FIRST CHICAGO SCHOOL

We call Chicago School to the movement architecture that was developed in this city all the turn of the last decade of 19th and 20th century. Another name to the movement us Commercial Style. The architects of this era projected skyscraper for the first time, and they are one of the first typologies of modern architecture. The first skyscrapers was built because the architects and the engineers started to develop new techniques such as the steel frame, that allow grow up in height without grow up the volume of the pillars, and it allow open a lot of holes in the faade. In 1864 the lift, that was invented by E. G. Ottis, was installed in Chicago. But the reason why the skyscraper was created is that Chicago started to grow up very quickly and because of the speculation the ground was more expensive each day, so they needed to build a lot of in less space, so the solution was grow up in high. We can divide Chicago school on First Chicago School started hit buildings during 1880s, and the Second Chicago School started with Ludwing Mies van der Rohe in 1940. In 1885 the architect and engineer William Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907) built Home Insurance Building, the first building, which had ten flours, which was built completle with a metallic skeleton, with iron columns and steel beams. This way to built will be the archetype of the construction system of the skyscraper. In the first part of the Chicago School, Louis Sullivan (1856-1924),Dankmar Adler(1844-1900), Daniel Burnham(1846-1912), John Wellborn Root (18501891) William Holabird (1854-1923) y Martn Roche(18531927), who worked in Jenneys studio, were the most important. All of them worked in partners in one period of their life, Adler and Sullivan, Burnham and Root and Holabird and Roche. With Le baron Jenney, Henry Hobson Richardson ( 1838-1886) was a big influence in the Chicago School, but we cant considerer that he was part of this school because hi built all over the East Coast. His main building in Chicago was the Field Wholesale Store. His chief characteristic was the had wrought- iron beams and cast-iron columns but the most important was the lucid and forceful of the commercial character. Rihardsons buildings wasnt the most important but his eloquent was very useful for the Chicago school, and he exerted a singular influence on the Auditorium Building of Adler and Sullivan.

Sullivan is considered the most relevant architect for this period. One of the reason is that he defended that architecture isnt just build, architecture is also a way to do the life more democratic. Sullivan went to Paris in 1874 to study there Beaux Arts, so he knew about aesthetic and beuty, and it is the reason that he thought that as important is the structure of a building as the beauty of themselves. At the ends of 1870s he had met Dankmar Adler, who was destined to form partnership from 1881 until 1895. After that he worked alone, but he didnt have many works because the style which was in America, eclectisim style which is mix a lot of styles, came back, and he was all his live fighting versus it. The main building that the partnership, Adler and Sullivan, projected was Auditorium Building, completed in 1889. It is a combination of deluxe hotel with 400 rooms, 136 office and a huge theater with 4237 seating. The interior was built with iron columns and girders alike but the outer bearing walls were made of brick clad in stone, as it was usual in the time. This building was the tallest building in the city and largest building in the United States. The engineering problems was solved by Dankmar Adler. He used the same techniques to construct it as the normal techniques for a bridge, meanwhile Sullivan was designing the interior space, which is considerate even nowadays very beautiful. Sullivan thought about the faade like the faade in the Quattrocento in Firenze. The two first floors are with granite more rustic and when the floors are taller, the material is sandstone, and they have a lot of windows. The building is thought in two ways horizontal and vertical, so we see the building like an integrate whole. In this time there were another couple of architects who had adopted the stile of le Baron Jenney: Burnham & Root. We can see this influence in The Rookery(1888), which is one of the masterpiece buildings. It is 11 stories high, and it is considered the oldest standing high-rise in Chicago. The light is very important here, it has in the upper floors an open court from where the natural light comes into. The street faade in very decorated however the court faade is strikingly innovative in character. The windows which are in rows for nine floors, and the narrow terra-cota bands that frame those rows make us think about an early version of the ribbon window. The red marble, terra cotta and brick facade of the building is a combination of Roman Revival and Queen Anne styles that embraced Richardson in Romanesque architecture. The building, which is a combination of iron framing and masonry bearing walls, marked a transition from masonry load-bearing

structures to steel skeleton load-bearing structures. In fact, the Landmarks Commission citation commends "development of the skeleton structural frame using cast iron columns, wrought iron spandrel beams, and steel beams to support party walls and interior floors". Aside from the first two floors of metalframed perimeter walls, the walls are all masonry. The building is known for its semi-circular staircase west of the light court. The lobby is a perfect example of the iron-and-glass roof construction. In 1905 Frank Lloyd Wright remodeled it, he did it more modern. Another important edifice is the Monadnock Building(1889-1893). It is the tallest building built with bearing mansory, and the biggest office edifice in the world. The earliest aesthetic of a skyscraper was a wall-bearing structure. This is one of the main charactericts and the other is the somber brick walls. They represented an altogether conventional construction system. They use simplify form of construction. After this building is where the Chicago aesthetic manifest begin: decoration is meant to be either subdued or banished altogether, in favor of the direct experience of the structure and function, which in turn may take on its own elegance solely through the designers attention to portion of line, plane and volume, and to the frank expression of materials and natural colors. When Burnham was young, he wasnt very successful. He was very dreadful student, he failed the exams in the faculties. But when he had arrived to Chicago he really wanted to go into Jenneys firm, with a view to be an architect. In 1873 he met John Root with whom he formed a partnership. Root was totally opposite of Burnham. He studied music, arts, architecture and civil engineering . Daniel Burnham was chief consulting architect for the Columbian Exposition of 1893, but he was alone because, Root had died in 1891. He did also the Chicago Plan completed in 1909. He was very influenced by the Fair, and he changed his architecture according with the people wishes, and it is because in the final part of his life, he became very classic, and he was very criticized by Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. The problem that architects from the First Chicago school was that often they where forced to choose between considerations of beauty and utility. Adler and Sullivan ,for example, considered more beauty than utility but in the other hand William Holabird and Martin Roche preferred utility. They worked in the same way that Le baron Jenney, doing efforts to create something functional and economical. Holabird and Roche built Tacoma Building(1889) , the first office building with a clearly open faade and made completely steel and iron. With this constructions they began to have problems because in case of fire, the fire will heater all the

