Auditorium Building
Auditorium Building | |
Chicago Landmark | |
Location | 430 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, Illinois |
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Coordinates | 41°52′34″N 87°37′31″W / 41.87611°N 87.62528°W |
Area | 67,699.5 square feet (6,289.49 m2) |
Built | 1889 |
Architect | Louis Sullivan Dankmar Adler |
Architectural style | Late-19th- and early-20th-century American movements |
Part of | Historic Michigan Boulevard District |
NRHP reference No. | 70000230[1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | April 17, 1970[2] |
Designated NHL | May 15, 1975[3] |
Designated CL | September 15, 1976 |
The Auditorium Building in Chicago is one of the best-known designs of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler. Completed in 1889, the building is located at the northwest corner of South Michigan Avenue and Ida B. Wells Drive. The building was designed to be a multi-use complex, including offices, a theater, and a hotel. As a young apprentice, Frank Lloyd Wright worked on some of the interior design.
The Auditorium Theatre is part of the Auditorium Building and is located at 50 East Ida B. Wells Drive. The theater was the first home of the Chicago Civic Opera and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
The building was added to the
Origin and purpose
The building was to include an office block and a first class hotel. Peck persuaded many Chicago business tycoons to go on board with him, including Marshall Field, Edson Keith, Martin A. Ryerson, Charles L. Hutchinson and George Pullman. The association hired the renowned architectural firm of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan to design the building. At the time, a young Frank Lloyd Wright was employed at the firm as draftsman, and he may have contributed to the design.[5]
The Auditorium was built for a
motifs, are among the nearest equivalents to European Art Nouveau architecture.[6]
Design
Sullivan and Adler designed a tall structure with load-bearing outer walls, and based the exterior appearance partly on the design of
One of the most innovative features of the building was its massive raft
The resulting raft distributed the weight of the massive outer walls over a large area. However, the weight of the masonry outer walls in relation to the relatively lightweight interior deformed the raft during the course of a century, and today portions of the building have settled as much as 29 inches. This deflection is clearly visible in the theater lobby, where the mosaic floor takes on a distinct slope as it nears the outer walls. This settlement is not because of poor engineering but the fact the design was changed during construction. The original plan had the exterior covered in lightweight terra-cotta, but this was changed to stone after the foundations were under construction. Most of the settlement occurred within a decade after construction, and at one time a plan existed to shorten the interior supports to level the floors but this was never carried out.
In the center of the building was a 4,300 seat
Housed in the building around the central space were an 1890 addition of 136 offices and a 400-room hotel,[8][9] whose purpose was to generate much of the revenue to support the opera. While the Auditorium Building was not intended as a commercial building, Peck wanted it to be self-sufficient. Revenue from the offices and hotel was meant to allow ticket prices to remain reasonable. In reality, both the hotel and office block became unprofitable within a few years.
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interior cross-section
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foundation
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basement
Later uses
On October 5, 1887, President Grover Cleveland laid the cornerstone for the Auditorium Building. The 1888 Republican National Convention was held in a partially finished building where Benjamin Harrison was nominated as a presidential candidate. On December 9, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison dedicated the building and opera star Adelina Patti sang "Home Sweet Home" to thunderous applause.[citation needed] Adler & Sullivan had also opened their offices on the 16th and 17th floors of the Auditorium tower.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuted on October 16, 1891, and made its home in the Auditorium Theatre until moving to Orchestra Hall in 1904.[8]
The opera company renting the accommodation moved to the
In 1952, Congress Parkway was widened, bringing the curb to the southern edge of the building. To make room for a sidewalk, some ground-floor rooms and part of the theater lobby were removed and a sidewalk arcade created.[10]
On October 31, 1967, the Auditorium Theatre reopened and through 1975, the Auditorium served as a rock venue. Among other notable acts, the Grateful Dead played there ten times from 1971 through 1977.
The Doors also played their first concert at the Auditorium Building after their arrest of singer Jim Morrison on June 14, 1969.
It was declared a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1975.
The building was equipped with the first
On April 30, 2015, the
Gallery
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Exterior detail, seen from Congress Parkway
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Auditorium Theatre interior from the balcony
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Interior detail of the Auditorium Theatre
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Auditorium Hotel – dining hall from the South
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Auditorium Hotel – detail of the grand stairs
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Postcard of building circa 1906, with handwritten note: "This is where I work!"
References
Notes
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ a b Pitts, Carolyn (March 10, 1975). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Auditorium Building". National Park Service. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
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(help) - ^ a b "Auditorium Building". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. May 15, 1975. Archived from the original on October 9, 2012. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
- ^ "Auditorium Building". Commission on Chicago Landmarks. Chicago Department of Housing and Economic Development, Historic Preservation Division. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
- ^ "Some interior details were probably drawn by Frank Lloyd Wright, who started in Sullivan's office as a draftsman in 1887." Banister Fletcher. A History of Architecture. p. 1241.
- ^ Roth, Leland M. A Concise History of American Architecture. p. 179-80
- ISBN 0-8212-2667-3.
- ^ a b c d e Henning, Joel (September 6, 2008). "Form Follows Function, Elegantly: Louis Sullivan designed the Auditorium Theatre's interior to complement its acoustics-driven shape". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company. Archived from the original on September 11, 2008. Retrieved September 7, 2008.
- Chicago Historical Society. Retrieved September 7, 2008.
- ^ "Auditorium Building". Emporis. Archived from the original on May 12, 2015.
Further reading
- JSTOR 991376.
External links
- Official website
- "Auditorium Building". Emporis. Archived from the original on May 12, 2015.
- Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. IL-1007, "Auditorium Building", 120 photos, 70 measured drawings, 94 data pages, 11 photo caption pages
- Theatre History by Broadway in Chicago
- Auditorium Theatre Programs at the Newberry Library
- Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University at Explore Chicago
- Auditorium Building at GreatBuildings.com by ArchitectureWeek
- Images of the Auditorium Building by Louis Sullivan, 1885–89, by Mary Ann Sullivan, Bluffton University
- Portrait medallions of Richard Wagner and Joseph Haydn at the Auditorium Theatre by Johannes Gelert
- Portrait medallions of Demosthenes and William Shakespeare at the Auditorium Theatre by Johannes Gelert
- High-resolution 360° Panoramas and Images of Audtiorium Building | Art Atlas