Reliance Building

Last updated

Reliance Building
Reliance Building in September 2015.jpg
The Reliance Building in 2015
Loop Chicago.PNG
Red pog.svg
Location in Chicago Loop
Location1 W. Washington St., Chicago, Illinois
Coordinates 41°52′58″N87°37′40″W / 41.88278°N 87.62778°W / 41.88278; -87.62778
Built1890–1895
Architect John Root, Charles B. Atwood [1]
Architectural style Chicago School
Part of Loop Retail Historic District (ID98001351)
NRHP reference No. 70000237 [2]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPOctober 15, 1970 [2]
Designated NHLJanuary 7, 1976 [3]
Designated CLJuly 11, 1995

The Reliance Building is a skyscraper located at 1 W. Washington Street in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The first floor and basement were designed by John Root of the Burnham and Root architectural firm in 1890, with the rest of the building completed by Charles B. Atwood in 1895. It is the first skyscraper to have large plate glass windows make up the majority of its surface area, foreshadowing a design feature that would become dominant in the 20th century.

Contents

The Reliance Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970; and on January 7, 1976, it was designated a National Historic Landmark. [1]

The Reliance Building is also part of the Loop Retail Historic District, a collection of over one hundred buildings that reflects the growth of State and Wabash Streets as the central retail district of Chicago. The building fell into disrepair starting in the 1940s, and was restored in the late 1990s. Since 1999, the building has housed the 122-room Staypineapple, An Iconic Hotel, The Loop (formerly the Hotel Burnham) and Atwood Cafe.

History

Upper facade Reliance Building (Burnham Hotel) - Chicago, Illinois.JPG
Upper facade

Commercial real estate in Chicago, Illinois boomed in the late 1870s due to the recovery from the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 and the Depression of 1873–79. In 1880, William Ellery Hale purchased a small lot in the Loop community area containing the four-story First National Bank Building, one of the few offices in downtown Chicago to partially survive the Great Fire. [4] Hale was the founder of the Hale Elevator Company, an early producer of hydraulic elevators necessary in skyscraper design. Hale envisioned a new tower on the site, but first needed to raze the existing structure. However, its tenants did not want to terminate their leases.

Instead, Hale lifted the second, third, and fourth floors on jackscrews and demolished the first. [5] A new basement and ground floor, designed by John Wellborn Root of the Burnham & Root firm, were constructed in 1890.

Hale had become acquainted with Burnham & Root through his other real estate projects, such as the Rookery Building. [6] Burnham & Root were renowned in Chicago by this point, having already designed twenty other buildings in the Loop. Root developed the floating raft system, which enabled designers to build large, steel-frame buildings on a reinforced concrete foundation, a necessity in Chicago's moist soil. Root and Hale agreed that the new building needed to have large glass windows on the first floor with large, open spaces. On the upper floors, Hale intended to have several stories dedicated to smaller tenants, with offices for doctors and other professionals on the top floors. He also specifically emphasized the need for natural lighting on all floors. [7] The plan for the Reliance Building was consistent with the growing concept of the Chicago school of architecture, which emphasized the importance of form following function. Root died of pneumonia on January 15, 1891, before the completion of his portion of the Reliance Building; his intended design for the rest of the building has never been found. Carson Pirie Scott & Co. was the first tenant of the Reliance Building, opening a dry goods store on the first floor once it was completed. [8]

Daniel Burnham recruited Boston architect Charles B. Atwood to complete the building with E. C. Shankland as lead engineer. After raising the original building's remaining three floors Atwood used white glazed architectural terra-cotta cladding, a feature that would later become strongly associated with him following his works for the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. At the time, it was believed that the recently developed enameled terra-cotta would never need to be cleaned because its smooth surface would allow any dirt to wash away in the rain. [9] The steel framing on the top ten floors was completed over fifteen days, from July 16 to August 1, 1895. The Reliance Building, so named for its functionality, opened in March 1895. It was one of the first skyscrapers to offer electricity and phone service in all of its offices. In its first few decades, it provided office space for merchants and health professionals, including Al Capone's dentist. [10]

