Tag Archives: Skyscrapers

My Architecture & Design Photography: DANIEL H. BURNHAM (1846-1912) & CO., Fisher Building (1895-96), Chicago, Illinois. (4 Photos).

FEATURE image: FISHER BUILDING, 343 S. Dearborn Street, view from the south. Author’s photograph, December 2017.

The success of the Reliance Building at 32 N. State Street built by Daniel H. Burnham (1846-1912) and John Wellborn Root (1850-1891) in 1890-91 and Burnham & Co. in 1894-95 led directly to the construction of the Fisher Building in 1895.

Daniel Hudson Burnham, c. 1890. In 1873 Burnham and Root entered into partnership in Chicago. In 1894 Burnham reorganized his office to include, among other partners, Charles B. Atwood who designed the Fisher Building.

The Fisher Building was also designed for Burnham & Co. by Charles B. Atwood (1849-1895). The Fisher Building was three stories taller than the Reliance Building and possessed even more flamboyant Gothic detailing as it is sheathed in golden terra cotta on its visible façades.

Charles B. Atwood c.1880. Public Domain.

The Fisher Building’s façade with its depictions of sea creatures in homage to the building’s namesake, Lucius G. Fisher (1843-1916), an Illinois paper company magnate and architect, was painstakingly restored and adapted for contemporary use in 2001. The rectangular prism with its Gothicized ornamentation sits on 25-foot piles under spread foundations engineered by Edward Clapp Shankland (1854-1924).

 Ed Shankland was Daniel Burnham’s structural engineer through 1898 and worked on the Reliance Building and the Fisher Building.

In the mid 1890’s, the skyscraper was erected quickly with pride. The steel frame’s first 13 stories were erected in two weeks. The building has oriel windows and engaged colonettes at its corner piers. In 1907, a 20-story addition was built to the north by architect Peter J. Weber with Shankland also as structural engineer.

Lucius Fisher (1843-1916). Born in Wisconsin, Fisher was an Illinois paper magnate who commissioned the Daniel Burnham and Company to build the 20 story, 275 foot tall Fisher Building in the Chicago Loop in 1895. Completed in 1896, the landmark Fisher Building is the oldest extant 20 story building in Chicago. Public Domain.
In 2002 the main entries on Dearborn Street and Plymouth Court were recreated. At the same time, over 1000 wood-frame windows were replaced or repaired and over 6000 terra-cotta pieces were replaced. Author’s photograph, May 2015.
Fisher Building, looking east. Author’s photograph, September 2015.
Fisher Building (1895-86) at Plymouth Court and Van Buren Street, looking northwest. Author’s photograph, October 2017.

SOURCES:

AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Alice Sinkevitch, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, pps. 62-63.

The Sky’s The Limit: A Century of Chicago Skyscrapers, Jane H. Clarke, Pauline A. Saliga, John Zukowsky, New York: Rizzoli, 1990, pps. 33-35.

Chicago’s Famous Buildings, 5th Edition, Franze Schulze and Kevin Harrington, The University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 82-83.

Frank A. Randall, History of Development of Building Construction in Chicago, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by John D. Randall, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1999, pps. 37 and 164-65.

My Architecture & Design Photography: JEAN-PAUL VIGUIER. Sofitel Chicago Magnificent Mile (2002), 20 East Chestnut Street; Chicago, Illinois (1 Photo).

Sofitel Chicago Magnificent Mile, Chicago, Illinois, Jean-Paul Viguier.

Jean-Paul Viguier (b.1946) is a leading modern Paris-based French architect. In 2003 his Sofitel Chicago Water Tower (renamed the Sofitel Chicago Magnificent Mile) was chosen by the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) as the “best new building in Chicago in the last ten years.” The hotel opened in May 2002 with 415 rooms. Its dramatic architecture made an immediate impression not only on the city’s denizens and visitors but much of the world.

The prism-shaped, 350,000-square-foot structure was chosen by nearly 350 established Chicago-based architects as one of the city’s most outstanding achievements in architecture. The glass triangular tower ascends and thrusts over the intersection of Chestnut and Wabash Streets. Narrowing as it rises, the shape could evoke a ship’s prow—or a geometer’s trapezoid. Its expansive façades allow generous exposures of natural light as it faces east to capture sunrise over the incredible natural backdrop of Lake Michigan and southwest towards the timeless Midwestern prairie. Adding to the building’s drama and welcome grace is its exterior of horizontal cladding of visible and opaque glass in synergy with the verticality of the building’s wedge and curve. Inside, the lobby continues this building’s dramatic modernity presenting a steely structural space that is airy, sleek, and soaring.

Mr. Viguier was selected to design Sofitel Chicago Magnificent Mile during a design competition in 1998 judged by Accor hotels leadership and others. Mr. Viguier is a member of the International Academy of Architecture (IAA) and was president of AFEX (French Architects Overseas) from 1999 to 2002.

Jean-Paul Viguier.

Photo Credit: “File:Jean-Paul Viguier Wiki.jpg” by JPVAParis is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Mr. Viguier’s other internationally recognized projects include the France Televisions headquarters in Paris as well as the Cœur Défense in 2001 and the Tour Majunja in 2014 both in La Défense, France. The French architect built a two story expansion at the McNay Museum of Modern Art in San Antonio, Texas. Mr. Viguier is also architect for the Maroc Telecom Tower in Rabat, Morocco in 2013, and, in 2015, the SFR Campus in Saint-Denis, France. Another highly regarded project is, in 2013, the Cancer University Institute in Toulouse, France.

The Sofitel Chicago Magnificent Mile is also listed at no. 82 in a public poll of 150 buildings of “America’s Favorite Architecture.” The poll was conducted by The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Harris Interactive and in conjunction with the AIA’s 150th anniversary in 2007.  

