Fisher Building

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Fisher Building
Life Span: 1896-Present
Location: NE corner of Dearborn and Van Buren streets
Architect: D. H. Burnham & Co., Peter J. Weber (Annex)

Lakeside Business Directory of the City of Chicago, 1899

Fisher Bldg.

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1904
Fisher Bldg.—279 Dearborn cor. Vanburen.

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1904
Fisher Bldg.—343 S Dearborn cor. Vanburen.

Chicago Tribune, December 29, 1895

BUILDING OF THE YEAR
Chicago has not fared well In the way of new buildings when previous years are taken into comparison. A vast amount of building was done in the period before the World’s Fair and each year s record still suffers by a comparison with that. Cost of buildings in 1895 has been satisfactory as compared with last year, while tite number of buildings and the amount of frontage involved have shown a decrease. Among the more prominent buildings of the year are the Fisher, the Great Northern Hotel Theater and office, the Studebaker, Lewis Institute, and the Davies.

The Fisher Building is being erected on Dearborn and Van Buren streets and Plymouth place for L. G. Fisher. The building is twenty stories and basement high and its cost when completed is estimated at $615,000. The exterior construction is of semi-glazed terra cotta of a yellowish shade and the design is in the French Gothic. The building fronts seventy feet on Van Butren street and about 100 feet each on Dearborn street and Plymouth Place. The principal entrance, seventeen feet wide, is on Dearborn street, in the northern part of the building.

It will lead immediately to the elevators, which will be located on the north wall. The north wail is also constructed of the yellowish semi-glazed tile above the height of 130 feet, which is the limit of fireproof buildings under the present ordinance.

The Dearborn street frontage has four bay windows extending from the top of the first story to the top of the seventeenth, ending In a graceful arch at that point. On the Van Buren street front are two bay windows, while the Plymouth place front has three. The interior is of steel construction, with tile floors and partitions. Six high speed elevators 4½ x 6½ feet, will have automatic openings, double doors, opening the full width of the car.

The building will be equipped with steam heat and electricity. The vestibule and entrance hall of the building will be finished in onyx and bronze, the floor being of mosaic. The ceiling and staircase are of the finest imported marble, while the elevator enclosures vill be of solid bronze. Above the first story the floors in the halls are of mosaic and the walls wainscoted in marble to a height of seven feet. The interior woodwork is of quarter-sawed mahogany, the glass in the doors being of crystalline plate and the rest plate.

Each room will contain a marble washbasin with a plate glass mirror and a coat closet. In connection with the barber shop will be maintained two bathrooms for the use of the occupants of the building. The first story is divided into ten stores, each 13×28 feet: or they will be arranged to the desires of the tenants. The second story is planned with a view to its use by a bank, and the basement may be used for safety deposit vaults. D. H. Burnham & Co. are the architects of the building. The ground on which the structure rests is under lease to Mr. Fisher by the Jennings estate for a term of ninety-nine years, the ground rent beling $4,200 a year.

Fireproof Magazine, November, 1903

The Fisher Building
The Fisher building in Chicago, at the time of its completion seven years ago, was a record breaking construction, not only in point of time and the rapidity with which the work was carried through, but more particularly in the new and normal methods followed in the use and application of the steel and its encasement, tested fireproofing.

The building stands to-day a monument and a witness to the practicability of standard fireproof construction, its permanency as an investment and the rapidity and ease of its accomplishment. Those interested in fireproofing and the general subject of fireproof construction cannot fail to be interested in a review at this time of the methods followed in the erection of the Fisher building, and especially in view of the fact that more recently standard fireproof construction has been made the butt of criticism by interested persons with preconceived ideas and prepossession in favor of the innovation of concrete in substitution for steel and tile. Steel and concrete foundations and steel frames, or what is more generally and
popularly designated as a steel skeleton frame, has enabled us to build structures of enormous size and elevation with perfect safety, and within the limits of a wise economy.

