PEOPLES GAS. A Personal Context

A Building can be viewed in Historic Context and Perspective. In terms of Symbolism. Or Current Condition. Technology. Style. Detail. Mass. Scale. Proportion. Or Client Aspirations.

But as important as all of these is the Context of the Architect.

In 1908 Daniel Burnham re-organized his firm. And Designer Peirce Anderson came out on top. After years of collaboration or compromise design decisions after 1908 were largely assigned to Anderson. People's Gas "belonged to him." This must have been a period of great optimism for Anderson. His contributions to D. H. Burnham and Company were substantial.

1905 The Plan of Manila
1907 Union Station. Washington DC
1909 Wanamaker's Department Store. Philadelphia
1910 People's Gas Light and Coke. Chicago
1911 The Insurance Exchange. Chicago
1912 80 Maiden Lane. New York

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And another career awaited with Graham Anderson Probst and White. .... delayed only shortly by The Great War.

Credits are due to Sally A. Kitt Chappell's "Architecture and Planning of Graham Anderson Probst and White"page 173: it is a rare and highly recommended biography of Anderson.

THE INSURANCE EXCHANGE. Final Thoughts

Its easy to say you know something, or understand it. But I'm beginning to believe that unless you write it down, review it, revise it, go away and come back to it, you may really only think you know. This is my sixth post on the Insurance Exchange. And I can say, after researching it, photographing it, thinking about it, walking away from it, and coming back to write more, I do like this building more than I knew and will regret moving on. Finally I know why.


Interior Public Space. This building is tied to the street, the sidewalk and the City. This is no dead- ended, securitized system. The ground level spaces are a continuation of the urban environment.

"Green" Planning. What could be more "green" than a light well, windows that open, and high ceilings to take advantage of natural light and ventilation. And as for materials, regionally made masonry and Terra Cotta add additional "points"

Conceptually in Context. Remembering the whitewash village at Mykonos, the Bazaar at Kashan, the cliff dwellings at Canyon de Chelly and understanding that unity of style is as important as style itself, the arbitrary style imposed by turn of the century Beaux-Arts planning gave Chicago the visual contextual rules to build "unity." This building belongs in this place. It is a contribution to the City.

A Bottom. A Middle. A Top. Its always good to know which way is up. And each of these elements relates to similar elements in adjacent architecture. And to the reality of"gravity."

Historically Referenced. This building is anchored in time. It is clearly identifiable as a turn of the century skyscraper. Tripartite design. Light Well. Public Space. Classic details. And its whiteness recalls the White City. I am aware of my past and present with the building.

Quiet Complexity. Walking by the corner of Randolph and Wacker's new tower, for example, you've "got it" in a minute. With little more to learn. The Insurance Exchange reveals itself more slowly. Nuances of space, circulation and ornament add value and richness of "place." And although buildings with similar design concepts exist (Railway Exchange, People's Gas, the Conway), this one is unique.

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The last reason is not so easy. (Although there are theories.) Some people like Vanilla. And some people like Chocolate. Happily both flavors exist. And beyond logic or reason (although there is plenty of both) for me, the Insurance Exchange strikes the chord, rings the bell.

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Next: People's Gas Light and Coke.

THE INSURANCE EXCHANGE. Tripartite Design

Chicago Skyscrapers ranging from the Chicago School "Rookery" and the "Auditorium" to the to the Classic Sky-scrapers of the early teens and twenties were usually of Tripartite Design. Simply said, they had a bottom, a middle and a top. In the earliest buildings (load bearing) the "bottom" tended to heavy stone or masonry. Later (with steel frame) a building's base could be more delicate, and a colonnade was often employed. In both cases, the "Skyscraper" had a flat roof.

The Insurance Exchange is an example of later Tripartite Design, an elegant interpretation of Classicism designed by Peirce Anderson after he became Daniel Burnham's chief designer. .

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The Skyscraper's ''CAP" (above) consists of a Loggia and a Cornice. The 'SHAFT' (below) makes up the carefully simplified middle. The "BASE" (bottom) is defined by the delicate colonnade.

Tripartite design was largely abandoned with the Zoning Ordinance of 1924 and the nearly simultaneous application of Art Deco concepts to Skyscraper design. (Not, however, without a long and successful "run") There are some notable transitional exceptions where "Towers" sit on a tripartite base. The Pittsfield Building, The Straus Bank, and the Wrigley Building are all important Chicago landmarks.

Incidentally, Charles Beersman's design for the Insurance Exchange's south addition includes foundations for one of those "Towers." A change in the weather, just after 1929 derailed that plan.

THE INSURANCE EXCHANGE. The View from Google Earth

Reading late nineteenth century poetry, I am sometimes teased into believing that Frederick Tuckerman, for example, is speaking directly to me. The Elizabethans, too, seem to have that capability. But we should remember that Art of any kind lives as perceived. And that there are inherent and unknown differences that will always separate us from "the original."

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And so, while I may study Daniel Burnham's development of style and ornament, it may well be that style was not the primary thing on Burnham's mind. GOOGLE EARTH , in one easy sweep, shows Burnham's work (and his immediate successors) in Chicago not to be the solid presence perceived from the street, but instead a series of voids enclosed within each building's mass. Repeatedly. Across the Loop. The Insurance Exchange (above, left). Illinois Merchants Bank. 208 South LaSalle. The Rookery. People's Gas Light and Coke. The Straus Bank. The Marshall Field Annex. Union Station. The Conway Building. And each of these "voids" or "light wells" was used as an opportunity for a major interior public space. A public piazza or piano nobile with uses ranging from banking to retail. Each building also included a secondary public pedestrian system connecting street to street and in some cases building to building. The richness of the combined impact of these interior public spaces and walkways cannot be over-estimated. Below is a photograph of the original public space of the People's Gas Light and Coke Building (which will be the subject of later posts). Scroll down to see the original rendering of the Insurance Exchange (post dated July 26). Stop by the ArchiCenter to see Burnham's Public Space at the Railway Exchange. Take another look at the Rookery. The similarities of planning between each of these varying projects overshadow their differences of style.

