Styles and Movements

Chicago School

Also Known As Commercial Style
Early Modern Movement Architecture

The group of architects, Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, William Le Baron Jenney and Dankmar Adler among them, who rebuilt Chicago's commercial core after the fire of 1871 and, working with the new metal frame and the safety elevator, developed the tall commercial building's basic modern grammar: an expressed structural grid, large plate-glass Chicago windows, and Sullivan's tripartite base, shaft and capital composition. The Home Insurance Building of 1885 is usually credited as its first complete statement, though earlier partial iron-framed buildings complicate any claim to a single, undisputed first skyscraper.

Facts
Period
from 1871 1
Period
to 1893 1
The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 turned prevailing American taste back toward classicism, commonly cited as the school's decline.
Origin Region
Chicago, United States 1
Defining Features
Steel Frame 2
Chicago School
Filter Results2 entries
Connections

Associated With

Source Getty Vocabularies (Art and Architecture Thesaurus): AAT concept record: Chicago School

The organization's 1966 founding name and mission tie it directly to the Chicago School architectural tradition it was created to document and preserve.

Source Chicago Architecture Center (Wikipedia)
Source Chicago school (architecture) (Wikipedia)

Editorial link from the concept to a related style, element, milestone or figure; no citation attached

Source Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of ArchitectureBanister Fletcher, edited by Dan Cruickshank (20th edition)
Source Getty Vocabularies (Art and Architecture Thesaurus): AAT concept record: Chicago School
Source Chicago school (architecture) (Wikipedia)
Source Getty Vocabularies (Art and Architecture Thesaurus): AAT concept record: Chicago School
Source Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of ArchitectureBanister Fletcher, edited by Dan Cruickshank (20th edition)

Editorial link from the concept to a related style, element, milestone or figure; no citation attached

Jenney is regarded as a founder of the Chicago School

Notable Examples

Source Chicago Board of Trade Building, Wikipedia
Source Wikipedia: Flatiron Building
Source Prudential (Guaranty) Building, Wikipedia
Source Hallidie Building, Wikipedia

Widely credited as the building that began the Chicago school of structural-steel-frame practice.

Source Home Insurance Building (Wikipedia)
Source Louis Sullivan (Wikipedia)
Source Palmer House Hilton, Wikipedia
Source Reliance Building (Wikipedia)

A defining early example of the Chicago School of skyscraper design.

In the Other Atlases

Originated In

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.

Source Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of ArchitectureBanister Fletcher, edited by Dan Cruickshank (20th edition)
Sources
1. Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture
Banister Fletcher, edited by Dan Cruickshank (20th edition), Architectural Press, 1996
  • Period: from 1871
  • Period: to 1893
  • Origin Region: Chicago, United States
2. Getty Vocabularies (Art and Architecture Thesaurus): AAT concept record: Chicago School
Getty Vocabularies (Art and Architecture Thesaurus)Scope note
Quote, Scope note
In general terms, refers to the movement among architects and engineers, principally Daniel Burnham, William Le Baron Jenney, John Root, and the firm of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan,during the late 19th century that ultimately led to the development of the skyscraper and a distinct modern style of architectural design featuring steel and iron skeletons clad with masonry, simple exterior decoration often in red brick or terracotta, the rejection of historical forms, and the use of blocky geometric volumes.
View the Source
Chicago Architecture Center (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: Chicago Architecture Center
Quote, Associated With: Chicago Architecture Center
The CAC was founded in 1966 as the Chicago School of Architecture Foundation to save H. H. Richardson's Glessner House, one of Chicago's oldest residences.
View the Source
Home Insurance Building (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationNotable Examples: Home Insurance Building, History section, structural comparison paragraph
Quote, Notable Examples: Home Insurance Building, History section, structural comparison paragraph
the Chicago school of architecture had already begun.
View the Source
Chicago School (Wikipedia)
In Group: Early Modern Styles of North America, Article text
Quote, In Group: Early Modern Styles of North America, Article text
The Chicago School refers to two architectural styles derived from the architecture of Chicago.
View the Source
Chicago school (architecture) (Wikipedia)
  • Associated With: Steel, Lead section
    They were among the first to promote the new technologies of steel-frame construction in commercial buildings, and developed a spatial esthetic which co-evolved with, and then came to influence, parallel developments in European Modernism.
  • Associated With: Commercial Property, Lead section
    They were among the first to promote the new technologies of steel-frame construction in commercial buildings, and developed a spatial esthetic which co-evolved with, and then came to influence, parallel developments in European Modernism.
View the Source
Reliance Building (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationNotable Examples: Reliance Building, Infobox: architecture
Quote, Notable Examples: Reliance Building, Infobox: architecture
Chicago School
View the Source
Prudential (Guaranty) Building, Wikipedia
Notable Examples: Guaranty Building, Infobox: architecture
Quote, Notable Examples: Guaranty Building, Infobox: architecture
Chicago school
View the Source
Hallidie Building, Wikipedia
Notable Examples: Hallidie Building, Wikipedia categories
Quote, Notable Examples: Hallidie Building, Wikipedia categories
Category:Chicago school architecture in California
View the Source
Palmer House Hilton, Wikipedia
Notable Examples: Palmer House, Wikipedia categories
Quote, Notable Examples: Palmer House, Wikipedia categories
Category:Chicago school architecture in Illinois
View the Source
Wikipedia: Flatiron Building
WikipediaNotable Examples: Flatiron Building, Architecture
Quote, Notable Examples: Flatiron Building, Architecture
Unlike New York's early skyscrapers, which took the form of towers arising from a lower, blockier mass, such as the contemporary Singer Building (completed in 1908), the Flatiron Building was designed in the style of the Chicago school.
View the Source
Chicago Board of Trade Building, Wikipedia
Notable Examples: Chicago Board of Trade Building, In popular culture
Quote, Notable Examples: Chicago Board of Trade Building, In popular culture
At 1211 North LaSalle Street on the city's Near North Side, a 16-story apartment hotel built in 1929 and converted into an apartment building in 1981 was used by muralist Richard Haas for trompe-l'œil murals in homage to Chicago School architecture.
View the Source
Louis Sullivan (Wikipedia)
Notable Examples: Louis Sullivan, Lead
Quote, Notable Examples: Louis Sullivan, Lead
He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an inspiration to the Chicago group of architects who have come to be known as the Prairie School.
View the Source
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