Early Modern Architecture: Chicago 1870-1910

Exhibition with photo of Glessner House at far right

On January 18, 1933 – exactly 90 years ago – the Museum of Modern Art in New York City opened its second architectural exhibition. Entitled Early Modern Architecture: Chicago, 1870-1910, the exhibition was curated by architect Philip Johnson, who noted in the official press release that, “Chicago, and not New York, is the birthplace of the skyscraper.” Thirty-one Chicago buildings were featured, including three of H. H. Richardson’s four Chicago commissions – the Marshall Field Wholesale Store, and the Glessner and MacVeagh houses. In this article, we will explore how Johnson came to curate the exhibit, how the buildings included demonstrated the development of “modern architecture,” and how the exhibition helped to restore Richardson’s legacy.

The Museum of Modern Art and Philip Johnson

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) had its beginnings in 1929, when a group of seven collectors and patrons decided to challenge the conservative policies of traditional museums, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in particular. Founding director Alfred H. Barr, Jr., had a vision that it would soon become “the greatest museum of modern art in the world.”

MoMA started out in six rooms in the Heckscher Building at Fifth Avenue and 57^th Street. Within months, 1,500 people a day were visiting the galleries, so in May of 1932, the museum moved into a six-story house at 11 West 53^rd Street owned by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (his wife Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was one of MoMA’s founders). Five years later, the site was cleared for construction of the present building.

Museum of Modern Art in 1933

Architect Philip Johnson (1906-2005) attended Harvard University after which he traveled extensively in Europe, becoming exposed to the work of Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In 1930, utilizing a considerable fortune from his father, Johnson financed the architecture department at MoMA. Two years later, he was named curator, and soon arranged for Gropius and Le Corbusier to visit the United States. He also negotiated the first American commission for Mies van der Rohe.

This photograph of Philip Johnson was taken on January 18, 1933, the day the exhibition opened.

In February 1932, working with architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr., Johnson organized the first exhibition of modern architecture at MoMA, entitled Modern Architecture: International Exhibition. They simultaneously published the book International Style: Modern Architecture Since 1922, which introduced modern architecture to the American public.

Early Modern Architecture: Chicago 1870-1910

Johnson’s second exhibition for MoMA was announced in early January 1933. The press release quoted Johnson:

“Chicago, and not New York, is the birthplace of the skyscraper. Few people realize that on the ashes of the Chicago fire of 1871 there was built the only architecture that can truly be called American. The great names in the building of the frontier city were three architects, H. H. Richardson, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, who, with their followers, made the end of the nineteenth century the greatest epoch in the architectural development of our country. They created a native product not indebted to English or continental precedent.

“To these men goes the credit of bridging the gap between the Crystal Palace of steel and glass in London in 1851 and the skyscraper of today. They were the first to take advantage of the shift from masonry to cast iron and from cast iron to steel. This independent American architecture finally succumbed to the wave of classical revivalism which the World’s Fair first brought to Chicago in 1893.”

The press release went on to note that Johnson and Hitchcock had spent the summer of 1932 in Chicago collecting information and photographing important buildings. It also noted that the exhibition would be “the first record of a great architecture which is vanishing rapidly under the sledgehammer of the housewrecker.” This was a poignant statement given that five of the buildings included in the exhibit had already been demolished.

Johnson felt that there were two main reasons why Chicago became the center of architectural development in the late 19^th century. The first was its inland location which “removed it from the influence of traditional architecture active on the Atlantic seaboard.” The second was the fire of 1871 which brought countless architects to the city to assist in the rebuilding and finding ways to construct taller structures.  

The exhibition consisted of photographs of 31 Chicago buildings, and one from New York, included to show how backward thinking the latter city was at the turn of the century. Each photograph was accompanied by an explanatory wall label prepared by Johnson and Hitchcock:

“We don’t want people merely to look at this show, we want them to study it and carry away with them a conception of what went into the making of the greatest epoch in our American architecture.”

Glessner House was the only building included for which the plan was displayed, clearly demonstrating how its innovative floor plan was central to the significance of its design. The Auditorium building was the only one for which an interior view was included, which revealed “Sullivan’s power of original design.”

