D.H. BURNHAM and Company. Charles Atwood

A BURNHAM DESIGNER and TEAM PLAYER

Charles Atwood, Daniel Burnham's "Outsider" from New York, gained his reputation for Beaux Arts design details at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and for pushing the envelope at the Reliance Building. But also, and maybe even more importantly, Atwood proved himself to be a team player at D.H. Burnham and Company. The Rookery, Marshall Field and Company, and Buffalo's Ellicott Square are clearly of the same heart, if not the same hand -- and show an evenhanded progression of the development of the highrise office building. (Even more so when one learns that Field's was originally designed as retail on the lower floors and offices above -- those three arches are the location of the now-remodeled light court. )

JOHN ROOT.  The Rookery  PHOTOCREDIT

CHARLES ATWOOD.  Marshall Field and Company

CHARLES ATWOOD. Ellicott Square PHOTOCREDIT

CHARLES ATWOOD.  Ellicott Square Interior.  PHOTOCREDIT

JOHN ROOT. Roookery. Interiror

Add Burnham's (Dinkelberg's)  1904 Railway Exchange to the mix and you see, clearly, a strong hand guiding Root, Atwood, Dinkelberg (and later Anderson) within the corporate structure.

FRED DINKELBERG. Railway Exchange. Interior.

CHARLES ATWOOD. Marshall Field and Company.  Detail

Still there was room for variations on a theme.  And creativity best born from the synthesis of Art, Architecture, and Engineering.

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I am very pleased to post this blog from my new Studio in the Pittsfield Building.  Overlooking  Alfred Shaw's Atrium.

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DANIEL BURNHAM. Charles Atwood

Disciplined. Versatile. Prolific.

Charles Atwood (1849 - 1896). Daniel Burnham's lead designer from April of 1891 through most of 1896. The guy who "replaced" John Root. The opium addict who said he was a bachelor, but supported a wife in New York; who did a couple of interesting buildings (Fisher and Reliance) after the classical badstuff at the Fair (the Fine Arts Palace was "okay" though) and then smoked himself to death just before Christmas of '96. And, yes, there's a restaurant with his name on State Street (a good one, btw).

That's the story.  Chicago is full of stories.

Previous posts have referenced some of Atwood's design versatility. They barely scratched the surface. Atwood produced over 30 structures for the Fair alone in a remarkable range of scales and styles. Link HERE for the list. Thomas Hines credits D.H.Burnham and Company with 42 more structures between the years of 1892 and 1896. (Some structures listed have been credited to John Root, some lesser commissions were delegated within the firm.) Still a conservative list would include some 40 or 50 buildings for which Atwood could claim at least partial responsibility in a five year period. This volume of work requires rigid discipline. It is not the product of an impaired mind. And let's look beyond the usual portfolio. Below are images of Terminal Station, The Forestry Building, La Rabida, Ellicott Square Building (Buffalo, NY), the Great Northern Theatre and Office.

THE TERMINAL BUILDING AT THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSTION

CREDIT Link Here

THE FORESTRY BUILDING AT THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSTION

CREDIT Link Here

LA RABIDA

CREDIT Link Here

THE GREAT NORTHERN OFFICE AND THEATER (RIGHT)

CREDIT Link Here

THE ELLICOTT SQUARE BUILDING (BUFFALO, NY)

CREDIT Link Here

I particularly like the Ellicott Square Building.  It is a picture perfect transition from Root's Rookery (Atwoods' predecessor at D. H. Burnham) to Dinkelberg's Heyworth Building. (Dinkelberg was Atwood's assistant who followed).   We forget that D.H. Burnham and Company was a firm with clients nationwide.  And to get the whole story, sometimes we need to travel a little. 

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Speaking of Buffalo, I highly recommend Architect David Steel's BUFFALO.  Link here for preview and purchase.

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THE FIELD MUSEUM LIBRARY  and the BROOKLYN MUSEM  are amazing sources for photo images of the Columbian Exposition -- and worth as much time as you can give them.

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Glad to be back online.  My new Studio is shaping up nicely, with some exciting new projects in the works.

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D. H. BURNHAM & CO. Charles Atwood.

The COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION OF 1893. Brown City. White City.
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Architect Charles Bowler Atwood was born in Charlestown Massachusetts in 1849. He studied at Harvard and learned "the trade" in the Boston offices of Ware and Van Brundt. He designed the W. H. Vanderbilt mansion (that's the railroad Vanderbilt) for Herter Brothers, and continued working for the Vanderbilts on his own account.

