Part 8

Even if the old-fashioned architects who rebuilt Chicago had been anxious to reconstruct it according to the best and newest lights, it would have been quite out of their power to do so unaided. The erection of a twelve-story building anywhere involves an amount of mechanical consideration and a degree of engineering skill that are quite beyond the practitioners of the American metallic Renaissance. In Chicago the problem is more complicated than elsewhere, because these towering and massive structures ultimately rest upon a quagmire that is not less but more untrustworthy the deeper one digs. The distribution of the weight by carrying the foundations down to a trustworthy bottom, and increasing the area of the supporting piers as they descend, is not practicable here, nor, for the same reason, can it be done by piling. It is managed, in the heaviest buildings, by floating them upon a raft of concrete and railroad iron, spread a few feet below the surface, so that there are no cellars in the business quarter, and the subterranean activities that are so striking in the elevator buildings of New York are quite unknown. If the architects of the old Chicago, to whom their former clients naturally applied to rear the phœnix of the new, had been seized with the ambition of building Babels, they would doubtless have made as wild work practically as they certainly would have made artistically in the confusion of architectural tongues that would have fallen upon them. It is in every point of view fortunate that the modernization of the town was reserved for the better-trained designers of a younger generation.

It might be expected that the architecture of Chicago would be severely utilitarian in purpose if not in design, and this is the case. The city may be said to consist of places of business and places of residence. There are no churches, for example, that fairly represent the skill of the architects. The best of them are scarcely worthy of illustration or discussion here, while the worst of them might suitably illustrate the work projected by a ribald wit on “The Comic Aspects of Christianity.” Among other things, it follows from this deficiency that Chicago lacks almost altogether, in any general view that can be had of it, the variety and animation that are imparted to the sky line of a town seen from the water, or from an eminence, by a “tiara of proud towers,” even when these are not specially attractive in outline or in detail, nor especially fortunate in their grouping. There is nothing, for example, in the aspect of Chicago from the lake, or from any attainable point of view, that is comparable to the sky-line of the Back Bay of Boston, as seen from the Cambridge bridge, or of lower New York from either river. The towering buildings are almost wholly flat-roofed, and their stark, rectangular outlines cannot take on picturesqueness, even under the friendly drapery of the smoke that overhangs the commercial quarter during six days of the week. The architect of the Dearborn Station was very happily inspired when he relieved the prevailing monotony with the quaint and striking clock-tower that adjoins that structure.

The secular public buildings of Chicago are much more noteworthy than the churches, but upon the whole they bear scarcely so large a relation to the mass of private building as one would expect from the wealth and the public spirit of the town, and with one or two very noteworthy exceptions, recent as many of them are, they were built too early. The most discussed of them is the city and county building, and this has been discussed for reasons quite alien to its architecture, the halves of what was originally a single design having been assigned to different architects. The original design has been followed in the main, and the result is an edifice that certainly makes a distinctive impression. A building, completely detached, 340 feet by 280 in area, and considerably over 100 feet high, can scarcely fail to make an impression by dint of mere magnitude, but there is rather more than that in the city and county building. The parts are few and large, but five stories appearing, the masonry is massive, and the projecting and pedimented porticoes are on an ample scale. These things give the building a certain effect of sumptuosity and swagger that ally it rather to the Parisian than to the Peorian Renaissance. The effect is marred by certain drawbacks of detail, and by one that is scarcely of