Philip Johnson with the building models; Glessner House is partially visible at far left

The only three-dimensional items included in the exhibition were three models showing the progression from masonry to steel:
-The All Masonry Building
-The Masonry Building with Metal Skeleton
-The Steel Skeleton Building
The models were built by Alfred Clauss (1906-1998) a German architect who, in collaboration with his wife, architect Jane West Clauss, is credited with designing one of the earliest examples of the International Style in the United States. (The development of distinctive split-level homes was known as “Little Switzerland” and was located outside of Knoxville, Tennessee.)

The exhibition catalog included chronologies of both the technical and aesthetic development of the skyscraper, along with selected architect biographies. Johnson’s comments are brief but telling. Of William LeBaron Jenney, he credits him with the first use of steel skeleton construction, but notes he was “a technician rather than a designer.”

Henry Hobson Richardson

He praised H. H. Richardson:
“In his later work the importance of reminiscent elements of design grew less and less, but his originality as an architect was based on the integrity of his use of traditional construction rather than on technical innovations. To the new national architecture, he contributed not methods of building but a formative spirit.”

Louis Sullivan was clearly a favorite:
“Applying the basic stylistic discipline of Richardson’s Marshall Field Wholesale Store to the new skeleton construction, Sullivan first found a dignified clothing for the skyscraper. In his work of the late eighties and early nineties, his designs emphasized the vertical. Soon, however, he found a more logical expression of the underlying construction with a scheme of wide windowed horizontality. Sullivan led for two decades a considerable group of architects known as the Chicago School, but he alone made of the early skyscraper an aesthetic invention.”

Burnham & Root received mixed reviews, Root being noted as “one of the more original Chicago Richardsonians.” But after his death in 1891, “the prolific work of the firm, beginning with the general supervision of the World’s Fair, was rarely original or distinguished in design.”

Johnson made several comments in the catalog noting the negative impact the World’s Fair of 1893 had on the development of modern architecture.

Buildings included in the exhibition

The exhibition included 31 buildings in Chicago, ranging from the 1872 Field Building (architect not identified) to Carl Schurz High School, a design of Dwight Perkins completed in 1910. Most were tall buildings located in downtown, but the range included a synagogue, an armory, a park pavilion, a school, and five houses.

Louis Sullivan was represented with eight buildings, designed in partnership with Dankmar Adler, or from his independent practice. Four buildings represented the work of Burnham & Root and D. H. Burnham and Co. Richardson, Jenney, and Richard E. Schmidt each had three buildings, while Holabird & Roche had two.

A short paragraph described each building. Among the more interesting entries are the following:

Leiter Building I
William LeBaron Jenney, 1879
“An important step toward the skyscraper: the use of cast iron posts between the masonry piers introduces more light. The design is crude, but the general horizontal ordering foreshadows the more finished designs of the later steel skyscrapers.”

Home Insurance Building
William LeBaron Jenney, 1884-85 (demolished 1931)
“The crucial step in the creation of the skyscraper. The metal skeleton supports all the weight of the building except the exterior walls which are partially self supporting. . . In principle, the building has ceased to be a crustacean (chief support by masonry shell) and is already implicitly a vertebrate (chief support by skeleton). Jenney did not yet realize the revolutionary quality of the device he had employed above the second floor.” 

Marshall Field Wholesale Store
H. H. Richardson, 1885-86 (demolished 1930)
“The masterpiece of commercial architecture in masonry, and the strongest single influence on the design of Chicago commercial architecture of the next generation. Even when this influence was no longer direct, the aesthetic discipline of regular and simple design continued.”

Glessner House
H. H. Richardson, 1885-1886
“Here, as in the Marshall Field Wholesale Store, Richardson generalized and recreated the traditional elements of design which he had earlier borrowed directly from the Romanesque. The disposition of the plan with the main rooms opening toward the court rather than toward the street is unusual in America.”

MacVeagh House
H. H. Richardson, 1885 (demolished 1922)
“Less original than the Glessner House this house by Richardson is nevertheless superior to most work of the Richardsonians of the eighties.” 

First Infantry Armory
Burnham & Root, 1890
(Note: located just four blocks from Glessner House)
“The contrast of tiny windows and colossal portal, the avoidance of fussy detail, and the fortress-like scale of the whole, illustrate the possibilities of the free traditional design which existed in Chicago before the World’s Fair. The medievalism is hardly Richardsonian but rather that of the projects of the early nineteenth century in France.” 

