ARCH 416

Spring ‘15

Class 12 Building Chicago

agenda 3.4.15

Chicago School commercial architecture (secondary structures)

new materials in 19th century architecture

cast iron

plate glass

steel

old sources in Italian palazzo architecture

challenges are both technical and aesthetic

William LeBaron Jenney's response to the challenges

tertiary structures

Jenney's parks

World's Columbian Exposition

Greenhouse Architecture

Iron and steel had their beginnings in the construction of

greenhouses to protect exotic plants from Britain's

colonies.

Colonial specimens brought back to Britain required

structures that could recreate the humid heat of their

native environments.

Joseph Paxton, The Great Conservatory (The Great Stove), at Chatsworth

Great Conservatory (1840)

Huge building that took four years to construct.

28,000 square feet of enclosed space.

Largest glass building in England before Paxton’s Crystal

Palace in London, in 1851.

interior of The Great Stove at Chatsworth

Climate Control

Eight underground boilers fuelled by coal which arrived by

underground rail wagons.

Boilers fed a 7 miles of 6-inch hot water pipes.

The boiler fumes escaped through flues laid along the

ground to a chimney up in Stand Wood, well out of sight of

the garden.

First World War [1914-18]

Coal shortages meant conservatories across the UK went

unheated and many plants died.

Because of the expense of restoring the now semi-derelict

building and bearing in mind the huge cost of maintaining

and heating it, the Great Conservatory was demolished in

1920.

Joseph Paxton (1801 – 1865)

Head gardener for the 6th Duke of Devonshire at

Chatsworth House

By 1850 he had become a preeminent figure in British

horticulture and did freelance park designs that were

influential.

At Chatsworth, Paxton had the opportunity to build many

green houses

developed techniques for modular construction,

using combinations of standard-sized sheets of glass,

laminated wood, and prefabricated cast iron.

Crystal Palace (1851)

The Brief:

March 1850 the organizing committee invited submissions:

• temporary,

• as cheap as possible, and

• economical to build within the short time remaining before

the Exhibition opening, which had already been scheduled

for 1 May 1851.

Paxton's initial sketch

for the project

Crystal Palace (1851)

submission was budgeted at a remarkably low £85,800 -

by comparison, 28% of the estimated cost of a competing

design,

this was only about 2-1/2 times more than the Great Stove

at Chatsworth, but would cover roughly twenty-five times

the ground area at 77,000 square feet

The bid of Fox, Henderson and Co was accepted. Fewer

than eight months to finalize plans, manufacture the parts

and erect the building in time for 1 May 1851. He was

even able to alter the design shortly before building

began, adding a high, barrel-vaulted transept across the

centre of the building, at 90 degrees to the main gallery.

how? build modular

design shape and size based on the size of glass panes

made by Chance Brothers of Birmingham

10 inches wide by 49 inches long—largest available at the

time

Building was scaled to those dimensions; almost the whole

outer surface was glazed using millions of identical panes

(time and cost reduction)

The 3,600 glass panels simulated and then molded by industrial

robots working from a 3-D model hosted on the web.

Gustave Eiffel (1832 – 1923)

Born in Dijon, France in 1832.

Interested in construction at an early age, he attended the

École Polytechnique and later the École Centrale des Arts et

Manufactures (College of Art and Manufacturing) in Paris,

graduating in 1855.

After graduation, Eiffel specialized in metal construction,

most notably bridges.

Eiffel Tower (1889)

Begun in 1887 for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris.

12,000 different components and 2,500,000 rivets, all

designed with wind pressure in mind. This project sparked

Eiffel's interest in aerodynamics. He built a lab at its based

and used the structure for several experiments and built

the first aerodynamic laboratory at its base.

Later he built a new lab in a different location, which

included the first wind tunnel ever built. He went on to

write several books on aerodynamics, most notably

Resistance of the Air and Aviation, which the Wright

Brothers read.

Detailed study of meteorology at end of his life.

Eiffel Tower, Paris (1889)

1010 ft, tallest structure

in the world at the time

Remains the largest

iron construction in the

world

material economy

Statue of Liberty, New York

1879 Statue of Liberty's

initial internal engineer,

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc,

unexpectedly died, Eiffel

was hired

Created a new support

system for the statue that

would rely on a skeletal

structure instead of weight

to support the copper skin.

He and his team built the

statue from the ground up

and then dismantled it for

its journey to New York

Harbor.

Why build up?

1. Compressed area of Chicago's downtown—only half a

square mile—was one factor

2. Bessemer process makes steel financially viable,

producing new structure and foundation techniques

3. development of hydraulic elevators, and

4. careful attention to fireproofing

1. Downtown Chicago has a small land area with naturally defined limits.

2. Bessemer process uses iron as raw material, produces steel

which is stronger and lighter than iron. Steel can now be mass produced,

whereas previously its use was limited by cost.

