D. H. BURNHAM & COMPANY.

Frederick Dinkelberg

Daniel Burnham hired New York architect Frederick Dinkelberg in 1892 to assist his new design partner Charles Atwood with the World's Columbian Exposition.  In addition to the Fair, Dinkelberg assisted Atwood with the Marshall Field & Company and the Ellicott Square commissions.  Dinkelberg went on to become Burnham's "facade designer" -- and is credited with design for the Heyworth Building, the Railway Exchange, the Conway Building and the Flatiron Building in New York.  Dinkelberg left D.H. Burnham and Company in 1908 when an internal reorganization named Peirce Anderson its lead designer.  Dinkelberg's "last hurrah" was the Jewelers' Building at 35 East Wacker.  (And it was quite a hurrah...) But of all  Frederick Dinkelberg's commissions this little house designed in 1891 may have been among his best memories.

The Villa Margherite. 4 South Battery Street.  Charleston, South Carolina

Credit Charleston County Public LIbrary

The opportunities that employment at D.H. Burnham & Company brought to Dinkelberg could not have been gained elsewhere.  But at a price.  DHB was a corporate machine, taking individual contributions and crediting them as its own. For the commission on Battery Street, Dinkelberg was given full credit. For his assistance to the opium addicted Atwood.... not so much.

Link to another photo of this little gem at the Art Institute of Chicago

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D.H.BURNHAM & Co's Heyworth Building.

DESIGNED BY FREDERICK DINKELBERG

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The Heyworth Building was constructed at 29 East Madison in 1903 (or so, depending on sources). And "despite the limitations of Burnham's stylistic vocabulary" (a direct quote from Burnham biographer Thomas Hines) this one seems to have turned out okay. Okay. This little Chicago School gem is one of my favorites in the Loop.  Clearly expressed steel frame construction wrapped in terra cotta and brick.  A bottom, a middle, and a top.  Original ornament.  And an intact cornice.  Only a little modification at street level disturbs the effect.

Burnham's best Chicago School work happens AFTER the World's Fair of 1893.  And that work was designed by East Coaster Charles Atwood and later by the man hired to be his assistant, Frederick Dinkelberg. (Dinkelberg occassionally gives Sullivan a run for the money when it comes to ornament.) (Both read Ruskin.  See Dinkelberg's work at the Railway Exchange)

This block of Madison Street (and around the corner on Wabash) has become a surprising assemblage of good Architecture.  Around the corner is the Silversmith (see previous post).

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 And the next door neighbor is good company too.

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FREDERICK DINKELBERG. O'Connor and Goldberg

This post was intended to be a description of the 1904 Heyworth Building at 29 East Madison --- one of Daniel Burnham's Chicago School gems designed by Frederick Dinkelberg. (And we'll get there, I promise.) But while editing the photos I realized that a diversion was in order: a closer look at Frederick Dinkelberg's 1917 storefront renovations for O'Connor and Goldberg Shoes at 23 East Madison (just west of the Heyworth's main entrance). Quite a shoe store, I'd say.

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Another of Dinkelberg's storefronts renovations can be found on the Railway Exchange.  At the entrance of the Archicenter.

Earlier in my career I spent quite a bit of time designing storefronts for regional shopping centers -- and thought I was pretty good at it.  But nothing in my portfolio compares to this.

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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 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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