Auditorium Building
Adler & Sullivan, 1887-89
“The treatment here of the masonry bearing walls shows strongly the direct influence of the Marshall Field Wholesale Store. The lower portions have been influenced by the Marquis de Vogüé’s publications on early Syrian architecture. Only in the tower appears the beginning of Sullivan’s more personal style.” 

Walker Warehouse
Adler & Sullivan, 1888-89
“Here the flatter surfaces and the more vertical grouping indicate the direction Sullivan’s manner was to take as it freed itself from the influence of Richardson.” 

Carl Schurz High School
Dwight H. Perkins, 1910
“This building owes little specifically to Sullivan. But it indicates the ability of the members of the Chicago School to find a new type of design for new problems. Especially in such a school is the superiority of their inventions over the archaeology of the stylistic revivalists clear.” 

Johnson included one New York building in the exhibition – George B. Post’s Pulitzer Building (also known as the World Building), completed in 1890. He was clear in his disdain for the design:
“Although at its completion the tallest building in the world (349 feet), this New York tower is progressive neither in structure nor design. It has masonry bearing walls on the exterior, 12 feet thick at the base, and only the interior is supported on wrought iron columns. Yet the Home Insurance and Tacoma Buildings had been completed several years earlier. 

“The conventional scheme of academic Renaissance design (the dome of the Invalides has been placed on top of the Louvre) is characteristic of the Eastern architecture of this period and is inappropriate and devoid of scale.”

Chicago’s awareness of the exhibition

Despite Johnson’s praise of Chicago’s architecture, it appears that the exhibition, which ran for five weeks, received little attention in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune carried a brief article entitled “Chicago Architecture in Gotham” two weeks after the exhibit opened.

However, Chicagoans were given the opportunity to see the exhibit for themselves, when it traveled to Chicago that summer. In a move that would be considered unusual today, the exhibition was installed not in a museum, but in the interior decoration galleries at Marshall Field & Co. This was a smart move, and probably resulted in many more Chicagoans being exposed to it than if it had been installed in a traditional setting. Additionally, that was the first summer of the Century of Progress World’s Fair and, for many visitors to Chicago, a trip to Marshall Field’s was an absolute must.

It was an ironic twist of fate that the exhibition ended up at Field’s. Clearly one of Johnson’s favorite Chicago buildings was the Marshall Field Wholesale Store by H. H. Richardson – a structure Field’s had razed just three years earlier.

Conclusion

The 1933 exhibition is the earliest to have brought attention to the innovative design and plan of Glessner House. Richardson had slipped into obscurity by this time, and with Prairie Avenue in significant decline, few would have an opportunity to see the house in person. If they had, they would have seen it blackened with soot and surrounded by empty lots, shuttered houses, and factories.

Three years later, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr. curated The Architecture of H. H. Richardson and His Times at MoMA, to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Richardson’s death. (Johnson had abruptly resigned as curator in late 1934). The exhibition opened on January 14, 1936, just six days before John Glessner’s death at the age of 92. Hitchcock’s accompanying book was instrumental in restoring Richardson’s legacy, and even made the case that the distant roots of European Modernism were actually found in the United States.

Of the 31 Chicago buildings featured in the exhibition, five had been demolished by 1933. An additional 13 have since been razed, leaving 13 survivors (listed in chronological order):
-Glessner House
-Auditorium Building
-Leiter Building II
-Monadnock Building
-Anshe Maariv Synagogue (Pilgrim Baptist Church, some exterior walls remain)
-Charnley House
-Winslow House
-Reliance Building
-Schlesinger-Mayer Building (Carson, Pirie, Scott)
-Gage Building
-Nepeenauk Building (Chapin & Gore Building)
-Humboldt Park Pavilion
-Carl Schurz High School 

Philip Johnson at Glessner House, 1995

When Glessner House went up for sale in 1965 and was threatened with demolition, Philip Johnson became one of the most outspoken advocates for its preservation. In an interview with the Chicago Daily News, Johnson referred to it as “the most important house in the country to me.” He stood behind his words and provided $10,000 toward the $35,000 purchase price. His appreciation for Glessner House extended back more than three decades to his 1933 exhibition, a time when he probably would have never imagined the critical role he would one day play in its preservation.

