Harvester Company. It nowcontains a house museum, which is part of the Prairie Avenue District.
The Coliseum was built on Wabash Avenue, between 14th and 16th Streets, by candy manufacturer Charles F. Gunther 1899. It took the place of the transplanted Libby Prison that Gunter had shipped, brick by brick, from its original site in Richmond, Virginia in 1889, and operated as a Civil War museum. Gunter preserved part of Libby's facade, leading to the misconception that the Coliseum itself had once housed Union prisoners of war.