CHARLES ATWOOD

Design Partner for D.H. Burnham and Company.

I find myself, once in a while, (not often, mind you) rarely, (actually), at a loss.  Unable to cope, momentarily, (of course),  with rapid changes in technology, economy, taste, and scale. It would be nice if things would just...stay the same.....for a bit.   So, it is inexplicable that I find some kind of  solace in turn-of-the-century Chicago Architecture. 

Charles Atwood was design partner for D.H. Burnham and Company, one the largest and most influential Architectural firms in the country, from 1891 to 1895 -- when upheavals in technology, economy, taste and scale rival our own.  Electricity. Radio. Elevators. Steel columns bolted to steel beams.  Automobiles. ...all new. A Magic City. Economic Bust.  Immigrants. Unimaginable wealth. Unimaginable Filth. Classicism vs. Regionalism.   Atwood, for 4 years anyway, was able to "deal."   At the Fair, he detailed a Classic fantasy.  For Marshall Field,  a palace, for the ladies.  At the Reliance Buillding, a delicate, un-ornamented structural frame that laid lightly on its foundations.  And at the Fisher Building --Gothic ornament (for the locals) and a scheme to rival the Chicago Schoolers.  Atwood was from New York.

I've enjoyed photographing Atwood in Chicago.  Appreciated his flexibility.  His expertise in detail.  And wonder,  -- if he was simply flawed when opium overtook his life, or if it was "the times".  Daniel Burnham went on, undeterred, to even greater successes -- first with Frederick Dinkelberg and then with Peirce Anderson and Edward Bennett.

But Atwood quietly died. With just a few buildings remaining, each remarkable in its own right -- divergent in style and reason -- to tell us a story.  One that is just out of reach.

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CHARLES ATWOOD.  Architecture and Ornament

PHOTOGRAPHS BY GREGORY H. JENKINS AIA

OPEN STUDIO. 10.15.10. NOON TIL SEVEN

55 EAST WASHINGTON STREET - STE 420

CHICAGO 60602