Glessner House Museum celebrates 50 years

On April 16, 1966, twenty individuals signed a resolution creating the Chicago School of Architecture Foundation.  Out of that organization evolved both Glessner House Museum and the Chicago Architecture Foundation, entities that champion and celebrate the rich architectural tradition in Chicago, past and present.  As we commemorate the 50^th anniversary of that milestone event this week, we pause to honor those individuals whose foresight and vision saved H. H. Richardson’s iconic Glessner house, launched the successful preservation movement in our city, and made Chicago a destination for architectural enthusiasts from around the world.

Glessner House is Threatened

For twenty years, Glessner house was occupied by the Lithographic Technical Foundation, but by early 1965 that organization had relocated to Pittsburgh and the building was put up for sale.  The early 1960s had been a period of extraordinary challenge and frustration for those attempting to preserve Chicago’s rich architectural heritage.   Among the chief losses was Adler & Sullivan’s Garrick Theater on Randolph Street, demolished in 1961. 

The fate of the Glessner house was known as early as November 1963, when several individuals met with representatives from the Foundation to discuss the future of the building.  Among those at the meeting were Wilbert Hasbrouck, chairman of the Preservation Committee of the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (CCAIA); Joseph Benson, Secretary of the Commission on Chicago Architectural Landmarks; and Marian Despres, wife of Alderman Leon Despres, and the daughter of architect Alfred Alschuler.  Hasbrouck reported back to Jack Train, president of CCAIA:

“Regardless of what final use is made of this building, I feel the AIA must take a major advisory role in its disposition.  The Glessner House is too important a structure to go the way of the Garrick.”

On January 31, 1965, the Chicago Tribune published an article noting that the future of the house was in jeopardy, but quoted several individuals who recognized that the house was simply too important to lose.  Wilbert Hasbrouck noted that the building would make a perfect museum of Chicago architecture.  Joseph Benson also expressed concern and noted that it was one of 38 buildings in the city to be designated a landmark.  But Marian Despres noted that the landmark designation was purely honorary, and did nothing to protect the building from demolition. 

Individuals Come Together

Many of those involved in saving Glessner house were well acquainted with each other by the time the house went up for sale.  Leon and Marian Despres and others had rallied together to save Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House when it came under threat of demolition in 1957.  That successful effort led to the formation of Chicago’s first preservation group, the Chicago Heritage Committee, co-founded by architect Ben Weese.  Soon after, Alderman Despres proposed an ordinance creating an historical and architectural landmark commission which awarded landmark status to 38 buildings in 1960, including Glessner house.

In 1960, Weese, Despres, and Hasbrouck joined others, including photographer Richard Nickel and architect John Vinci, to march together in a picket line to save the Garrick Theater.  Although their efforts proved unsuccessful, it brought these like-minded individuals together and the preservation movement gained momentum. 

Worthy of Architects’ Praise

Ben Weese recalled that in the early 1960s, he spent the day escorting the world famous architect Alvar Aalto around Chicago, showing him the buildings of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.  Aalto appeared only mildly interested.  But when the two pulled up in front of Glessner house, Aalto stepped out onto the sidewalk and stood transfixed, studying the building for over an hour.

In March 1965, Weese and his brother Harry took architect Philip Johnson to see Glessner house.  Johnson praised the building, and was especially taken by the floor plan which oriented the major rooms toward the private south-facing courtyard.  He offered to pay half of the purchase price of $70,000 if those in Chicago could raise the other half, but later rescinded the offer when “the horrid question of maintenance came up.”  In spite of that, however, Johnson was quoted in June 1966 as saying “Glessner House is the most important house in the country to me.”

The Weeses Search for Funds

Ben and Harry Weese continued to search for funds to purchase and maintain the house throughout 1965 and into early 1966.  In a letter to selected Chicago architects, Harry Weese laid out the purposes of the proposed organization that would acquire Glessner house:

“To establish the first architectural organization in the country, at the birthplace of modern architecture, in a historic and architecturally significant building.

“To create a unique institution to become the center of architectural history, a staging point for tours, a place to sell books and literature, a gallery, a museum for artifacts in the courtyard.”