3. Development of elevator technology

American Terra Cotta

Corporation

Founded in 1881, fabricated

architectural terra cotta for

more than 8,000 buildings

throughout the US and

Canada. Closed in 1966.

The illustration is from the

company newsletter

"Common Clay."

(December 1920)

Consumers Building, 1912-13

Jenney, Mundie and Jensen

secondary structures

banking/finance

insurance

office space

Are there prototypes for this?

Large urban structures that are not specifically related to

city administration or religious use?

Palazzo Pitti

c. 1450

architect: Filippo

Brunelleschi

3 floors, only five

windows on each floor

purchased in 1550 by

Eleonora da Toledo

widened and changed,

in 1560 by Bartolomeo

Ammannati and again at

beginning of 17th c.

Palazzo Pitti, c. 1450 (here with later additions)

Palazzo Rucellai

1446-1451

Leon Battista Alberti

arches, pilasters and

entablature signal

Roman antecedents

Palazzo Rucellai, completed 1451

Palazzo Medici

1444 Cosimo de Medici commissions Michelozzo to build a

palace

Clearly delineated and rusticated floors and a huge cornice

crowning the roofline, the palace stands out for the arched

windows arranged along its front and the partially closed

loggia on the corner of the building. Two asymmetrical doors

led to the typical fifteenth century courtyard, built following

models of Brunelleschi and decorated with graffiti, originally

opened on to a typically Renaissance garden.

By 1460 the palace was complete (it was also the residence

of Lorenzo the Magnificent).

Palazzo Medici, c. 1460

Palazzo Strozzi, begun 1489, finished 1538, confiscated by the Medici in

1538, returned to the family 30 years later, Benedetto da Maiano was the architect

two questions

one is technical—how to build using steel

the other is aesthetic—what should it look like?

Home Insurance Building

Architect: William Le Baron Jenney

Year: 1885 as a 10 story building

Addition: two floors were added in 1890.

Demolished: 1931 to permit construction of the LaSalle

National Bank Building (aka Field Building).

Often cited as the first skyscraper because it used steel

framing (in combination with load bearing masonry) to

produce a more efficient (more usable space) and

economical (cheaper to construct) building.

building as advertisement

for the wealth and solidity

of the business

William Lebaron JENNEY

The Fair Store, 1891

William LeBaron JENNEY, Fair Building, rendering of steel skeleton, 1891

William LeBaron JENNEY

Fair Building

rendering of column to beam joints

general construction view

1891

\William Le Baron Jenney

First Leiter Building

1897, demolished 1972

Chicago, Illinois

William LeBaron JENNEY, Leiter Building II, 1891

cast iron staircase, lobby, Leiter Building II

detail of cast iron staircase, interior Leiter Building II

Second Leiter, detail of fenestration

Second Leiter, detail with pilasters and stylized dentil molding

detail of stylized capital, Second Leiter

William LeBaron JENNEY

Manhattan Building

1891

view of front entrance, west facade with rusticated granite blocks

Manhattan Building

east facade

William Le Baron JENNEY

Ludington Building

1891-1892

Renovated 1920, A.S. Coffen

tertiary structures

elaborations of culture:

theaters

opera house

concert halls

art museums

parks

mania for exhibitions in the 19th c.

Chicago Parks

The west park system of Chicago was established in 1869.

Douglas, Garfield, and Humboldt parks and their connecting

boulevards were laid out by architect William LeBaron

Jenney in 1871.

At Garfield, originally known as Central Park, Jenney’s plan

was built-out slowly over the next 3 decades:

• east lagoon,

• suspension bridge

• small conservatory

• Victorian bandstand

• horse racing track

William LeBaron JENNEY, Garfield Park Suspension Bridge

William LeBaron JENNEY, Humboldt Park, 1870-1906

William LeBaron JENNEY, Humboldt Park, 1870-1906

World's Columbian ExpositionThe first world's fair, London's Crystal Palace Exhibition of

1851, was a celebration of industrial and colonial power.

In US 1876 Centennial in Philadelphia was not a

commercial success. Celebration planned for the 400th

anniversary of Christopher Columbus's landing in

America.

Intense lobbying: New York City, Washington, D.C., St.

Louis, and Chicago (this is when Chicago got the name of

"that windy city" from the editor of the New York Sun).

Philip Armour and Gustavus Swift were among the

backers.

Dedication ceremonies held on October 21, 1892, but the

fairgrounds were not opened to the public until May 1,

1893. The exposition closed on October 30, 1893.

Dedication ceremony

October 21, 1892

Planning the Fair

Downtown commercial interests favored a central location,

but struggles over property rights and traffic congestion

forced a move to Jackson Park, a marshy bog seven

miles south of the Loop.