The encasement of the steel frame in tested fireproofing of hollow tile and terra cotta, have enabled us to render such constructions fireproof, thus practically rendering the construction perpetual, from a building and investment point of view, as well as in fact. One of the marvelous things about the Fisher building, when it was under way and a subject of very wide comment, was the fact that for the first time in human experience one of the greatest commercial structures in the world was erected almost entirely without bricks.

The Fisher building is triangular in form, resembling in marked degree the celebrated Flat Iron building of New York city.

The fronts are covered with cellular terra cotta, which is applied to the steel supporting members , surrounding the transoms between the windows, leaving two- thirds of the exterior to be enclosed with glass.

The steel skeleton frame of the Fisher building is covered throughout by hollow tile up to the top of the tenth story, and thence upward to the top with cellular terra cotta, which is the only suggestion of a wall in the entire structure. It may be remarked, however, at this point that there is no wall construction in the Fisher building, in fact, there are no walls, that which resembles wall construction being in fact nothing more nor less than ornamental outside facing of tile supported independently on each floor by the steel skeleton frame. The Fisher building is located on the triangular block between Dearborn street and Plymouth place, opening upon Plymouth place, Dearborn and Van Buren streets. The lot is 70 by 100 feet, on Van Buren and Dearborn streets respectively From this narrow base the Fisher building is carried to a height of 235 feet from curb to cornice—in all eighteen stories, besides attic and basement.

The north end of the structure is carried up one story higher to admit of elevator
construction. The cubic area of the Fisher building is 1,960,000 feet, the entire cost $575,000, or approximately thirty cents per cubic foot. Every detail of construction, interior arrangements, and the scheme of ornamentation was the work of D. H. Burnham & Co. of Chicago, architects for the building and supervisors of the construction. An admirable provision made by the Burnham office was provision for exterior light to every office in the building, in which connection it will be observed from the illustrations that above the second story bay windows are the characteristics of the construction, and are found in every room from the third to the seventeenth story, inclusive. The ground floor is subdivided for shops and stores, in the rear of which broad, cross corridors pass, affording means of interior communication. These interior corridors are perhaps the finest in Chicago, richly decorated in mosaic, and illustrating a color scheme of the most perfect blend and taste. There are spacious accommodations for one of the largest city banks upon the second floor, other space in the building being leased for the usual office purposes. The elevator equipment is one of the best in the country, consisting of six hydraulic passenger elevators of the most improved type.

In regard to the fireproofing of the Fisher building, it is considered as one of the most perfect nodern constructions. The structural steel frame upon which the entire support depends is protected and covered throughout with hollow terra cotta tile. The floor arches are of tile built on the latest and most improved “end pressure system,” the partitions also being constructed of the same material, though of a lighter make.

The interior decoration of the Fisher building is not only architecturally a credit to the artistic judgment and taste of those who evolved it, but in the combination and blend of colors the effect is without question the most harmonious and pleasing of any similar decoration in the western metropolis. The floors and walls of the halls are of marble mosaic, while the office panels are of white maple, as well as the floors, the inside wood finish throughout being of the finest polished mohogany. The wainscoting of the halls, seven feet in height, is all veined Italian marble, brought from the quaries of Carrara, Italy. In the main corridor and upon the first floor the marble employed is of the variety known as “Italian Pavonazzo,” set in the form of panels, ribbed with metal, yielding an effect of solidity, as well as the impression of original and unique decoration.

The paving throughout is mosaic, so wrought that its imperishable nature is forgotten in the beauty and skill of the setting. The distinctive feature and characteristic of the Fisher building, however, and the feature of first importance, is that of the steel skeleton and beam construction and the application of the fireproofing upon the metal. The entire structure, as above stated, rests upon a skeleton frame of steel riveted together so as to form a continuous vertebrate from foundation up. The nicety of adjustment and the rapidity of construction was fully realized by the combining of the parts, manufactured as they were in the shop and delivered at the structure ready to be fitted and welded together—thus contributing in a large measure to the rapidity with which the Fisher building was brought to completion. Immediately the work of foundation was done, the materials for the superstructure were delivered on the ground as rapidly as the contractors could dispose of them.

Next in importance to the steel frame is the tested fireproof covering which encases it. The floors throughout are of the latest pattern of “end pressure” flat arches, the tile used being very light, being the hard-burned, fire-clay tile from the clay beds at Ottawa, Illinois. This clay is believed to be one of the best, if not the best, argilla-ceous base in the country, producing as it loes the most reliable form of tested fire-proofing, due to the nature of the clay itself, and to the chemical changes produced in the process of manufacture. The amount of fireproofing used in the Fisher building aggregated 206 carloads, or 3,620 tons, the largest quantity of any one material employed in the construction.

The entire exterior face of the Fisher building is of the product of the Northwestern Terra Cotta Company of Chicago, excepting ten stories of the north wall or face, which are built of standard hollow tile. The decorative terra cotta work is marked by precision and accuracy, both in the fitting and finishing, while the ornamentation and uniformity of color, the bas re-lief, and carving are of the most perfect adaptation of the art of France of the fourteenth century, and the effect is even heightened by the adaptability and plasticity of the material used.

A description of the Fisher building would be inadequate without reference and at least some slight description of its architectural features. The demands of space and economy and the practical tests which must ordinarily govern the architect in the designing of a commercial edifice are likely to subvert considerations of style and decoration, but the architectural design of the Fisher building is such that both of these great features have been wrought in harmony, without the sacrifice of either. Even the most rigid forms and the most obstinate and severe details have been softened with some form of artistic expression. This is particularly noticeable in the decorative design and application of the terra cotta, as well as in the corridors and the main entrances upon the first floor, where adaptations of the Gothic of Rouen and Brugges give character and distinction
as well as artistic effect. The contract for the Fisher building was executed by the Guarantee Construction Company of Chicago, the architects of the owner, Mr. L. G. Fisher, being the well-known firm of D. H. Burnham & Co.

Following is a brief schedule which will indicate at a glance the rapidity of construction, a rapidity and a safety possible only where standard fireproof construction with steel and tile are employed:

The Inland Printer, June and July, 1896

Inter Ocean, January 9, 1906

An annex to cost $400,000 will be built to the Fisher building, the work to be commenced in February and to be completed by Nov. 1. The site of the annex will be the ground immediately, north of the Fisher building with a frontage of fifty feet both on Dearborn street and Plymouth place, and an extension through from street to street of seventy and one-half feet.

The new building will be twenty stories in height, two stories taller than the present Fisher building. The two buildings will be connected on each floor, two of the six elevators at the north of the present building being taken out to afford the communication. Four new elevators will be put in the new building.

Plan Big Restaurant.*
It is expected that the entire eighteenth floors of both buildings will be devoted to a restaurant, while the two stories in the new building above that will be fitted up for clubrooms.

In architecture the two buildings will correspond, with the exception that no bay windows will appear in the new structure. The exterior will be terra cotta and the interior finished in mahogany.

The Thompson-Starrett company has signed a contract to turn over the building completed on Nov. 1.

Leases Are Negotiated.
Leases are being negotiated already for five floors of the annex. The present leases expire on Feb. 9, and the old buildings will then immediately be torn down.

Lucius G. Fisher, who owns the fee and the structure of the old building, last summer secured a ninety-nine year lease upon the land for the new bullding from Mrs. A. M. Bailey at an annual rental of $7,500. The cost of the old building with the value of fee is estimated at a million dollars, so that Mr. Fisher’s investment will represent an outlay of nearly a million and a half dollars. P. J. Weber, the architect who designed the present building, has made the plans for the annex.

A subway connection with the tunnel is contemplated.

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