DANIEL BURNHAM. Railway Exchange. Triptych of Progress

Daniel Burnham's 1904 Railway Exchange Building is a tour de force in terra cotta.
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But it is not an "easy read."

First, we see the Native American Angels (with pigtails) at the cornice. (See previous Posting Below). Then the round (Sullivanesque?) windows. Next, the decidedly un-Beaux Arts approach to the Building Exterior, while the Interior Light Court is surrounded with classic columns and a Beaux Arts balustrade.

Is the Classic Interior 20th Century while the Building Facade is 19th Century Chicago School, albeit reinterpreted in white? Is it Anderson vs Dinkelberg? Dinkelberg (eleven years Anderson's senior) was fresh from designing the Heyworth (one of my favorite buildings in the Loop). Anderson was fresh from Washington and Manila and moving from success to political success. This is one of those questions that begs research. Hours in the Ryerson and Burnham Library at the AIC stirring up dust. The transition from Chicago School to Beaux Arts was neither immediate nor immediately complete. It happened in the drafting rooms of Chicago's most important Architectural Firms. Personal conflicts. One building at a time. Victory or Loss. Depending on your point of view. In 1904, I'd say, stalemate.

The Railway Exchange's vestibules are flanked with allegorical tryptichs. "Civilization" stands between two smaller but gracefully delicate (Arts and Crafts?) draped figures of unknown representation.    
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Progress" (carrying a very large mandolin?) is attended by "Science" whose foot touches a globe. She carries an unknown object. But her scarf is carried by the wind. Much like Mr. Ward's "Progress" just up the street. (See CHICAGO SCULPTURE in the Loop.)

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Two nudes sit (on a wheel?) beneath the symbol of the RAILWAY EXCHANGE.

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It strikes me that what distances us from the Railway Exchange - and confuses us - is not so much  a conflict of architectural style, as a turn of the century mindset that would allow Goddesses and Indian Princesses to tell  the  story of "Progress." And that Progress should include references to a Fair already ten years past, and steam locomotives powering slowly through the unsettled Territories of Arizona and New Mexico.

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DANIEL BURNHAM. The Railway Exchange. Angels. With Pigtails.

Daniel Burnham must have given some personal thought to the design of the cornice at the 1904 Railway Exchange Building. 224 South Michigan Avenue. His new offices. D.H. Burnham and Company was about to leave the Rookery and enter the Twentieth Century.   

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The motif he chose was a row of round windows.  

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Punctuated with Angels. Angels with pigtails.

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Not seen in Chicago since these (below) by Philip Martiny (assisted by Henry Hering) on Charles Atwood's Fine Arts Building at the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

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The Fair would become Chicago's inspiration in ways large and small, for the next 25 years. And Burnham's "launch" to successes unimaginable just five years previous. 

Two blocks north "Progress Lighting the Way of Commerce"  inspired by Saint Gaudens "Diana" (from the Fair's Agriculture Building) already "spun" above Aaron Montgomery Ward's headquarters at 6 North Michigan Avenue.

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Round windows at the cornice were not without precedent.  Take a look of Louis Sullivan's Guaranty Building in Buffalo, New York.

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PEIRCE ANDERSON. A Birthday Gift

What this country needs is a good propylaea. And the country's first professional Architect, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, made a good argument of its necessity.

Some years ago I followed Latrobe through DC and Baltimore. After the Baltimore Cathedral (where mass could still be heard in Latin), the scheme below, for a Propylaea at the Capitol, remains a favorite work. The first image is from Sheila Scott's "Temple of Liberty." The second is from "The Journal of Latrobe" published by D. Appleton in 1905.   

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I bought the "Journal" at the Prairie Avenue Bookstore, attracted by what appeared to be a relatively cheap first edition and The Three Arts Club Ex Libris. The penciled inscriptions were also of interest.      

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The book appears to be a gift of Peirce Anderson's parents to their son in 1906. Perhaps on the event of his thirty-sixth birthday. February 20. Just back from Manila, he would have been working in Daniel Burnham's top floor offices at the Railway Exchange.      

I have to guess that the Latrobe Journal would have been one of those "spot-on" gifts that parents can sometimes find for sons. Of course there were ties and socks of excellent quality (both before and after). But the implication here that cannot be missed is that with the success of the 1901 Plan for Washington and construction about to begin on Washington's Union Station (on axis with LaTrobe's capital) the folks in Salt Lake City understood, exactly, Peirce's place in history. And they wanted him to know that.    

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Washington's "Propylaea" is surely Peirce Anderson's Union Station. I passed quickly through the renovated Station on my Latrobe pilgrimage, cut through the Post Office because it was cold (and night) missed the Saint Gaudens, Lorado Taft's Columbus Fountain and Daniel Burnham's refined axial connection to the Capitol -- happy to find a cab to Latrobe's Decatur House -- warm enough, to be sure, but having missed (at least) one significant fact. Chicago's contribution to the nation's Capitol is no small thing. No little plan. American Beaux Arts, imported from the East Coast for the 1893 World's Fair, was returned to its source, unforgettably, remarkably, Chicago Style.

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DANIEL BURNHAM. The Conway. Something Going On

Below is a vintage shot of the Conway (from Sally A. Kitt Chappell's highly recommended "Architecture and Planning of Graham Anderson Probst and White.")  And something, most definitely is "going on".  Note the baluster on the Cornice, the rounded corners and the horizontal window openings. Every Burnham Building shows some variation from one to the next. This one seems to push the envelope --

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-- with both Anderson's Lions and Dinkelberg's Oak Leaves.  (Note the Acorns on this 17th Floor Detail.)

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INTERNET RESEARCH. Jack Train. Adolph Hitler. Henry Hering....and "Bauer."

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Relying too much on internet research without additional documentation may have tripped me up a bit. I am posting these two tentative corrections pending further in-depth research.

1. The Rotunda at the Conway was altered in at least two phases: first by Holabird and Root in 1945-1947 and later by Jack Train (dated to 1983 by Sally A. Kitt Chappell and 1986 by the AIA Guide to Chicago). I also have generalized information that ALL the skylit spaces in Chicago were tarred black in the early forties -- to make sure that the Nazis couldn't find us -- a process that may have also damaged the original construction. I may have credited the "scoop" to Jack Train, when it fact, it may belong to Holabird and Root, with the real culprit being Adolph Hitler --  not an Architect's arrogance. (See Previous Post)
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2. Henry Hering's most substantial work at the Museum of Science and Industry may have been in 1919 as part of the reconstruction effort, not in 1893 as previously posted. However, documentation of Sculpture at the World's Fair seems extremely problematic. Lorado Taft has been credited with "all" the sculpture at the Horticulture Building -- some 100 pieces as estimated from photographs. Phimister Proctor seems to have created animals by the herd. Philip Martiny is credited with friezes on the Fine Arts Building and all twelve "Horoscopes" at the Agrictulture Hall, among others. The Frederick MacMonnies Fountain alone could have occupied that Artist for years.... And then, there was the Watergate. "Chicago, the Magic City 1893" by J.W. Buel credits "Proctor," "Martiny," and "Bauer" with Sculpture at the Fine Arts Building. I am unable to verify that source. At the time, Henry Hering was Phillip Martiny's assistant.
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The picture below, from the World's Fair, may give us a clue:  the sculptors upfront, the ones with no facial hair, (and no names) covered in plaster dust, are holding the tools.      
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PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT "CHICAGO, THE MAGIC CITY" by J.W. Buel

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Extrapolition from fact is conjecture. Extrapolation from fiction is, well, fiction. It is always my intention to make the subject of Chicago Architecture MORE clear -- not less. If anyone ever sees information that even seems questionable, can recommend additional source material, or has just heard "something else." I would welcome a comment. GHJ.

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So. Just what IS going on in this picture.  Second from the left, I'd guess, is the "Artist". The man with the clean coat and the triangular rake, rear left -- maybe the the  project manager -- proud of his team -- allowing them the front row.  And the two kids, the workers?  Who knows.  But the one on the right looks ornery to me -- having had way too much fun rendering Minerva's bubbies....
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But this, of course, remains "Conjecture." 
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DANIEL BURNHAM. The Conway Building. Rotunda

In 1986, Jack Train Associates scooped the insides out of Daniel Burnham's Conway Building, demolished the rotunda skylight, and skinned the terra cotta columns in marble. Coffered gypsum ceilings and indirect lighting replaced structure and glass. Brass wall sconces added a touch of contemporary grace. I remember a meeting in the building soon after its renovation. In the Commercial Division of Arthur Rubloff. At the time I specialized in Strip Centers. And I promise you, we all thought that the newly renamed "Burnham Center" was the "cat's meow." "QUITE Up to the Minute."  And it was. Is. Up to that minute. Noon. June 20. 1986.

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The Conway holds some mystery. Fred Dinkelberg is credited with the 1912 design even though Peirce Anderson had become Daniel Burnham's senior designer in eaarly 1908. I wouldn't imagine Anderson handing off an important client like Marshall Field to Dinkelberg without good reason. Swagged columns, shields and lions on the Conway's facade weren't typically in Dinkelberg's design vocabulary. Octaganal columns and capitals, square piers, and what appears to be non-classical ornament on the original terra cotta, on the other hand, would not have been expected from Anderson. The round corners, complicated geometries of ornament, horizonal emphasis of window openings and the experimentation with the cornice suggest that something interesting was "going on" in the offices of D.H. Burnham. We traded that for the aesthetics of 1986.

Intellectually, I fully support adaptive re-use. But from the gut, I have to hate it. It seems that an aesthetic valued at a point in time should be shown continued respect. Just as our work, a hundred years from now, might also be found of value. It would not be so difficult for us to adapt. Just a little.

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Luckily, the Conway's alley concourse survives. Ca 1933.

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