detail, the extreme meanness and baldness of the attic, in which, for the only time in the building, the openings seem to be arranged with some reference to their uses, and in which accordingly they have a painfully pinched and huddled appearance. In the decorative detail there is apparent a divergency of views between the two architects appointed to carry out the divided halves of the united design. The municipal designer--or possibly it is the county gentleman--has been content to stand upon the ancient ways, and to introduce no detail for which he has not found Ludovican precedent, while his rival is of a more aspiring mind, and has endeavored to carry out the precepts of the late Thomas Jefferson, by classicizing things modern. His excursions are not very daring, and consist mainly in such substitutions as that of an Indian’s head for the antique mask, in a frieze of conventionalized American foliage. He has attained what must be in such an attempt the gratifying success of converting his modern material to a result as dull and lifeless and uninteresting as his prototype. It does not, however, impair the grandiosity of the general effect. This is impaired, not merely by the poverty of design already noted in the attic, but also by the niggardliness shown in dividing the polished granite column of the porticoes into several drums, though monoliths are plainly indicated by their dimensions, and by the general scale of the masonry. The small economy is the more injurious, because a noble regardlessness of expense is of the essence of the architecture, and an integral part of its effectiveness. The most monumental feature of the projected building has never been supplied--a huge arch in the centre of each of the shorter fronts, giving access to the central court, and marking the division between the property of the city and of the county. It is possible that the failure to finish this arch has proceeded from the political conflict that has left its scars upon the building elsewhere. There is an obvious practical difficulty in intrusting the two halves of an arch to rival architects and rival contractors. However that may be, the arch is unbuilt, and the entrance to the central court is a mere rift in the wall. The practical townspeople have seized the opportunity thus presented by the unoccupied space of free quarters for the all-pervading buggy. With a contempt for the constituted authorities that it must be owned the constituted authorities have gone far to justify, they tether their horses in the shadow of their chief civic monument, like so many Arabs under the pillars of Palmyra or Persepolis, and heighten the impression of being the relic of an extinct race that is given to the pile not only by its unfinished state and by the stains of smoke, undistinguishable from those of time, but by its entirely exotic architecture. As the newly-landed Irishman, making his way up Broadway from Castle Garden, is said to have exclaimed, when he came in sight of the City Hall, that “that never was built in this country,” so the stranger in Chicago is tempted to declare of its municipal building that it could not have been reared by the same race of whose building activities the other evidences surround him. This single example of Ludovican architecture recalls, as most examples of it do, Thackeray’s caricature of its Mecænas. Despoiled of its periwigs and its high heels, that is to say, of its architecture, which is easily separable from it, the building would merely lose all its character, without losing anything that belongs to it as a building.

Nevertheless this municipal building has its character, and in comparison with the next most famous public building of Chicago, it vindicates the wisdom of its architect in subjecting himself to the safeguard of a style of which, moreover, his work shows a real study. The style may be absolutely irrelevant both to our needs and to our ideas, as irrelevant as the political system of Louis XIV. which it recalls. Its formulas may seem quite empty, but they gather dignity, if not meaning, when contrasted with the work of an avid “swallower of formulas,” like the architect of the Board

of Trade. His work is of no style, a proposition that is not invalidated by the probability that he himself would call it “American eclectic Gothic.” We all know what the untutored and aboriginal architect stretches that term to cover. There is no doubt about its being characteristically modern and American; one might say characteristically Western, if he did not recall equally free and untrammelled exuberances in the Atlantic States. But it is impossible to ascribe to it any architectural merit, unless a complete disregard for precedent is to be imputed for righteousness, whether it proceed from ignorance or from contempt. And, indeed, there are not many other structures in the United States, of equal cost and pretension, which equally with this combine the dignity of a commercial traveller with the bland repose of St. Vitus. It is difficult to contemplate its bustling and uneasy façade without feeling a certain sympathy with the mob of anarchists that “demonstrated” under its windows on the night of its opening. If they were really anarchists, it was very ungrateful of them, for one would go far to find a more perfect expression of anarchy in architecture, and it is conceivable that they were instigated by an outraged architectural critic in disguise. If that ringleader had been caught and arraigned, he could have maintained, with much better reason, the plea that Gustave Courbet made for his share in the destruction of the column of the Place Vendôme, that his opposition to the monument was not political, but æsthetic.

Fortunately there is no other among the public or quasi-public buildings of Chicago of which the architecture is so hopeless and so irresponsible--no other that would so baffle the palæontological Paley who should seek in it evidences of design, and that does not exhibit, at least, an architectural purpose, carried out with more or less of consistency and success. At the very centre of the commercial water front there was wisely reserved from traffic in the rebuilding of the town the “Lake Park,” a mile in extent, and some hundreds of feet in depth, which not only serves the purpose of affording a view of the lake from the business quarter, but also secures an effective foreground for the buildings that line its landward edge. One of the oldest of these, young as all of them are, is the “Art Institute,” designed by Messrs. Burnham & Root. This is of a moderate altitude, and suffers somewhat from being dwarfed by the elevator buildings erected

