DANIEL BURNHAM. 1870 - 1876

From Treasure City to Prairie Avenue

During the last three decades of the 19th Century, there was no finer address in Chicago than South Prairie Avenue. Marshall Field, George Pullman, and Phillip Armour were among the most famous residents. And right in the middle, resided Daniel and Margaret Sherman Burnham (See Notes Below). Marshall Field (and later, his estate) awarded Daniel Burnham commissions ranging from his department store on State street to the Conway Building on West Washington. Less familiar names also resided on the Avenue. Wirt Dexter, for example, was General Soliciter and Counsel of the Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad. (The CB & Q awarded several important commissions in 1882 and 1883 to the young architectural firm of Burnham and Root.) Connections made in the early years of Prairie Avenue lasted Burnham a lifetime.

Burnham and Root appear to have drawn 9 residences for the elite on South Prairie Avenue. (You'll forgive me if I drool over these commissions just a little.) Who were these people? (Each one must be a story in his own right.) Who, for example was Ozro Clapp, his second important Prairie Avenue client? He seems to have made a name for himself. HERE. And HERE. OOPS.

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Daniel Burnham returned to Chicago from his Nevada mining adventure (see previous post)  in 1870. In 1871 he went into his first architectural partnership with Gustave Lareau -- who up and disappeared during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. By the winter of 1872 Daniel and gone to work for Carter Drake and Wight. where he was introduced to architect, John Root. The following year Burnham and Root became partners and the following year the partnership had acquired the commission for the Prairie Avenue Residence of John B. Sherman. Two years later, Burnham had married Sherman's daughter and had moved to the Prairie Avenue house that he and Root had designed. 

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From "busted" in Treasure City, Nevada to "at home" on South Prairie Avenue in less than six years.... I am an architect. I'm supposed to be blogging Burnham's architecture. But piece by piece I'm seeing a life the "reads like fiction."  Burnham and Root's understanding of Ruskin's architectural theory and their justification of a Charles the First aesthetic in Chicago ---- has just been delayed another day.

LaSALLE STREET. and Jackson Boulevard

Today, on the public sidewalk, across the street from the Rookery, a security guard asked me why I was so interested in "that" building. The light was playing delicately on the West facade. I was following it with my telephoto.

Not immediately realizing I was being scrutinized I told him I was comparing the proportions of John Root's street level colonnade to the columns and bay windows of Peirce Anderson's Peoples Gas Building on Michigan Avenue for a future blog post. Both are Daniel Burnham buildings and remarkably similar. (After all, HE ASKED.) His eyes rolled as he stepped back, smiling faintly. (That's when I saw the "badge".) He seemed truly satisfied that I was just an idiot and posed no immediate nine-eleven threat. Still, he watched until I left. I had to wonder where he was yesterday, when this guy, almost as tall as I am and twice my weight, walked up to me, put his hands on my shoulders, and then heavily, slowly, exhaled a week's worth of bad vodka into my face. He had just gotten out of jail (for assault), and begged that he needed a "human being" to give him bus fare. Luckily (on both days actually) I have the capability of "puffing up" and looking formidable for short periods of time.

Peirce Anderson knew how to deal with LaSalle Street's hoo-ha's. He just ignored them. When Louis Sullivan went into HIS alcoholic rant about Bankers and Romans and Togas, and what a stupid piece of crap the Illinois Merchant's Banking Room really was, Anderson didn't even bother to reply. I should be so calm.

I'm not.

Today, following the "incident", I wandered around the corner, remembering something about "discretion" and "valour" and began to photograph Peirce Anderson's work at the Insurance Exchange. (ca. 1911 at the corner of Financial and Jackson) As I focused and framed the full horror of Lucien LaGrange's "elegant transformation" of what I have always considered a Burnham masterwork (I've tried to ignore Lucien's renovations for some years now) I broke into a full rage. What kind of shocking arrogance would it take to believe one could "improve" on Peirce Anderson? Damn. The same arrogance, I suppose, that allowed some house designer from Oak Park, (what's- his- name Frank) to believe that frosting the inside of the Rookery with gold painted marble would make us forget all of John Root's nasty ironwork. And remember Frank, Frank, Frank. Amazingly, both of these "award winners" thought they were doing us a favor. And I thought LaSalle and Jackson was the intersection of the symmetrical and the sedate.

Architects are vicious. Architects eat their young.

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THE ROOKERY. WILLIAM DRUMMOND'S 1930 RENOVATION OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S 1905 RENOVATION OF JOHN ROOT'S 1885 ORIGINAL.

Note the Deco Vampire Bat eating the Mosquito.