Daniel H. Burnha named the exposition's director of

works, and George R. Davis, director-general.

Both drew inspiration from earlier fairs, especially the

1889 Paris Universal Exposition with its famed Eiffel

Tower. How would Chicago make a distinctive mark?

assembling the A-list

Architecture and sculpture would be to the Chicago fair

what engineering had been to the Paris exposition. John

W. Root died suddenly in 1891, Burnham went on alone,

hiring:

Frederick Law Olmsted for landscape design

Sculpture:

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Frederick MacMonnies

Daniel Chester French.

MacMonnies, The Triumph of Columbia

architects

Administration, Richard Morris Hunt;

Agriculture, by Charles McKim, William Mead, and Stanford

White;

Electricity, by Henry Van Brunt and Frank Howe;

Horticulture, by William L. Jenney and William B. Mundie;

Fisheries, by Henry Ives Cobb;

Machinery Hall, by Robert Peabody and John Stearns;

Manufactures and Liberal Arts, by George B. Post;

Mines and Mining, by Solon Beman;

Transportation, by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan.

The "White City"

With the exception the Transportation Building, all had a

uniform cornice height and were covered in a mixture of

hemp fiber and plaster, giving them a chalky white

appearance.

High-minded, Beaux-Arts portion of the fair on the outside,

these housed exhibits for various trades and

manufactures in large warehouse-like spaces.

Olmsted's

plan for the

fairgrounds

Childe Hassam, Horticulture Building, 1893, oil on canvas, 18 1/2 x 26 1/4 in.

Charles B. Atwood

Palace of the Fine Arts, 1893

Palace of Fine Arts

Palace of Fine Arts, interior view

Relocated and rebuilt in stone, Museum of Science and Industry

Administration in the center, Electricity to the right, Machinery to the left

lit by electric light

Merchant Tailors, Fisheries & Manufactures buildings

watercolor painting, Electricity Building

Thomas Edison

Tower of Light

1893

west entrance, Manufactures Building

Agriculture Building

Agriculture Building, interior

Palace of Mechanic Arts

interior

Machinery Hall

Louis Sullivan

Transportation Building

Louis Sullivan, "Golden Door" of the Transportation Building

interior, Mines and Mining Building

detail of Administration Building

California Building

Bertha Palmer

organizer of the Board of Lady Managers

Model kitchen

Woman's Buildings

The Reason Why

Columbia has bidden the civilized world to join with her in

celebrating the four-hundredth anniversary of the discovery

of America, and the invitation has been accepted. At Jackson

Park are displayed exhibits of her natural resources, and her

progress in the arts and sciences, but that which would best

illustrate her moral grandeur has been ignored.

The exhibit of the progress made by a race in 25 years of

freedom as against 250 years of slavery, would have been

the greatest tribute to the greatness and progressiveness of

American institutions which could have been shown the

world. The colored people of this great Republic number

eight millions – more than one-tenth the whole population of

the United States. They were among the earliest settlers of

this continent, landing at Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 in a

slave ship, before the Puritans, who landed at Plymouth in

1620. They have contributed a large share to American

prosperity and civilization. The labor of one-half of this

country has always been, and is still being done by them.

The first crédit this country had in its commerce with foreign

nations was created by productions resulting from their labor.

The wealth created by their industry has afforded to the white

people of this country the leisure essential to their great

progress in education, art, science, industry and invention.

Those visitors to the World's Columbian Exposition who

know these facts, especially foreigners will naturally ask:

Why are not the colored people, who constitute so large an

element of the American population, and who have

contributed so large a share to American greatness, more

visibly present and better represented in this World's

Exposition? Why are they not taking part in this glorious

celebration of the four-hundredth anniversary of the

discovery of their country? Are they so dull and stupid as to

feel no interest in this great event? It is to answer these

questions and supply as far as possible our lack of

representation at the Exposition that the Afro-American has

published this volume.

exhibit in the Woman's Building

The exhibits

Davis and his team of directors had to select millions of

exhibits. Smithsonian Institution's G. Brown Goode

conceptualized the fair as a veritable encyclopedia of

civilization.

Idea borrowed from Paris Fair of 1889 which included

anthropological displays from French colonies around the

world.

The Midway directed by Harvard's Frederic Ward Putnam,

who had already been chosen to organize an

Anthropology Building at the fair. Putnam envisioned the

Midway as a living outdoor museum of “primitive”

humanity.

The attractions on the Midway, however, were commercial

ventures organized by entrepreneurs who obtained

concessions through the Ways and Means Committee of

the World's Columbian Commission. By opening day, the

Midway boasted an African village and a massive Streets

of Cairo concession along with other ethnological shows.

using the Kodak on the Midway

stereoscope viewer and souvenir cards