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It may not be the classically stylized architecture that puts distance between us and Daniel Burnham. It is reliable electric lighting and air conditioning that have eliminated the necessity of lightwells, and the security requirements of 9.11 that have precluded the concept of Interior Public Space. Burnham spoke to another generation. Another time.

That we measure Burnham's architecture within today's limited understanding speaks less of Burnham's architectural capabilities than our own incomplete knowledge.

Credits are due Google Earth for their astonishing aerial views of the Loop and Karen Schaffer's highly recommended book "Daniel Burnham, Visionary and Planner", page 189. (and don't overlook Paul Rocheleau's stunning architectural photography).

THE INSURANCE EXCHANGE. Thoughts on Style

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Trust me. I know "modern".

I grew up in a pre-mid-century modern house, whose spare style was a statement of available materials and capital. In the fifties I watched with envy as the neighbors built their wooden house with sloped roofs, plate glass, and egalitarian bathrooms. In the sixties I saw Mies birth Mies Modern as he gutted a block of the loop. And tried to compete with the new Miami Beach Modern apartments on Lake Shore Drive for hearts and minds. I went to school in a Bauhaus inspired studio, learned of Corbu, the Wiener Werkhaus and the Fagus Works. Friends interned at TAC and came home wrapped in Marrimekko. "Total Scope with Grope, " they chanted (stoned out of their minds). My first apartment (seventies modern) had plastic furniture, an arc lamp, celery shag carpet, and a Macrame plant hanger. My cigarettes balanced on a Warren Platner ash tray. I participated in Post Modernisim (though the effect was somewhat diluted by the strip center building type that had become my specialty.) I've seen the granite and stainless elegance of nineties modern. The computer inspired millenial modern return-of-the-curve. And finally, (thank heaven) the come-to-Jesus, this-is-it, the-final-real-and-forever modern of the new age. Sensible. Sustainable. And nine-eleven secure. Designed by architects with head shots and windblown hair, and sales gigs ranging from "Magic Carpets" to "Deconstructivism".

Now, don't get me wrong. I can identify and relate to real masterworks of every decade of twentieth century architecture. (And in some future post I'll describe how Richard Meier's work in New Harmony, Indiana fundamentally changed my own work and way of thinking.)

But there is one thread of modernity that persists and repeats. It is the belief that "This time, we've got it right." "This time its real, lasting, permanent" There is an odor of infallibility. An arrogance that allows the destruction of even the finest expressions of generations now passed. Below is the "elegant transformation" of the Insurance Exchange. The original building was designed by Peirce Anderson in 1911. I forget who did the 1995 remodeling.

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The original space was a dead ringer for the Atrium at the Railway Exchange (Daniel Burnham, 1904), though larger and more finely detailed. These days, there is a CAF Daniel Burnham Exhibit at the Railway Exchange, that is well worth seeing. The model of Chicago is spectacular. But take a look, too, at the skylight, the ironwork, the light fixtures, the balustrades. And consider the weight of loss and gain.

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Credits are due Sally A. Chappell Kitt and her highly recommended work THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAHAM ANDERSON PROBST & WHITE, page 46, University of Chicago Press.

ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM. Personal Responsibility

I like the Insurance Exchange. I like it a lot. 175 West Jackson Boulevard. D. H. Burham & Co (1912) and later Graham, Anderson, Probst and White.(1928) Peirce Anderson designed the building for Daniel Burnham.

My first job as an Intern Architect was at 309 West Jackson Boulevard. A job that became full time after graduation and lasted for enough years to tell you that I passed this building (more often in a hurry than not) nearly 3000 times -- to and from. Even in a cold rain, the Insurance Exchange had elegance and presence.

It fit. Cornice heights and details echoed throughout the immediate neighborhood. It worked. The Fed, the Continental Bank, and the Corn Exchange were up the street and around the corner. And the Board of Trade. Lunch, shoeshine, a drugstore, and a tobacco shop opened on to the skylit court. Custom suits were made there (for people with more money than me).. Everybody knew it was a Daniel Burnham building. And that it made Ernest Graham's fortune. (Perfect timing, I'd say.)

Over the years, it settled into gray disrepair. But the space was cheap and the location was good (especially for consulting engineers) . And though the white terra cotta never quite lost its sparkle, Chicago's Architectural "Critical Framework" tended to focus elsewhere. Daniel Burnham, of course, wasn't nearly the architect that......... So this piece of history was left to renovation (the architect describes his work as an "elegant transformation") rather preservation. No one said it should be any other way.

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I think that those of us interested in Architecture need to remember that what surrounds us is not just an expression of effete style. To be criticized with a roll of the eye and a click of the very educated tongue -- to be dismissed because it is loved. It is a reflection of men (scroll down to that picture of Daniel Burnham as a teenager) and place and history. It is also a reflection of aspiration. And we need to remember this and talk about it and photograph it and share it as loudly and as often as we can. So when the time comes, as it apparently has, for Michael Reese, everyone would already know Walter Gropius and Peter Behrens and that mid-century modern was born in dreams already then 30 years old and that we were about to lose a piece of something irreparable. And every person whoever drank from the Rosenberg Fountain would, each day, know that Hebe (who holds the secret of eternal youth) is directly connected to those whose inspiration built a once great institution.

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.