Chicago school (architecture)
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Chicago architecture is famous throughout the world and one style is referred to as the Chicago School. In the history of architecture, the Chicago School was a school of architects active in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. They were among the first to promote the new technologies of steel-frame construction in commercial buildings, and developed a spatial aesthetic which co-evolved with, and then came to influence, parallel developments in European Modernism.
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Some of the distinguishing features of the Chicago School are the use of steel-frame buildings with masonry cladding usually terra cotta, allowing large window areas and the use of limited amounts of exterior ornament. The "Chicago window" originated in this school. It is a three-part window consisting of a large fixed center panel flanked by two smaller double-hung sash windows.
Architects whose names are associated with the Chicago School include Daniel Burnham, Dankmar Adler, John Root, William Holabird Martin Roche, William LeBaron Jenney, Louis Sullivan. Frank Lloyd Wright started in the firm of Adler and Sullivan but created his own Prairie Style of architecture. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe who had run Bauhaus in Germany before coming to Chicago is sometimes credited with creating a second Chicago school.
Chicago has a rich history in great building projects, in fact the first skyscraper in the world was built in Chicago in 1885, named the Home Insurance Building which was demolished in 1931. Some of the more famous Chicago School buildings in Chicago include:
- Auditorium Building
- Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building
- Reliance Building
- Gage Group Buildings
- Chicago Building
- Brooks Building
- Heyworth Building
- Leiter I Building
- Leiter II Building
- Monadnock Building
- Montauk Building
Today, you will discover different styles of architecture all throughout the city, such as the Chicago School, neo-classical, art deco, modern, and postmodern.