The Chicago Auditorium Building – Adler & Sullivan′s Architecture & the City: Adler and Sullivan's Architecture and the City (Chicago Architecture and Urbanism) - Hardcover

Siry, Joseph M

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226761339 ISBN 13: 9780226761336

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2003

Synopsis

When the magnificent Auditorium Building opened on Chicago's Michigan Avenue in December 1889, American and European newspapers hailed the event as a defining moment for the city, the most important since the Great Fire of 1871. The Auditorium marked Chicago's emergence both as the leading city of the Midwest and as a metropolis of international stature. In this book, Joseph Mm. Siry explores not just the architectural history of the Auditorium Building, but also the crucial role it played in Chicago's social history. Housing a luxurious 400-room hotel, 136 offices and stores, and a theatre that could seat 4,200, the Auditorium Building was one of the earliest multipurpose civic centres in the United States, and its many technical and aesthetic innovations launched Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan's national reputations as creators of highly innovative architecture for large public buildings. (Frank Lloyd Wright was apprenticed to Adler and Sullivan at the time, serving as Sullivan's draftsman). But the Auditorium's importance was not limited to architecture. Envisioned by its principal patron, Ferdinand W. Peck, as a means to counter the violent socialist agitation of the Haymarket era, the Auditorium Theatre embodied Peck's capitalist ideal of a democratic variation on the European opera house that could provide wholesome, affordable, high-class entertainment for the city's skilled workers. Covering the Auditorium from the early design stage to its opening, its later renovations, its links to culture and politics in Chicago, and its influence on later Adler and Sullivan works (including the Schiller Building and the Chicago Stock Exchange Building), "The Chicago Auditorium Building" recounts the fascinating tale of a building that helped to define a city and an era.

About this title

About the Author

Joseph M. Siry is professor of art history and American studies at Wesleyan University. He is the author of Carson Pirie Scott: Louis Sullivan and the Chicago Department Store, published by the University of Chicago Press, and Unity Temple: Frank Lloyd Wright and Architecture for Liberal Religion.

From the Inside Flap

When the magnificent Auditorium Building opened on Chicago's Michigan Avenue in December 1889, American and European newspapers hailed the event as a defining moment for the city, the most important since the Great Fire of 1871. The Auditorium marked Chicago's emergence both as the leading city of the Midwest and as a metropolis of international stature.

In this lavishly illustrated book, Joseph M. Siry explores not just the architectural history of the Auditorium Building, but also the crucial role it played in Chicago's social history. Housing a luxurious 400-room hotel, 136 offices and stores, and a theater that could seat 4,200, the Auditorium Building was one of the earliest multipurpose civic centers in the United States, and its many technical and aesthetic innovations launched Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan's national reputation as creators of highly innovative architecture for large public buildings. (Frank Lloyd Wright was employed by Adler and Sullivan at the time, serving as Sullivan's draftsman.) But the Auditorium;s importance was not limited to architecture. Envisioned by its principal patron, Ferdinand W. Peck, as a means to counter the violent socialist agitation of the Haymarket era, the Auditorium Theater embodied Peck's capitalist ideal of a democratic variation on the European opera house that could provide affordable, high-class entertainment for the city's skilled workers.

Covering the Auditorium from the early design to its opening, its later renovations, its links to culture and politics in Chicago, and its influence on later Adler and Sullivan works (including the Schiller Building and the Chicago Stock Exchange Building),The Chicago Auditorium Building recounts the fascinating tale of a building that helped to define a city and an era.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226761339
• ISBN 13: 9780226761336
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 580