| The Chicago Auditorium Building: Adler and Sullivan's Architecture and the City Contributor(s): Siry, Joseph M. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0226761347 ISBN-13: 9780226761343 Publisher: University of Chicago Press OUR PRICE: $55.44 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: December 2004 Annotation: 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 AuditoriumBuilding" recounts the fascinating tale of a building that helped to define a city and an era. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Architecture | Buildings - Public, Commercial & Industrial - Architecture | History - General - History | Americas (north Central South West Indies) |
| Dewey: 725.830 |
| LCCN: 2002017374 |
| Series: Chicago Architecture & Urbanism (Paperback) |
| Physical Information: 1.38" H x 8.28" W x 10.04" (4.05 lbs) 550 pages |
| Themes: - Locality - Chicago, Illinois - Geographic Orientation - Illinois - Cultural Region - Midwest - Cultural Region - Upper Midwest |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Winner of the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award from the Society of Architectural Historians When the magnificent Auditorium Building opened on Chicago's Michigan Avenue in December 1889, it 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. 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), this volume recounts the fascinating tale of a building that helped to define a city and an era. |