Daniel Hudson Burnham was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the Beaux-Arts movement, he may have been "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ever produced."
Louis Henry Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism." 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. Along with Wright and Henry Hobson Richardson, Sullivan is one of "the recognized trinity of American architecture." The phrase "form follows function" is attributed to him, although the idea was theorised by Viollet le Duc who considered that structure and function in architecture should be the sole determinants of form. In 1944, Sullivan was the second architect to posthumously receive the AIA Gold Medal.
Walter Burley Griffin was an American architect and landscape architect. He designed Canberra, Australia's capital city, the New South Wales towns of Griffith and Leeton, and the Sydney suburb of Castlecrag.
Henry Hobson Richardson, FAIA was an American architect, best known for his work in a style that became known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, Richardson is one of "the recognized trinity of American architecture."
The Auditorium Building in Chicago is one of the best-known designs of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler. Completed in 1889, the building is located at the northwest corner of South Michigan Avenue and Ida B. Wells Drive. The building was designed to be a multi-use complex, including offices, a theater, and a hotel. As a young apprentice, Frank Lloyd Wright worked on some of the interior design.
The buildings and architecture of Chicago reflect the city's history and multicultural heritage, featuring prominent buildings in a variety of styles. Most structures downtown were destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.
John Wellborn Root was an American architect who was based in Chicago with Daniel Burnham. He was one of the founders of the Chicago School style. Two of his buildings have been designated National Historic Landmarks ; others have been designated Chicago landmarks and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1958, he was posthumously awarded the AIA Gold Medal.
Bertrand Goldberg was an American architect and industrial designer, best known for the Marina City complex in Chicago, Illinois, the tallest reinforced concrete building in the world at the time of completion.
The Century Theatre, originally the New Theatre, was a theatre at 62nd Street and Central Park West on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Opened on November 6, 1909, it was noted for its fine architecture but due to poor acoustics and an inconvenient location it was financially unsuccessful. It was briefly renamed the Century Opera House in 1913, until reverting back to the Century Theatre in 1915. The theatre was demolished in 1930 and replaced by The Century apartment building.
The Monadnock Building is a 16-story skyscraper located at 53 West Jackson Boulevard in the south Loop area of Chicago. The north half of the building was designed by the firm of Burnham & Root and built starting in 1891. At 215 feet, it is the tallest load-bearing brick building ever constructed. It employed the first portal system of wind bracing in the United States. Its decorative staircases represent the first structural use of aluminum in building construction. The later south half, constructed in 1893, was designed by Holabird & Roche and is similar in color and profile to the original, but the design is more traditionally ornate. When completed, it was the largest office building in the world. The success of the building was the catalyst for an important new business center at the southern end of the Loop.
The Auditorium Theatre is a music and performance venue located in the Auditorium Building at 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive in Chicago, Illinois. Inspired by the Richardsonian Romanesque Style of architect Henry Hobson Richardson, the building was designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan and completed in 1889. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed in the theatre until 1904 as well as the Chicago Grand Opera Company and its successors the Chicago Opera Association and Chicago Civic Opera until its relocation to the Civic Opera House in 1929. The theater was home to the Joffrey Ballet from 1998 until 2020. It currently hosts a variety of concerts, musicals, performances, and events. Since the 1940s, it has been owned by Roosevelt University and since the 1960s it has been refurbished and managed by an independent non-profit arts organization.
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White (GAP&W) was a Chicago architectural firm that was founded in 1912 as Graham, Burnham & Co. This firm was the successor to D. H. Burnham & Co. through Daniel Burnham's surviving partner, Ernest R. Graham, and Burnham's sons, Hubert Burnham and Daniel Burnham Jr. In 1917, the Burnhams left to form their own practice, which eventually became Burnham Brothers, and Graham and the remaining members of Graham, Burnham & Co. – Graham, (William) Peirce Anderson, Edward Mathias Probst, and Howard Judson White – formed the resulting practice. The firm also employed Victor Andre Matteson.
Solon Spencer Beman was an American architect based in Chicago, Illinois and best known as the architect of the planned Pullman community and adjacent Pullman Company factory complex, as well as Chicago's renowned Fine Arts Building. Several of his other largest commissions, including the Pullman Office Building, Pabst Building, and Grand Central Station in Chicago, have since been demolished. Beman designed numerous Christian Science churches and influenced the design of countless more.
John Adolph Emil Eberson was an Austrian-American architect best known for the development and promotion of movie palace designs in the atmospheric theatre style. He designed over 500 theatres in his lifetime, earning the nickname "Opera House John". His most notable surviving theatres in the United States include the Tampa Theatre (1926), Palace Theatre Marion (1928), Palace Theatre Louisville (1928), Majestic Theatre (1929), Akron Civic Theatre (1929), the Paramount Theatre (1929), the State Theater 1927, and the Lewis J. Warner Memorial Theater (1932) at Worcester Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts. Remaining international examples in the atmospheric style include both the Capitol Theatre (1928) and State Theatre (1929) in Sydney, Australia, The Forum and Le Grand Rex.
George A. Fuller was an American architect often credited as being the "inventor" of modern skyscrapers and the modern contracting system.
Willoughby James Edbrooke (1843–1896) was an American architect and a bureaucrat who remained faithful to a Richardsonian Romanesque style into the era of Beaux-Arts architecture in the United States, supported by commissions from conservative federal and state governments that were spurred by his stint in 1891-92 as Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury Department.
Sidney Lovell was an American architect best known for designing mausoleums, and to a lesser extent theaters and opera houses. His first cemetery commission, the mausoleum at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois, is considered his best work. He obtained a patent on an improved mausoleum ventilation system in 1917. Two of his works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Orpheum Theater opened in Champaign, Illinois in 1914 on the site of a vaudeville theater built in 1904. Designed by the Architectural firm Rapp & Rapp, the Orpheum was built to accommodate both live vaudeville performances and the projection of film. After a series of renovations and changes of ownership, the Orpheum screened its final film in 1986.
Richard Martin Hooley was an American theatre manager, minstrelsy manager, and one of the earliest theatre managers in Chicago. Hooley was born in Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland, and educated in Manchester before first coming to the United States in 1844. After being associated for two years with Christy's Minstrels, he organized a blackface minstrel company and toured England, returning to the United States by 1853. In 1855 he traveled to California and took over the management of Maguire's Opera House in San Francisco.
Henry L. Newhouse (1874–1929) was an architect in Chicago, Illinois. His work includes the Milford Theatre (Chicago), Blackstone-State Theater, and Sutherland Hotel. He also designed Elam House (1903) and Chicago Defender Building.