since, being but of three stories and a roof; but no neighbor could make it other than a vigorous and effective work, as dignified as the Board of Trade is uneasy, and as quiet as that is noisy. It is extremely simple in composition, as will be seen, and it bears very little ornament, this being for the most part concentrated upon the ample and deeply moulded archway of the entrance. It owes its effectiveness to the clearness of its division into the three main parts of base and superstructure and roof, to the harmonious relation between them, and to the differences in the treatment of them that enhance this harmony. The Aristotelian precept that a work of art must have a beginning, a middle, and an end, is nowhere more conspicuously valid than in architecture, and nowhere does the neglect of it entail more unfortunate consequences. The severity of the basement, with its plain rectangular openings, is an effective introduction to the somewhat lighter and more open fenestration of the second and third stories, which are grouped to form the second term in the proportion, and this in turn to the range of openings in the gable of the shorter front, and to the row of peaked dormers in the longer that animate the sky-line and complete the composition. The impressiveness of the fronts is very greatly deepened by the vigorous framing of massive angle piers in which they are enclosed, the vigor of which is enhanced by the solid pinnacled turrets, corbelled out above the second story, that help to weight them, and that visibly abut the outward thrust of the arcades. It may be significant, with reference to the tendency of Western architecture, that this admirable building, admirable in the sobriety and moderation that are facilitated by its moderate size, is precisely what one would not expect to find in Chicago, so little is there evident in it of an intention to “collar the eye,” or to challenge the attention it so very well repays.

In part, as we have just intimated, this modesty may be ascribed to the modest dimensions of the building. At any rate, it was out of the question in another important quasi-public building, which is the latest, and, at this writing, the loudest of the lions of Chicago--the Auditorium. Whatever else a ten-story building, nearly 300 feet by more than 350 in area and 140 in height, with a tower rising 80 feet farther, may happen to be, it must be conspicuous, and it is no wise possible that its designer should make it appear bashful or unobtrusive. Of however retiring a disposition he may be, in such a situation he must brazen it out. It is in his

power to adopt a very simple or a very elaborate treatment, and to imperil the success of his work by making it dull on the one hand or unquiet on the other. Messrs. Adler & Sullivan, the architects of the Auditorium, have chosen the better part in treating their huge fronts with great severity, insomuch that the building can scarcely be said to exhibit any “features,” except the triple entrance on the lake front, with its overhanging balcony, and the square tower that rises over the southern front to a height of 225 feet. While they did wisely in showing that monotony had fewer terrors for them than restlessness, the monotony that undoubtedly amounts to a defect in the aspect of the completed work is by no means wholly or mainly attributable to them. A place of popular entertainment, constructed upon a scale and with a massiveness to which we can scarcely find a parallel since Roman days, would present one of the worthiest and most interesting problems a modern architect could have if he were left to solve it unhampered. It is quite difficult enough to tax the power of any designer without any complications. The problem of design in the Chicago Auditorium is much complicated with requirements entirely irrelevant to its main purpose. The lobbies, the auditorium, and the stage of a great theatre, which are its essential parts, are all susceptible of an exterior expression more truthful and more striking than has yet been attained, in spite of many earnest and interesting essays. In the interior of the Auditorium, where the architects were left free, they have devoted themselves to solving their real problem with a high degree of success, and have attained an impressive simplicity and largeness. We are not dealing with interiors, however, and they were required to envelop the outside of their theatre in a shell of many-storied commercial architecture, which forbade them even to try for a monumental expression of their great hall. In the main, their exterior appears and must be judged only as a “business block.” They have their exits and their entrances, and it is really only in these features that the exterior betrays the primary purpose of the building. The tower, even, is evidently not so much monumental as utilitarian. It is prepared for in the substructure only by a slight and inadequate projection of the piers, while it is itself obviously destined for profitable occupancy, being a small three-story business block, superimposed upon a huge ten-story business block. Such a structure cannot be converted into a monumental feature by making it more massive at the top than it is at the bottom,