The building struggled during the Great Depression, and slowly declined. In October 1948, Karoll's Men's Shop opened a store on the lower two floors, [11] with a modern façade that obliterated the original storefront. However, the upper floors remained hard to fill. [10] On October 15, 1970, the Reliance Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service. On January 7, 1976, it was recognized as a National Historic Landmark. [1] The building continued to fall into disrepair, as the small size of its retail spaces were not appealing to business interests in the late 20th century. The city of Chicago made a commitment to revitalize the structure, but City Hall could not agree on a plan. The debate became particularly polarized after the 1989 demolition of the nearby McCarthy Building, which angered preservationists but satisfied business interests by providing space for a modern office building. [12] Finally, in 1994, the McClier corporation collaborated with the Baldwin Development Company to restore the Reliance Building; these two groups had recently worked together to rehabilitate the Rookery Building. The City of Chicago purchased the property at this time for $1.3 million ($2 million in 2011 dollars). [13] The Reliance Building's rehabilitation was completed in 1999 at a cost of $27.5 million ($36.7 million in 2011 dollars) [13] as the former retail space was converted into a luxury hotel. Canal Street Partners, LLC bought the revitalized space and created the Hotel Burnham. [14] The preservation of this building was championed by the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois. [15] Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley was presented with a National Trust for Historic Preservation Honor Award in 2001 for the role of the city in preserving the structure. [10] In December 2016, Pineapple Hospitality purchased the building and renamed the hotel as first The Alise Chicago, [16] then later Staypineapple, An Iconic Hotel, The Loop. [17]

Architecture

A hallway of the Reliance Building following the 1999 restoration Reliance corridor.jpg
A hallway of the Reliance Building following the 1999 restoration

The addition of the remaining floors in 18941895 completed the building and marked the "first comprehensive achievement" [18] of the Chicago construction method. The building's plate-glass windows are set within the terra-cotta-tiled facade. Its steel-frame superstructure is built atop concrete caissons sunk as much as 125 feet beneath the footing.

The Reliance Building has been called "proto-Modernist" in its lack of the hierarchy found in Classical facades. Its stacks of projecting bay windows and terra-cotta cladding create an effect of extraordinary lightness. [19] Its steel frame construction is physically light as well, being one-third the weight of an equivalent stone structure. It was a direct precursor of the all-glass Friedrichstrasse skyscraper proposed by Mies van der Rohe in 1921. [20] Richardson's Marshall Field Warehouse, built only eight years earlier, seems in comparison to be heavy, ponderous, and of another era. [21]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Reliance Building, NHL Database, National Historic Landmarks Program. Retrieved 10 February 2007.
  2. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  3. "Reliance Building". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved July 22, 2008.
  4. Pitts, Carolina (October 15, 1970), National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Reliance Building , retrieved August 9, 2011
  5. Pridmore 2003. p. 21
  6. Pridmore 2003. p. 28
  7. Pridmore 2003. p. 30
  8. Pridmore 2003. p. 34
  9. Pridmore 2003. p. 38
  10. 1 2 3 "Kimpton's Burnham Hotel Chicago: Historic Timeline" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 6, 2011. Retrieved August 9, 2011.
  11. Karoll's Men's Shop to Open Store In Loop, Chicago Daily Tribune, September 18, 1948, p. A5
  12. Pridmore 2003. p. 45
  13. 1 2 "Consumer Price Index (Estimate) 1800–2008". Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Retrieved August 9, 2011.
  14. Pridmore 2003. p. 54
  15. Granacki, Victoria (2000). "About Us: Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois". Landmarks Illinois. Retrieved May 4, 2007.
  16. "Chicago's Hotel Burnham sold, renamed | Hotel Management". December 21, 2016.
  17. Gallun, Alby (December 21, 2016). "Hotel Burnham has a new owner and a new name". Crain's Chicago Business. Retrieved February 12, 2017.
  18. Kenneth Frampton and Yukio Futagawa Modern Architecture 1851-1945 p. 63
  19. Colquhoun, Alan (2002). Modern Architecture, pp. 38-39. Oxford University Press. ISBN   0-19-284226-9.
  20. Kidder-Smith, G.E. (2001). Sourcebook of American Architecture, p. 297. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN   1-56898-254-2.
  21. Craven, Wayne (2003). American Art: History and Culture, p. 309. McGraw-Hill. ISBN   0-07-141524-6.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Burnham</span> American architect and urban designer (1846– 1912)

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."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicago school (architecture)</span> American architectural style

The Chicago School refers to two architectural styles derived from the architecture of Chicago. In the history of architecture, the first Chicago School was a school of architects active in Chicago in the late 19th, and 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. Much of its early work is also known as Commercial Style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architecture of Chicago</span> Regional architecture

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.

