1872 - 1915 Post-Fire
Post Fire | Post Fire Gallery
Chicago architecture has influenced and reflected the history of American architecture. The city of Chicago, Illinois features prominent buildings in a variety of styles by many important architects. Since most buildings within the downtown area were destroyed (the most famous exception being the Water Tower) by the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, Chicago buildings are noted for their originality rather than their antiquity.
Beginning in the early 1880s, the Chicago School pioneered steel-frame construction and the use of large amounts of glass. These were the first modern skyscrapers. William LeBaron Jenney’s Home Insurance Building of 1885 was the first use of steel-skeleton instead of cast iron and stone. Louis Sullivan, realizing that the skyscraper could be used to create a new form of architecture, discarded historical precedent and designed buildings that emphasized their vertical nature. Since he was based in Chicago and many of his buildings were built there, this new form of architecture became known as the “Chicago School”.
In 1892 the Masonic Temple surpassed New York’s World Building, breaking its two year reign as the tallest skyscraper, only to be surpassed itself two years later by another New York building.
Daniel Burnham led the design of the “White City” of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition which led to a revival of Neo-Classical architecture throughout Chicago and the entire United States. He later developed the 1909 “Plan for Chicago”, perhaps the first comprehensive city plan in the U.S. The “White City” represented anything other than its host city’s architecture. Louis Sullivan said that the fair set the course of American architecture back by two decades.
The QuickTime movie shown above was taken by a Thomas Edison cinematographer in 1897 showing the busy corner of State and Madison streets, looking north toward the Masonic Temple. From the Edison film catalog stored at Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division Washington, D. C. 20540 USA.