even though the massiveness be as artistically accentuated as it is in the tower of the Auditorium by the powerful open colonnade and the strong machicolated cornice in which it culminates. Waiving, as the designers have been compelled to do, the main purpose of the structure, and considering it as a commercial building, the Auditorium does not leave very much to be desired. The basement, especially, which consists of three stories of granite darker than the limestone of the superstructure, and appropriately rough-faced, is a vigorous and dignified performance, in which the expression of rugged strength is enhanced by the small and deep openings, and in which the necessarily large openings of the ground-floor are prevented from enfeebling the design by the massiveness of the lintels and flat arches that enclose them, and of the piers and pillars by which these are supported. The superstructure is scarcely worthy of this basement. The triple vertical division of the wall is effectively proportioned, but a much stronger demarcation is needed between the second and third members than is furnished by the discontinuous sill-course of the eighth story, while a greater projection, a greater depth, and a more vigorous modelling of the main cornice, and an enrichment of the attic beneath, would go far to relieve the baldness and monotony that are the defects of the design, and that are scarcely to be condoned because there are architectural faults much worse and much more frequent, which the designers have avoided. It is only, as has been said, in the entrances that they have been permitted to exhibit the object of the building. Really, it is only in the entrance on the Lake front, for the triplet of stilted arches at the base of the tower is not a very felicitous or a very congruous feature. The three low arches of the Lake front are of a Roman largeness--true vomitoria--and their effectiveness is increased by the simplicity of their treatment, by the ample lateral abutment provided for them, and by the long and shallow balcony that overhangs them. With the arches themselves this makes a very impressive feature, albeit the balcony is a very questionable feature. Even to the layman there must be a latent contradiction in the intercalation of the pillar to relieve the bearing of a lintel, when the pillar is referred to an unsupported shelf, obviously lighter and weaker than the lintel itself. This contradiction is not explained away by the vigor and massiveness of the shallow corbels that really account for the alternate columns, and it suggests that the construction so exhibited is not the true construction at all, and leaves this latter to be inferred without any help from the architecture. Even if one waives his objection to architectural forms that do not agree with the structural facts, it is surely not pedantic to require that the construction asserted by the forms shall be plausible to the extent of agreeing with itself. It is a pity that there should be such a drawback from a feature so effective; but the drawback does not prevent the feature from being effective, nor do the shortcomings we have been considering in the design of the Auditorium, nor even the much more serious obstacle that was inherent in the problem and imposed upon the architects, prevent it from being a very impressive structure, and justifying the pride with which it is regarded by all patriotic Chicagoans.

But, as has been intimated, it is not in monumental edifices that the characteristic building of Chicago is to be looked for. The “business block,” entirely utilitarian in purpose, and monumental only in magnitude and in solidity of construction, is the true and typical embodiment in building of the Chicago idea. This might be said, of course, of any American city. Undoubtedly the most remarkable achievements of our architects and the most creditable have been in commercial architecture. But in this respect Chicago is more American than any of the Eastern cities, where there are signs, even in the commercial quarters, of division of interest and infirmity of purpose. In none of them does the building bespeak such a singleness of devotion, or indicate that life means so exclusively a living. Even the exceptions prove the rule by such tokens as the modest dimensions of the Art Institute and the concealment of the Auditorium in the heart of a business block. It does not by any means follow that the business blocks are uninteresting. There are singularly few exceptions to the rule of dismalness in the buildings that were hurriedly run up after the fire. One of these exceptions, the American Express Company, has an extrinsic interest as being the work of Mr. Richardson, and as being, so far as it need be classified, an example of Victorian Gothic, although its openings are all lintelled, instead of the Provençal Romanesque to which its author afterwards addicted himself with such success. So successful an example is it that an eminent but possibly bilious English architect, who visited Chicago at an early stage of the rebuilding, declared it to be the only thing in the town worth looking at--a judgment that does not seem so harsh to the tourist of to-day who compares it with its thus disesteemed contemporaries. It is a sober and straightforward performance in a safe monochrome of olive sandstone, and it thus lacks the note of that variety of Victorian Gothic that Mr. Ruskin’s eloquence stimulated untrained American designers to produce, in which the restlessness of unstudied forms is still further tormented by the spotty application of color. From this variety of Victorian Gothic Chicago is happily free. A gabled building in brick and sandstone opposite the Palmer House is almost a unique, and not at all an unfavorable, example. The business streets that are now merely dismal would have been much more aggressively painful if the incapable architects who built them had deviated from the comparative safety of their cast-iron Renaissance into a style that put them upon their individual want of resources. Moreover, throughout the commercial quarter any attempt at a structural use of color is sure shortly to be frustrated by coal-smoke. Upon the whole, it is a matter for congratulation that the earlier rebuilders of