In 2005, Sofitel Chicago Magnificent Mile received the MIPIM Award at their international meeting of property market sector leaders gathering in Cannes, France. Created in 1991, the MIPIM Awards is an internationally-renowned real estate competition at MIPIM, the world’s property market. It honors the most outstanding and accomplished projects, completed or yet to be built, around the world, the very best of the real estate industry.

SOURCES: https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4019734.html – retrieved May 24, 2021; AIA Guide To Chicago, 2nd edition, edited by Alice Sinkevitch, 2004, p. 130; https://legacy.npr.org/documents/2007/feb/buildings/150buildings.pdf – retrieved May 24, 2021; https://www.floordaily.net/floorfocus/aia-poll-of-americas-favorite-buildings-released – retrieved May 24, 2021; https://iaa-ngo.com/portfolio-posts/jean-paul-viguier/ – retrieved May 24, 2021; https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/chicago-architecture-boom – retrieved May 24, 2021; https://www.viguier.com/en – retrieved May 24, 2021; https://archello.com/project/campus-sfr-sfr-headquarters – retrieved May 24, 2021; https://archello.com/project/cancer-university-institute – retrieved May 24, 2021; https://www.viguier.com/en/projets/mcnay-museum-san-antonio-texas – retrieved May 24, 2021; https://www.viguier.com/en/projets/tour-maroc-telecom-rabat – retrieved May 24, 2021.

Author’s photograph of the Sofitel’s west flank was taken on June 14, 2014 at State and Chestnut Streets.

My Architecture & Design Photography: HOWARD VAN DOREN SHAW (1869-1926). The Mentor Building (1906) in Chicago and 1005 Michigan Avenue House (1913) in Evanston, Illinois. (2 Photos).

Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926), 1906, THE MENTOR BUILDING, 39 S. State Street (6 E. Monroe Street), Chicago, from the southwest. Author’s photograph, July 2015.

A Mentor building has stood on this northeast corner of State and Monroe since 1873 when there had been a 7-story building erected here.1

Howard Van Doren Shaw’s only skyscraper presents an unusual mixture of styles.

There are windows grouped in horizontal bands between a four-level base of large showroom windows. The top is classically inspired with details that are strong and idiosyncratic. The building retains the character of its classical sources though they are used as large-scale motifs.2

Shaw’s 1906 building is 17 stories high with two basements on rock caissons.3

The photograph was taken on July 5, 2015.

1 Frank A. Randall, History of Development of Building Construction in Chicago, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by John D. Randall, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1999, p, 196.

2 Alice Sinkevitch, AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, p. 59.

3 Randall, p.265.

Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926), 1913, 1005 MICHIGAN AVENUE, Evanston, Illinois. Author’s photograph, June 2022. 14.96 mb 25%

Seven years after Howard Van Doren Shaw’s sole skyscraper, Chicago Downtown’s Mentor Building (above), was built in 1906, the architect raised this highly sophisticated “great house” design in Evanston, Illinois.

The light-colored brick house is Colonial Revival with modifications. The façade’s symmetry is prominently displayed in its 5 equal openings for its two main floors and topped by a shortened pitched roof with three flat-roofed dormers. A chimney protrudes at the roof line to the north.

For the main mass there are aligned windows with a middle opening for both the first and second floor symmetrically displaying diverse residential functionality: a broad-arched porchway and genteel fanlight above a double door entry on the first floor and, at the second level. a wrought iron balcony providing a small, mainly decorative step landing.

The great house is situated on the northeast corner lot of a leafy yet trafficked suburban residential intersection, with the main building’s symmetry broken to the south by the then-popular sun porch extension. It is a low, two-story flat-roofed projection with an enclosed porch on the first floor and an open porch originally on the upper level.

SOURCE:

A Guide to Chicago’s Historic Suburbs On Wheels & On Foot, Ira J. Bach, Chicago, Athens, Ohio, London: Ohio University Press (Swallow Press), 1981, p. 518.

My Architecture & Design Photography: SOLOMON, CORDWELL, BUENZ (SBD). Park Tower Condominium (1973), 5414 N. Sheridan Road; Chicago, Illinois. (2 Photos).

Chicago. Modern. Park Tower Condominium (1973). SCB. 8/2015. 3.15 mb

Park Tower Condominium is on the lakefront next to north Lake Shore Drive and across from Foster Beach in Lincoln Park. Its address is 5414 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago

Constructed in 1973 by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz (SCB), a Chicago architectural firm founded in 1931, the tower was planned as the first of three towers in a triangular formation but the others did not materialize.

Tallest building outside Downtown Chicago for 8 miles north to Foster Beach

At 55 stories tall (513 feet high), Park Tower Condominium is the tallest structure between downtown and Foster Beach and one of the tallest structures in Chicago outside the downtown area.

Park Tower Condominiumis one of the largest all-residential buildings in the city.It was originally built as luxury rental apartments, though the building became condos in 1979.

In the Edgewater neighborhood, Park Tower Condominium is one of three residential towers in Chicago with black Miesian windows and three rounded lobes. The others are Lake Point Tower (505 North Lake Shore Drive) and Harbor Point (155 North Harbor Drive).

Chicago. Modern. Park Tower Condominium (1973). SCB. 8/2015. 3.04 mb

View from northeast looking southwest. The curtain wall of the Park Tower Condominium is beautifully detailed and proportioned.

Photographs were taken by the author on August 7, 2015.

SOURCES:

https://www.architectmagazine.com/firms/solomon-cordwell-buenz

https://www.emporis.com/buildings/117420/park-tower-condominiums-chicago-il-usa

AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Alice Sinkevitch, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, p. 241.

Photographs & text: