Garfield Park Conservatory, Fern Room, CNS 2011
300 North Central Park Avenue
Before Jens Jensen (1860-1951) came along most greenhouses were like museums. They consisted of vast quantities of potted plants arranged in impressive though uninspiring displays. In the Garfield Park Conservatory Jensen revolutionized the concept of greenhouses. Thinking of it as “landscape art under glass,” he created scenic interior vistas complete with meandering pathways, lagoons and exotic plants. Unlike most greenhouses of his day, Jensen planted directly into the ground of the Conservatory. Therefore instead of just displaying the plants of a given region, he transported visitors to natural environments around the world. The fact that the Garfield Park Conservatory continues to do just that is a testament to Jensen’s groundbreaking vision.
Jensen was from the Slesvig region of Denmark where he would have happily stayed had his “high-class” parents not disapproved of his “low-class” fiancé, Anne Marie Hansen. So they settled in Chicago. Jensen began working as a day laborer for the West Park Commission, worked his way up to the job of gardener, and ultimately became the Superintendent and Chief Landscape Architect for the entire West Park System. Jensen’s job as Superintendent was no easy task – he was hired to save the parks from their rapid and extensive state of deterioration.
One reason why the parks hadn’t been faring well was because they were full of exotic plants. Jensen saw the error in the park system’s ways commenting, “There’s something wrong here. We are trying to force plants to grow where they don’t want to grow.” Jensen’s new role gave him (as he said), “an opportunity of trying out on a large scale this idea of employing indigenous stock.” Jensen did away with the exotic plantings and replaced them with naturalistic landscapes inspired by the Midwestern prairie using vegetation native to the area. The parks thrived under his leadership.
Garfield Park Conservatory, ca. 1908
Jensen similarly employed this philosophy on a grand scale at the Garfield Park Conservatory which opened in 1908. As he said, he didn’t want his greenhouse “to look like a palace, a chateau, or a Renaissance villa,” instead the form would be inspired by “the great haystacks which are so eloquent of the richness of prairie soil.” A budget of $160,000 allowed him to design the Conservatory with a floor area of 68,000 square feet in addition to another 30,000 square feet of propagating houses – at the time making it the largest greenhouse in the world. Each room he designed was an individualized composition in terms of its focus as well as use of space, but all rooms were designed in the prairie style. This is seen in the Conservatory’s water features, stratified stonework, and its emphasis on horizontality.
CNS 2011
Jensen left no stone unturned – literally. Jensen wasn’t just interested in the look of the Conservatory, but instead in the whole effect, including the auditory experience of the greenhouse. A frequently told story clearly explains Jensen’s personality and philosophy:
At the back of the Aquatic House (now called the Fern Room) is what Jensen called a “prairie waterfall,” made of layers of stratified stone. It’s the symbolic source of the room’s lagoon, and it was important to Jensen that it sound just right. He had the mason rebuild the waterfall many times over, not liking that it sounded like “an abrupt mountain cascade.” And the mason was growing increasingly irritated by Jensen. Finally Jensen instructed the mason to find someone to play Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song” for him on the piano. The mason went home that night telling his wife, “Jensen’s gone cracked.” But when he did hear the music he understood. The next day was the last day he would reconstruct Jensen’s waterfall. Jensen was satisfied that the “water tinkled gently from ledge to ledge, as it should in prairie country.”
Dale Chihuly at the Garfield Park Conservatory, CNS 2011
Note that Jensen was an architect of landscapes and not of buildings, so he hired the firm of Hitchings & Company from New York to help in the building’s design. The firm specialized in greenhouse design. He also hired the firm of Schmidt, Garden & Martin to design the vestibule and interior work (all since removed).
The Garfield Park Conservatory is one of Chicago’s greatest treasures. And it’s FREE! Here’s the Garfield Park Conservatory’s website. And here is a link to the a website entirely devoted to Jens Jensen.
All of the information for this article was gleaned from reading the book, “Inspired by Nature: ‘The Garfield Park Conservatory and Chicago’s West Side” written by Julia Sniderman Bachrach and JoAnn Nathan. It goes highly recommended.
Photos by Caroline
Garfield Park Fieldhouse, CNS 2011
100 N. Central Park Ave.
There’s an exciting building around every corner of Chicago – a city famous for its architecture. But even so, you’d think that after several years of searching out Chicago’s notable buildings eventually you would run out of ideas. And then just when you think you’ve seen it all, you come across the Garfield Park Fieldhouse.
Known to many in the area simply as the “Gold Dome Building,” its ornately sculpted facade is as impressive as its gold leaf dome. The building was designed in the Spanish Baroque Revival style – seen especially in its elaborately decorated entrance. Baroque architecture (characterized in great part by a dramatic use of extravagant materials) was popular in Spain from the mid 17th to mid 18th centuries. The style then found its way to Spain’s colonies in South and Central America during the 18th century. And it came back into fashion in 1915 through the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego. Bertram Goodhue was the chief architect in charge of the fair, and he happened to be a proponent and scholar of the Spanish Baroque style. The Garfield Park Fieldhouse was most likely modeled after Goodhue’s design for the entrance of the fair’s California State Building designed in the Spanish Baroque Revival style.
More specifically, the entrance of the Garfield Park Fieldhouse is an example of “Churrigueresque” ornamentation. The Churrigueresque style was named for the Churriguera family of sculptors and architects who worked around Salamanca, Spain. The Churrigueresque style was the most extravagantly ornamented phase of the Spanish Baroque period, and the twisted or “Salomonic” column – featured on the Fieldhouse – was its trademark.
CNS 2011
It’s a flamboyant building. Terra-cotta twisted columns, sculptural figures, numerous cartouches, pinnacles, niches, scrolls and scallop shells decorate the front and back entrances. Above the middle window on the front of the building is a statue of French explorer Robert Cavalier Sieur de LaSalle. And the bust to his left is believed to be Christopher Columbus.
With marble walls, a terrazzo floor, and a two-story 50ft rotunda – the building’s interior is every bit as extravagant as its exterior. Low-relief sculptured panels dedicated to such themes as art and architecture, Chicago’s parks, and the Illinois highway system decorate the walls of the rotunda. They were sculpted by Richard W. Bock who frequently worked with Frank Lloyd Wright on a number of his local designs such as his home and studio and Unity Temple (both in Oak Park, IL).
The Fieldhouse was designed by Christian S. Michaelsen (1888-1960) and Sigurd Anton Rognstad (1892-1937) and was completed in 1928. The two architects of Norwegian descent formed a partnership that would last 17 years until Rognstad’s untimely death. Michaelsen & Rognstad served as the architects for the West Park Commission from 1927-1929 – one of the most critical times in the Commission’s history. It was during this time that the West Park Commission received a $10 million bond. They used the money to build 12 new park buildings all designed by Michaelsen & Rognstad. The Garfield Park Fieldhouse was built to be the headquarters or Administration Building for the West Park Commission. The basement also contained a large squad room for park police, prisoner cells, a warming room and refreshment booth for ice skaters, and storage for pleasure boats. However, it only served its original purpose for six years before all of the parks were consolidated into the Chicago Park District in 1934, and the building became a fieldhouse as it remains today.
CNS 2011
Today the fieldhouse contains the Chicago Park District’s regional offices, as well as a number of recreational uses such as a dance studio, gallery space, theater, and boxing ring. In 1983 an addition was made over the west lagoon – a gymnasium topped by an outdoor swimming pool. Recently landmarked, the building completed a major renovation and restoration in 1995, and more improvements are still planned.
BLUEPRINT has also covered another Michaelsen & Rognstad building: the On Leong Merchant Association.
And here is the website for the Chicago Park District which also gives a good background on the history of Garfield Park.
SOFFIT: The underside of any architectural element, such as an arch, beam, cornice, eave or even staircase . . .
Pictured to the left is a soffit forming the underside of the balcony in the Garfield Park Fieldhouse’s rotunda. The picture below shows a glimpse of another soffit – the underside of one of the Art Institute’s greatest staircases . . .
CNS 2010
Because I am heading to NYC for the week and unable to profile a new building, I hope you instead enjoy this recycled article first published in April 2010.
2216 S. Wentworth Ave.
When plans for the On Leong Merchants Association Building were revealed in 1926, the Chicago Tribune ran an article calling it “one of the most expensive and elaborate buildings ever erected in America by the Chinese.” The On Leong Merchants Association, the original owner of the building, was one of the most prominent Chinese organizations, or “tongs”, formed in response to the rampant discrimination Chinese were facing in Chicago during the first decade of the twentieth century.
Due to escalating racial tensions, in 1902 the U.S. government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which limited further Chinese immigration, and prohibited Chinese women from joining their husbands in America. The Chinese government responded by boycotting all American-made products. This infuriated Chicago’s western population who forced the Chinese from their small downtown settlement on Clark St. between Adams and Van Buren by drastically increasing their rent, and ultimately reappropriating their properties for the construction of a new federal building. With no where else to go, in February of 1912 the entire Chinese community moved from Clark street to present day Chinatown, around the intersection of Wentworth Avenue and Cermak Road.
Faced with a growing population and growing hostility, the On Leong Merchants Association quickly became a much-needed community organization. In Chinese, On Leong means “prosperity peaceful conduct.” The mission of the association was to help the Chinese community assimilate to American customs and laws, while also preserving their native culture. The association provided accommodations for new immigrants, organized community activities, offered job placement and match making services, and led a Chinese language school for children. Before long a headquarters was needed to combine all of the association’s services under one roof and serve as a permanent symbol of the Chinese community to the rest of Chicago.
Image borrowed from Chicago History Museum Blog
Completed in 1928, The On Leong Merchants Association Building was designed by the Chicago based architectural firm of Michaelsen and Rognstad. Having two architects of Norwegian descent design a Chinese business and cultural center might seem like an odd choice. However there were no Chinese architects licensed to practice in Illinois, and no existing examples of traditional Chinese architecture close by to use as inspiration. One of the association’s leaders had previously worked with Michaelsen and Rognstad, and recommended the firm. The architects gave themselves a crash course in traditional Chinese architecture through referencing a series of books on the subject. Michaelson focused his energy on the building’s engineering, leaving much of the stylistic decisions up to Rognstad. The community was pleased with the building’s design that both referenced classical Chinese elements, and adjusted to the association’s modern and unusual mission.
Colorful terra-cotta completely clads the first floor and provides decorative accents for the floors above. Terra cotta was similar enough to the Chinese material liu li that it worked well as a substitute. Reminiscent of traditional Chinese buildings, the On Leong building is characterized by its tile roofs and overhanging eaves. Red, symbolic of joy, and jade green, symbolic of affluence, are the dominating colors of the building. White, the color of death and mourning was avoided.
CNS 2010
Though the On Leong Merchant’s Association was the center of Chicago’s Chinatown community for decades, it no longer operates out of the building today. In 1988 the FBI and Chicago police raided and seized the building, having uncovered a large gambling practice. In 1993, the building was purchased by the Chinese Christian Union Church and renamed the Pui Tak Center. Still the loved symbol of Chicago’s Chinatown, it is the neighborhood’s only landmarked building.
If you’re interested in learning more about Chicago’s Chinatown be sure to check out the exhibit “My Chinatown” up now at the Chicago History Museum. And click here for the Pui Tak Center’s website.
BLUEPRINT welcomes local architectural historian Matt Crawford as a guest blogger this week. He chose to write about a lesser-known building in Chicago, though one that tells an interesting story all the same – St. Joseph’s Hospital. My hope is that it will inspire each of you to give it a closer look the next time you drive down Lakshore Drive . . . I know I will.
St. Joseph’s Hospital, Belli & Belli
Located just north of Diversey, St. Joseph’s Hospital overlooks Lake Shore Drive. St. Joseph’s was the warm refuge from the storm for hundreds of drivers who escaped their snowbound cars on the Drive last Tuesday night. This bit of news inspired me to write about one of my favorite buildings.
More Morris Lapidus than Mies, the design of St. Joseph’s is characteristic of Belli & Belli’s idiosyncratic, expressive and colorful take on mid-century modernism. The form of the building consists of three slab-like wings clad in smooth limestone punched with a grid of window openings that provides patients with therapeutic views of Lincoln Park and Lake Michigan. Perhaps it was the color of the lake on a clear day that inspired the extraordinary treatment of the wing ends which are clad in an eye-catching harlequin pattern of black and turquoise blue enamel panels. The same pattern of blue panels also extends across the top of the building like shark’s teeth.
Unlike high-style modernists of their time, Belli & Belli did not limit their pallet of materials. In addition to limestone and enamel panels, the design palette also includes a tinted-glass cylindrical curtain-wall that extends the full height of the front facade, and contains elevator lobbies and lounges on each floor. Concrete balconies appear to slide out from this cylinder like drawers. The main entrance to the hospital is located in a three-story pavilion with glazed curtain walls topped with a flamboyant scallop-shaped concrete canopy.
St. Joseph's, M. Crawford
Daniel Ryan Chapel, M. Crawford
The AIA Guide to Chicago and the Chicago Sojourn blog have written about the boldly abstract and expressionist Daniel Ryan Chapel on the eleventh floor. It’s worth a visit. Yet even from the exterior, the dalle de vere stained glass walls of the chapels (crafted by the Tolleri Studio in Florence) give a hint of this jewel box space.
Architect Edo J. Belli founded the firm of Belli & Belli in 1945. After graduating from the architecture program at Lane Tech High School in the middle of the Great Depression in 1936, he began an architectural apprenticeship with Henry K. Holsman. The compensation included a paycheck of $4.95 a week, free lunches, and tuition reimbursement for night classes at the Armour Institute in Chicago where Belli earned his Bachelor of Architecture in 1939. After serving in the Navy during WWII, Belli founded his firm with his brother Anthony. Belli & Belli was a small, family-run but prolific firm which received a great many commissions for Catholic schools, churches and hospitals in the mid-twentieth century in Chicago and abroad.
The hospital was commissioned by the Daughters of Charity, a Catholic order of women who had outgrown their 1871 hospital building on Burling Ave. south of Webster (demolished, now the site of Oz Park). The land was purchased in 1952, and in 1958 Belli & Belli began working on the design, however a NIMBY lawsuit filed by nearby residents delayed ground-breaking until 1961. When the hospital finally opened in the spring of 1964, the Chicago Tribune described the 12-story 500-bed hospital as a “soaring symbol of health in modern Chicago.”
(All photographs for this article were taken by Matt Crawford).
(Photography by CNS, February 2011)
Highland Park, IL 2011, Daniel Kullman
Still hibernating after Chicago’s history-making blizzard? It’s the perfect time to catch up with what’s going on at BLUEPRINT: Chicago . . . . .
. . . . every week BLUEPRINT shares the story of a different Chicago building . . . BLUEPRINT also features an expanding dictionary of architectural vocabulary, maintains a calendar of architectural events happening in the city, and keeps you informed on Chicago’s architecture news.
There are three easy ways to keep up-to-date with everything BLUEPRINT has to offer. Consider “liking” BLUEPRINT on facebook, following BLUEPRINT on twitter, or subscribing to BLUEPRINT’s posts via email (see the subscribe form in the sidebar to the right) — or best yet, all of the above!
And to see more of Daniel Kullman’s photography visit the website for his video production company, Bitter Jester Creative.
Inland Steel Building, CNS 2010
30 West Monroe
Imagine this: it’s the year 1956 in downtown Chicago. Massive old masonry buildings define the landscape. The Prudential Building, completed in the previous year, was the first skyscraper built downtown since the Field Building (1934) twenty years earlier. Though even the Prudential appears somewhat dated, as it still bears the influence of the art deco style prominent before the construction hiatus caused by the Depression and WWII. However at the north east corner of Monroe and Dearborn streets something new is happening – the rise of the Inland Steel Building. Inland’s glistening stainless steel and expansive sheets of tinted glass will usher in a new period of modernity for Chicago. Flash forward to the year 2011, and the Inland Steel Building (completed in 1958) still stands out for its elegant modernity, as it surely will for years to come.
The Inland Steel Company was founded in Chicago in the fall of 1893. And as Joseph Block, a former company president, once said, “We’re a Chicago company and we’re going to stay here.” Inland Steel started as a small gamble in the height of a major economic depression, but by the 1950’s they had increased steel production to more than 6,500,000 tons, making the company the 8th largest steel manufacturer in the country. Soon Chicago would repace Pittsburgh as the center of American steel production. And when the company began to outgrow their offices, it made a lot of sense that they decided to build a new modern headquarters made out of steel as a sign of their continued growth. “We wanted a building we’d be proud of, one that spelled steel,” said Leigh Block, a former Vice President of the Inland Steel Company and descendent of one of the company’s founders. Inland Steel and its subsidiary companies manufactured all of the steel forming the structure and cladding of the building.
Inland Steel chose the offices of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) to design their company headquarters. Early on SOM declared that they would only design “contemporary” styled buildings. The firm was true to its word and went on to design such buildings as the Willis Tower, Hancock and Trump towers in Chicago as well as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai – by far the tallest building in the world.
SOM designed Inland Steel in the International Style – a style introduced by Mies van der Rohe. The building broke away from its more classically designed neighbors by emphasizing its volume rather than its mass, regularity or rhythm rather than symmetry, and was marked by strikingly minimal ornamentation. Instead of ornamentation, the tower is distinguished through seven pairs of nickel-chrome stainless steel clad columns (carrying the weight of the structure) that are pushed outside of the building’s curtain wall.
The tower was further innovative for a number of reasons. It made headlines for having the widest clear span ever used in a multi-story building, meaning that every floor boasts open and unobstructed or universal space (another Miesian concept). This was made possible by running 60ft supportive girders beneath each floor between the pairs of columns spanning the length of the tower’s exterior. The heating/cooling distribution system and telephone lines were also run beneath the floors to further clear the interior of obstructions. The floor is made up of a grid of modules that can be lifted to access these systems. Inland’s universal space was also made possible by moving all of the building’s mechanicals such as bathrooms, elevators and staircases to an adjacent 332 ft service tower also sheathed in stainless steel (this layout would not be possible to repeat today as it is against fire code).
CNS 2011
Two prominent SOM architects are credited with Inland’s design: Walter Netsch (1920-2008) and Bruce Graham (1925-2010). And as is all too common with famous and popular buildings, there’s long been a controversy over whom to give credit for Inland’s design. Netsch was the original architect in charge of the Inland project. He is credited with coming up with the building’s layout and pushing all of the mechanicals into a separate tower. But when Netsch was asked to design the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Graham took over Inland’s design. He kept Netsch’s floor plan, but minimized the number of columns from nine pairs to seven and pulled them out from behind the tower’s curtain wall. Graham also simplified the exterior and came up with the innovative floor module concept.
It’s simpler to agree that the two architects worked together in creating a Chicago favorite – a building that refuses to grow old. As architect critic M.W. Newman wrote upon the tower winning an AIA 25 year honor award in 1982, “In a steel-building city, [the Inland Steel Building] . . . retains a lightness, serenity, and polished grace that continue to make it an influential emblem of modernism.” Thirty years later, it’s still true.
Richard Lippold sculpture, "Construction"
The Inland Steel Company was sold in the late 1990’s, and now Capital Properties and starchitect Frank Gehry own the building. Curious on how Frank Gehry became involved? Here’s an interesting NYT article that will answer that very question. The building recently underwent a renovation to make it more energy efficient and suitable for the 21st century. The building has a snazzy website with some details on the renovation as well as nice photographs of the interior. And if interested, here is SOM’s website, and page on the Inland Steel Building. Inland Steel was awarded landmark status by the Commission of Chicago Landmarks in 1998.
Leigh Block commissioned Richard Lippold to create the pictured steel starburst sculpture entitled “Construction” for the building.
GROTESQUE: a sculpture of a creature characterized by fantastically combining incongruous human, animal, and foliate forms (also sometimes called an antic). The word grotesque is also used as an adjective denoting a decorative style distinguished by such outlandish forms.
A grotesque should not be confused with a gargoyle — which is definitively a water spout in grotesque form. So while gargoyles are grotesques, a grotesque is not always a gargoyle.
There is a limitless variety of grotesques in the world. Here are two examples of grotesques in Logan Square: one found on a home on Francisco Avenue and the other at 2656 W. Logan Blvd.
Grotesque at 2656 W. Logan Blvd.
Francisco Ave. Grotesque
Photo borrowed from Marina Management website
300 N. State St.
When Marina City was first built between 1960 and 1967 its towers loomed over the surrounding historic buildings and parking lots on either side of the Chicago River. Today glitzy new skyscrapers frame the complex, yet the Marina Towers still remain as two of Chicago’s greatest icons, and likely will for time to come.
When built, the towers were both the tallest concrete structures and tallest residential towers in the world. More importantly, they were an experiment in a new urban philosophy: building a city within a city. Chicago had experienced a long period of suburban flight, which left an abandoned and deteriorating downtown. Marina City was part of an effort to reintroduce downtown Chicago as an attractive place to live. Marina City is actually a complex of five structures: two residential towers (60 stories each, with the first 18 stories reserved for parking), an office building (10 stories), and a theater building all standing upon a large commercial platform. Every amenity imaginable could be found within – such as a swimming pool, gym, ice skating rink, bank, barbershop and even a grocery store. And of course there’s still the ever-popular marina – hence the name. The first of its kind, it truly was a city within a city.
Marina City, Hedrich Blessing Photographers
An organization especially invested in the city’s revival – the Janitor’s Union (more formally called the Building Service Employees International Union) – financed the building of Marina City. When completed, Marina City would provide work for 100 janitors within the complex, and a downtown revival would promise work for many more still. It wasn’t uncommon at the time for unions to invest health, welfare, and pension funds in low-cost housing. The Janitor’s Union followed suit. Charles (Chuck) Swibel, a realtor and later chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority, proposed the idea to the union and was integral to pushing the plan to fruition. A staunch supporter of Mayor Richard J. Daley and his plans for downtown revitalization, Swibel was especially enthusiastic about the project. But it was architect Bertrand Goldberg who was responsible for Marina City’s design and instant emergence as a Chicago icon.
Bertrand Goldberg (1913-1997) was born and raised in Chicago. After studying architecture at Harvard, in 1932 at the young age of 19 he left for Germany to study at the Bauhaus – the greatest school of modernist art, architecture and design of its day. While there he apprenticed under Mies van der Rohe and his partner Lily Reich. He only attended the Bauhaus for one year before it was closed by the Nazi regime. He eventually followed Mies back to the Armour Institute of Technology (today IIT) where he was the director of their architecture program. Despite his admiration for Mies, he never adopted the right angle that was so central to his mentor’s design philosophy. Instead Goldberg centered his attention on the circle.
The towers were the first circular apartment buildings in history. And Goldberg’s choice in the circle was based on more than just aesthetics. The circle gave the highest ratio of usable floor space to exterior skin. And to Goldberg the circle offered still something more. He once said, “(I) wanted to get people out of boxes, which are really psychological slums . . . those long hallways with scores of doors opening anonymously are inhuman. Each person should retain his relation to the core. It should be the relation of the branch to the tree, rather than that of the cell to the honeycomb.”
The structure of the towers is in fact like a tree. All of the buildings’ mechanicals are located in the cores of each tower (or the “tremendous tree trunk(s)” as Goldberg called them). On every floor 16 reinforced concrete beams radiate out almost 40ft from the core – just like branches – to 16 exterior columns. And similar to a tree, the structure of the towers is completely exposed and celebrated.
"Corny But . . ." Chicago Daily News Image
In Chicago the Marina Towers are rarely related to trees, though they are often compared lovingly to corncobs – making the towers more than just icons, but great monuments to the Midwestern fields surrounding this metropolis.
All of the information for this article came from reading Igor Marjanovic and Katerina Ruedi Ray’s fantastic new book entitled, “Marina City: Bertrand Goldberg’s Urban Vision.” Their book goes into far more detail than this post, covering everything from the politics surrounding Marina City’s construction to the Towers portrayal in contemporary culture . . . and goes highly recommended.
And to learn more about Bertrand Goldberg explore this website devoted entirely to him! One of his Chicago buildings, the Prentice Women’s Hospital, is currently threatened with destruction. Follow along the efforts to save this building and be sure to become a fan of Save Prentice on facebook.