Others Express Interest

At the same time that these architects and preservationists were attempting to raise the funds to purchase the house, four young men, working independently, had also learned of the house and decided to find a way to purchase it.  Richard Wintergreen and Jim Schultz were draftsmen in the office of Mies van der Rohe.  Wayne Benjamin, a businessman in finance, had met Wintergreen at the University of Illinois, and Paul Lurie, an attorney, became acquainted with Wintergreen through his fiancée.  The four men formulated their idea to save the house over dinner at Pizzeria Due, ironically housed in a late 19^th century mansion.

CSAF meeting, August 18, 1966

The Chicago School of Architecture Foundation is Organized

On April 6, 1966, the Weese brothers announced publicly that they would pledge $10,000 toward the purchase of Glessner house.  The same day, Richard Wintergreen wrote to Philip Johnson alerting him to the fact that he and his three friends had formed a group to purchase the house.  Johnson suggested that Wintergreen’s group coordinate their plans with the Weeses, and from that point on, all those working to save Glessner house worked together.

On Saturday April 16, 1966, a resolution was signed by twenty individuals creating the Chicago School of Architecture Foundation.  Those signing were:  Carl Condit, Richard Nickel, Herman Pundt, Earl Reed, Wilbert Hasbrouck, James Speyer, Joseph Benson, Clement Sylvestro, George Danforth, Maurice English, Phyllis Lambert, Dirk Lohan, Paul Lurie, Wayne Benjamin, Richard Wintergreen, James Schultz, Dan Murphy, Ben Weese, Harry Weese, and Irving Berman. 

The first order of business was to raise the funds needed to purchase the Glessner house. 

Additional articles will be posted throughout our anniversary year highlighting the efforts of our founders in purchasing and preserving what survives today as Glessner House Museum.

Photos by Richard Nickel

Glessner House Museum 125th Anniversary Gala

On Thursday September 13, 2012, Glessner House Museum celebrated its 125^th anniversary with a gala celebration held at Symphony Center.  The gala was the major event in the 18-month commemoration of the anniversary of the completion of the house, and was attended by more than 200 people.  Over $59,000 was raised for restoration projects.  The gala was generously underwritten by a grant from the Richard H. Driehaus Charitable Trust.  John Bryan served as Honorary Chair.

The location of the gala was significant.  John and Frances Glessner were major supporters of the symphony from the time of its inception in 1891.  John Glessner was one of the original “guarantors” who underwrote the expenses of the orchestra in its early seasons, and from 1898 until his death in 1936 served as a trustee of the Orchestral Association.  When Orchestra Hall was built in 1904, the Glessners personally solicited much of the funding from their friends.  Theodore Thomas and Frederick Stock, the first two conductors of the orchestra, were both intimate friends of the Glessner family, and were frequent guests at their Prairie Avenue home as well as their summer home in New Hampshire. 

A highlight of the gala celebration was the recognition of several individuals and architectural firms who rescued the house from almost certain demolition in the mid-1960s.  Eight donors provided the $35,000 in funding needed to purchase the house:  Marian and Leon Despres, Philip Johnson, Phyllis Lambert, C. F. Murphy Associates, Perkins & Will, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Harry Weese, and Ben Weese.  In addition, three individual who played a critical role in saving the house and overseeing its early reuse and restoration were honored for their roles: Wayne Benjamin, Paul Lurie, and Wilbert Hasbrouck.

Ben Weese (left) receiving a Certificate of Appreciation from Glessner House Museum Board president Rolf Achilles.

Shirley Weese Young receiving a Certificate of Appreciation in memory of her father Harry Weese from Museum Executive Director Bill Tyre and Board President Rolf Achilles.

Paul Lurie (left) and Wayne Benjamin (second from right) receiving their Certificates from Bill Tyre and Rolf Achilles.

Addie Carter, age 5, a great-great-great granddaughter of John and Frances Glessner, checks out the view from Box M, which the Glessners occupied from 1904 until their deaths in the 1930s.

(L-R):  Ward Miller, Anne Bird, Christopher Bird

(L-R):  Tina Strauss, Norman Sandfield, Joan Goldstein, Steve Jacobsen, Carolyn Ply, Nancy Ochi

(L-R):  Ruth Sharpe, John Vinci, Cindy Weese, David Sharpe

(L-R):  William Redfield and Robert Marks

(L-R):  Executive Director Bill Tyre with gala chairs Jim and Mary Glerum

Photos by Tim Walters Photography www.timwaltersphotography.com