Mather Tower is a Neo-Gothic, terra cotta-clad high-rise structure in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is located at 75 East Wacker Drive in the downtown "loop" area, adjacent to the Chicago River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glazed architectural terra-cotta</span> Coated fired clay used to decorate buildings

Glazed architectural terra cotta is a ceramic masonry building material used as a decorative skin. It featured widely in the 'terracotta revival' from the 1880s until the 1930s. It was used in the UK, United States, Canada and Australia and is still one of the most common building materials found in U.S. urban environments. It is the glazed version of architectural terracotta; the material in both its glazed and unglazed versions is sturdy and relatively inexpensive, and can be molded into richly ornamented detail. Glazed terra-cotta played a significant role in architectural styles such as the Chicago School and Beaux-Arts architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carbide & Carbon Building</span> Skyscraper in Chicago

The Carbide & Carbon Building is a 37-story, 503 feet (153 m) landmark Art Deco high rise built in 1929, located on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. It is clad in black granite, green and gold terra cotta, with gold leaf and bronze trim. It was converted to a hotel in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Blackstone Hotel</span> Historic hotel in downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States

The Blackstone Hotel is a historic 290-foot (88 m) 21-story hotel on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Balbo Drive in the Michigan Boulevard Historic District in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Built between 1908 and 1910, it is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Blackstone is famous for hosting celebrity guests, including numerous U.S. presidents, for which it was known as the "Hotel of Presidents" for much of the 20th century, and for contributing the term "smoke-filled room" to political parlance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rookery Building</span> Building in Chicago

The Rookery Building is a historic office building located at 209 South LaSalle Street in the Chicago Loop. Completed by architects Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root of Burnham and Root in 1888, it is considered one of their masterpiece buildings, and was once the location of their offices. The building is 181 feet (55 m) in height, twelve stories tall, and is considered the oldest standing high-rise in Chicago. It has a unique construction style featuring exterior load-bearing walls and an interior steel frame, providing a transition between accepted and new building techniques. The lobby was remodeled in 1905 by Frank Lloyd Wright. From 1989 to 1992, the lobby was restored to Wright's design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marquette Building (Chicago)</span> United States historic place

The Marquette Building, completed in 1895, is a Chicago landmark that was built by the George A. Fuller Company and designed by architects Holabird & Roche. The building is currently owned by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. It is located in the community area known as the "Loop" in Cook County, Illinois, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York Life Insurance Building (Chicago)</span> Building in Chicago, Illinois

The New York Life Insurance Building is a 14-story building at 39 South LaSalle Street in the Loop neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. Designed by William Le Baron Jenney, it was completed as a 12-story structure in 1894 at a cost of US$800,000. In 1898, Jenney designed a 92 ft (28 m) addition to the east of the original structure. This expanded the Monroe Street facade to 233 ft (71 m). The addition contained 13 floors and an additional floor was added to the first structure. The expansion also added an entrance on Monroe Street and enlarged the lobby. In 1903, a fourteenth floor was added bring the building to its current height.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fisher Building (Chicago)</span> United States historic place

The Fisher Building is 20-story, 275-foot-tall (84 m) neo-Gothic landmark building located at 343 South Dearborn Street in the Chicago Loop community area of Chicago. Commissioned by paper magnate Lucius Fisher, the original building was completed in 1896 by D.H. Burnham & Company with an addition later added in 1907.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Printing House Row District</span> Historic district in Illinois, United States

The Printing House Row District is a National Historic Landmark District encompassing four architecturally important buildings on South Dearborn Street, between Jackson Boulevard and Ida B. Wells Drive, in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as South Dearborn Street – Printing House Row Historic District and listed as a National Historic Landmark as South Dearborn Street – Printing House Row North Historic District on January 7, 1976. The district includes the Monadnock Building, the Manhattan Building, the Fisher Building, and the Old Colony Building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">333 North Michigan</span> Art Deco skyscraper on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois

333 North Michigan is a skyscraper in the art deco style located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. Architecturally, it is noted for its dramatic upper-level setbacks that were inspired by the 1923 skyscraper zoning laws. Geographically, it is known as one of the four 1920s flanks of the Michigan Avenue Bridge that are contributing properties to the Michigan–Wacker Historic District, which is a U.S. Registered Historic District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roanoke Building</span> United States historic place

11 South LaSalle Street Building or Eleven South LaSalle Street Building is a Chicago Landmark building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and that is located at 11 South LaSalle Street in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. This address is located on the southeast corner of LaSalle and Madison Street in Cook County, Illinois, across the Madison Street from the One North LaSalle Building. The building sits on a site of a former Roanoke building that once served as a National Weather Service Weather Forecast official climate site and replaced Major Block 1 after the Great Chicago Fire. The current building has incorporated the frontage of other buildings east of the original site of Major Block 1.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colcord Hotel</span> Hotel in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.

Colcord Hotel is a luxury boutique hotel located in downtown Oklahoma City, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The building was finished in 1909 and has been considered Oklahoma City's first skyscraper. It is 145 feet (44 m) tall and has 14 floors.

Currently there are 124 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Central Chicago, out of more than 350 listings in the City of Chicago. Central Chicago includes 3 of the 77 well-defined community areas of Chicago: the historic business and cultural center of Chicago known as the Loop, as well as the Near North Side and the Near South Side. The combined area is bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, the Chicago River on the west, North Avenue on the north, and 26th Street on the south. This area runs five and one-quarter miles from north to south and about one and one-half miles from east to west.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crane Company Building (Chicago)</span> United States historic place

The Crane Company Building is a skyscraper located at 836 S. Michigan Ave. in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The twelve-story building was designed by Holabird & Roche and built in 1912. The steel frame skyscraper was designed in the Classical Revival style, and its exterior design is split into three sections. The first and second floors are faced in limestone and feature piers supporting a cornice; the third floor is also covered in limestone. The fourth through eleventh floors are constructed in red brick; windows on these floors feature terra cotta keystones and sills, and the eleventh floor is capped by a terra cotta cornice. The twelfth floor is decorated in terra cotta panels which incorporate Crane Company valves in their design; this floor is also topped by a cornice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buckingham Building</span> United States historic place

The Buckingham Building is a 27-story skyscraper located at 59-67 E. Van Buren St. in the Loop neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The building, which opened in 1930, has historically served as a mixed-use retail and office building. Chicago architects Holabird and Root designed the building in the Art Deco style. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 10, 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phenix Building (Chicago)</span> High-rise office in Chicago, Illinois

The PhenixBuilding was an office building in Chicago designed by the noted Chicago architectural firm of Burnham and Root. It was built by the Phenix Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Brooklyn, New York and occupied the block fronting Jackson Boulevard between Pacific Avenue and Clark Street. When completed in 1887, the building was seen as "the latest addition to Chicago's magnificent architectural structures". It was later owned by the Western Union Telegraph Company, who sold the building to the manufacturer and philanthropist Frederick C. Austin (1853-1931) in 1922. Austin donated it to Northwestern University in 1929 with the understanding that the income derived from it would "provide scholarships for the training of business executives". The building was demolished in 1957 and replaced by what today is known as the TransUnion Building, a twenty-four story office building designed by A. Epstein and Sons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karcher Hotel</span> United States historic place

The Karcher Hotel is a historic hotel building at 405 Washington Street in Waukegan, Illinois. Opened in 1928, the hotel was built during an economic boom in Waukegan; its location near Waukegan's train station and downtown businesses was chosen to attract traveling businesspeople. In addition to renting rooms, the hotel housed commercial and office spaces on its first two floors. Architect B.K. Gibson of Chicago designed the hotel in the Classical Revival style; his design used the tripartite form common to Classical Revival skyscrapers, which included a two-story terra cotta base, a brick shaft, and an upper floor demarcated by terra cotta panels. Other classically inspired elements in the building include its terra cotta frieze, cornice, and parapet along with egg-and-dart and dentil detailing. While the hotel prospered during the Great Depression, it began to suffer economically in the 1960s and would ultimately close in 1981.

References