structure and then it would be collapsed and broken. This building is one of the first which have a free floor, where you can change the disposition of the walls. After Root death, the firm where Burnham and Root worked will be called Burnham & Co. and will be one of the most important in the century, even more than when Burnham worked with Root. The level of quality is manifest in the Reliance Building( 1890-1895). The interesting thing is that this building was the first which had in its faade, like main material, glass. This building is similar to Manhattan Building by Jenney. It was one of the first to use steel frame, but you an never see this steel because it is coated to protect it of the fire. In this building the solve for the first time the problem to clean the windows. They divide that in parts, the middle one is always the same, and you can open the others two. Second Leiter Building was built by Le Baron Jenney in 1889-1891. With this construction, a huge store, he reached the climax of his career as a designer and started to work more with the utility. The structure is visible in the exterior, the metal columns and the beams formed the faade, and they gave it a perfect proportion. Fisher Building (1895-1896). It is a building was made by Burnham and Co. This building was finished two years before the Reliance, but the structure of the faade is practically identical. It is considered one of the most elegant building of the First Chicago school. The Fisher Building features terracotta carvings of various aquatic creatures including fish and crabs. In addition, there are eagles, dragons and mythical creatures depicted on the facade as well Carson Pirie, Scott Store (1889,1903-1904, 1906) was made by Louis Sullivan. It is his last major work and also the most important.It is a commercial building. The faade is rather standard: modular frame consisting of columns and beams. The skeleton is clearly expressed here. The white terracotta sheathing and the recessed windows accents it even more. Nowadays the exterior is in excellent condition but the interior is altered. After the turn of the century, young architects started to build using new construction methods and forms developed during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. The most important of the younger architects was the trio of Richard Schmidt(1865-1958), Hugh Garden (1873-1961) and Edgar Martin(1871-1951). The most famous building is the Montgomery Ward Warehouse. It is supported by a reinforced concrete frame on wood pilings, it was for a long time the largest reinforced concrete edifice in the city. The accent is horizontal. It stills in good condition.

Another architect who influence the Chicago School was Frank Lloyd Wright (1869, 1959), we cant considered he like a member but he is very important in the developing of the city. He studied engineering in Wisconsin but he didnt graduate. He worked with Adler and Sullivan, and it influenced a lot in his future works. He was never committed to the urban ideal. He developed the concept organic architecture he will be influence of a whole school of younger architects. At the time of the first Chicago School and when he started to build alone, he did his famous Prairie houses. He bet for the houses whit a free floor, where you can move to one room to other, without using doors. He was influenced of the Fair of Chicago when he saw the Japanese traditional domestic architecture, with very big roof, and where the horizontal plane is the important. Ward W. Willits House 1902. The exterior have relation with the interior, and this, with the function. The chimney articulates all the house, it is the center and all the parts move dynamically outward. The horizontal is emphatic by the low hipped roof and the rhythmic rows of casement windows. The faade is symmetrical to the street. The plan is a cruciform with four wings that extend out from a central hearth. Unity Church and parish House 1906. This is one of the few public building that Wright built.It replaced an older timber building destroyed by fire in 1904. It was his first structure in concrete, material that he used a lot after. The building have two volumes one square in plan and the other nearly a rectangle and they are related to each other in scale and detail. In this building we can see the way to think of Wright. He designed the building such way when you go into you are led to the main auditorium by a circuitous route which effectively prepares him for the spectacular larger space beyond. The ceiling is splendid coffered, and here is where the cubism is present. Avery Coonley House (1908) is one of the most luxurious house of the Prairie but it isnt just a house, it is also an entire complex designed. The complex have a lot of colors and with richly decorated leaded windows and skylights. The lower exterior is stucco rising to a ceramic tile banding with a geometric pattern. The gardens contain terraces, shallow planters and a large reflecting pool. In the interior are normal the changes of the height, he played to surprise people.

Robie House (1909).This house, is the most accomplished work form the pre World War I years, and it is a good example also of the Prairie houses. The silhouette is long and low in deference to the flad land beneath it. Typical of Wright's Prairie houses, he designed not only the house, but all of the interiors, the windows, lighting, rugs, furniture and textiles. In plan, the house is designed as two large rectangles that seem to slide by one another. The rooms seem to grow outward form the hearth. The exterior form is a derivation of the organic

spaces in the interior. The bold interplay of horizontal planes about the chimney mass, and the structurally expressive piers and windows, established a new form of domestic design In 1922 The Tribune, the citys most important newspaper, wanted a new office building, which had to be the most beautiful building all over the world, and for sure, it had to be a skyscraper, so they offered 100.000 $ to the architect who propose the best solution. This request was The Chicago Tribune Competition. In this competition took part 260 architects from 32 countries. Also European architects participated. After the World War I in Europe the people started to like the skyscraper. Famous architects in Europe who proposed projects were Walter Gropius with Adolf Meyer, Bruno and Max Taut, Eliel Saarinen, Adolf Loos and Hugo Hring. The suggestion of the European architects were very innovative the winner was Raymond Hood and Mead Howells from New York, and they proposed a really conservative vertically continuous Gothic tower with a lot of ornaments. The skeleton of the building was made with steel frame, but it was concealed behind shafts of stone and decorative excrescences.