Marina City Online is the number one resource for online information on Marina City – updated daily. For Marina City news, fun facts and even real estate listings visit the Marina City Online website.
And finally the construction of the Marina Towers was an impressive feat. It was also accomplished at high-speeds: the towers were built at a speed of one floor per day on alternating towers. Watch this fun old video showing the construction of Marina City produced by the Portland Cement Association of Skokie: “This is Marina City (Part 1)” . . .
Liked that? Watch “This is Marina City (Part 2)!”
Marina City is full of stories. Do you have any you would like to share?
Lakeview Presbyterian Church, CNS 2011
716 W. Addison St.
John Wellborn Root (1850-1891) once wrote “Reason should lead the way, and imagination take wings from a height to which reason has already climbed.” And so it is with his design of the Lakeview Presbyterian Church. It is grounded in carefully massed, simple geometric forms: triangular steeped roofs, an octagonal tower, conical steeple, and circular arches. But it is in the details – found in the art glass windows, the barely visible spiral pattern of the steeple, and artfully carved interior trusses – where Root’s imagination takes flight.
The Lakeview Presbyterian Church was completed in 1888 – the same year as Root’s famous Rookery building in the Loop. At the time of construction, what we now know as Lakeview was part of a quiet suburban community called the Lake View Township. In 1889 the township was annexed to the city of Chicago (thus increasing the city’s population) in conjunction with our bid for the World’s Columbian Exposition. Led by Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, the church had its beginnings in 1884. Meeting sometimes in the town hall, and often under a tent where the church sits today, the congregation asked Root to design their church.
Root worked closely with his partner Daniel Burnham (1846-1912), and the two together were a vital force in shaping Chicago’s architectural landscape. They designed such history-making buildings as the Montauk Block (demolished), the Rookery and the Monadnock. Burnham later went on to be the chief planner of the World’s Columbian Exposition and the man behind the 1909 Plan of Chicago. Burnham was the firm’s business man and Root was the designer – each in awe of the other. Burnham once said to fellow architect Louis Sullivan, “My partner . . . is a wonder, a great artist. I want you to meet him some day; you’ll like him.” It would be hard not to like Root, or at least be impressed by him. As the historian Donald Miller wrote, “[Root] could sing before he learned to talk, began drawing almost as soon as he could hold a pencil, and played the piano as well as his teacher when he was barely twelve.” Root’s artistic sensibilities are seen all over the Lakeview church – inside and out.
Because the church was located outside the limits of Chicago’s control, Root was not restricted by Chicago’s ban on wood construction (implemented after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871). Cedar shingles in a spectrum of earthen colors decorate and define the exterior of the church. Though, it hasn’t always been this way.
Balcony Scene, CNS 2011
The church has gone through numerous alterations since it was first built. By 1898 the congregation had already outgrown the building and built a large addition, nearly doubling the size of the sanctuary. A wide open space – what is now visually the back of the new sanctuary – originally was the front of the church. The windows, executed by Healy & Millet, that line the sides of the sanctuary once decorated the area behind the original alter. In the 1940’s the church was re-clad with asbestos shingles and painted white with green trim. Root’s carefully considered design was hidden for decades. In 2005 The Lakeview Presbyterian congregation finished restoring the building to its 1898 appearance under the direction of the their pastor, Joy Douglas Strome, and the architectural firm of Holabird and Root (the descendents of John Root and William Holabird’s firms). The church was re-shingled and fireproofed. The art glass windows were restored.
And so today we’re lucky to see what Root once saw. Burnham said of his partner’s composure at work, “He could really see it. I’ve never seen anyone like him in this respect. He would grow abstracted and silent, and a faraway look would come into his eyes, and the building was there before him – every stone of it.” Or in the case of the Lakeview Presbyterian Church – every shingle.
CNS 2011
The transformation the church went through in the last decade is noteworthy – so much so that the church was awarded a 2005 AIA Distinguished Building Award for its exterior restoration and a Landmarks Illinois Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Preservation Award in 2008.
Visit the Lakeview Presbyterian Church to see this gem of a building yourself. Just walk right in — they’re a welcoming congregation.