Daniel Burnham brought Atwood to Chicago to replace John Root, whose death in January of 1891 left Daniel (and Chicago's 1893 World's Fair) without a lead designer. By April of 1891 Atwood, under Burnham's direction, had begun sketches of the Fine Arts Building. Additionally, between the spring of '91 and autumn '92 Atwood designed the Exposition's Peristyle, the Terminal Building and all other structures not assigned to other architects. (Also in 1891, Atwood was at work on the new Marshall Field & Company store at Washington and Wabash.) Frederick Dinkelberg (later a Burnham designer in his own right) was hired as Atwood's assistant.

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CHARLES BOWLER ATWOOD

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(Nice mustache!) Prior to January of 1891, the World's Columbian Exposition had been conceived as "American" Romanesque, polychromatic, and set in Olmsted's artificially "natural" landscapes. The Fair of 1893 was Classic, White, and Formal. From our viewpoint in the 21st Century the White City, as-built, looks "old fashioned." During the late 19th Century, however, Classicism was viewed as international and very much in fashion -- and Beaux Arts was the Future.

JOHN ROOT. Scheme for the Peristyle at the Chicago World's Fair.
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CHARLES ATWOOD.  The Peristyle at the Chicago World's Fair.

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JOHN ROOT.  Scheme for the Fine Arts Building at the Chicago World's Fair.

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CHARLES ATWOOD.  The Fine Arts Building at the Chicago World's Fair.

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I will not discuss here the change in stylistic direction. (Let's decide the War in Afghanistan, first) But it is of equal magnitude, (for example) to Mies' proposal to replace Charles Ives Cobb's Beaux Arts Federal Building with something of the New Chicago School. And has equal ramifications.

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My introduction to the 1893 Chicago Exposition was on South Shore Drive (in a Buick Roadmaster -- and probably on my birthday) heading north  to the Museum of Science and Industry. The derelect "Pinta" was still docked in Jackson Harbor. (Link Here) My father said it was "from the Fair." Interesting. But the real highlight of the day was the U-505 propped on blocks, waiting to cross the Drive. To its new home. Alongside Atwood's Fine Arts Building.

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Credits Due Donald Hoffman's excellent "John Wellborn Root."

 

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D. H. BURNHAM & CO. Charles Atwood

Style at the Turn-of-the- Century.

Charles Atwood's apparent stylistic schizophrenia from 1891 until his death in 1895 (his time with D. H. Burnham & Co.) has had me stumped. NO ONE is that ambidextrous. Still, the documentation is there: Atwood was responsible for the Fine Arts Building at The World's Fair, The Palazzo Marshall Field, The Reliance Building, and The Fisher Building. Serpents, goddesses and inverted volutes.

The Fisher Building.  Serpent

Marshall Field & Company.  Goddess.

The Fine Arts Building.  Inverted Volute

But despite my architectural ponderings, the real questions of the day may have had nothing to do with architectural "style." Decision makers were weighing the advantages of alternating current vs. direct, the reliability of vertical transportation systems, and the calculations proving the stability of rigid frame construction.

The Chicago World's Fair.  Ferris Wheel

The Chicago World's Fair.  Power Generators

The Paris Exposition of 1889.  The Eiffel Tower

And here is a tough one -- especially for someone as architecturally centered as I am. The importance of Style, in the scheme of things, at the turn of the century, may not have amounted to a "hill-of-beans". And Architects? We surely played second fiddle to Nicolas Tesla, Gustav Eiffel, and E.C. Shankland. (Remember that name). Industrialization. Mechanization. Electric power. Communications.

Root? Atwood? Sullivan? Anderson? White City? Brown? What did it matter ---- speeding to the top of the tallest building in the world in an open cage elevator -- looking across the Loop and Lake to the horizon. 

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DANIEL BURNHAM. Charles Atwood.

A TOUR DE FORCE.  ONE AFTER ANOTHER.
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Charles Atwood, Daniel Burnham's 2nd design partner, made an immediate name for himself at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Augustus St. Gaudens believed that Atwood's Fine Arts Building (now, the Museum of Science and Industry) was the "finest thing done since the Parthenon." ( Burnham concurred.) (St. Gaudens was a master of turn-of-the-century hyperbole. Remember, it was also St. Gaudens who described the Architects' and Sculptor's' Exposition job meetings as the "greatest meeting of minds since the Renaissance.") More on this in future posts. (Quietly understated, I promise.)

But beyond the Fair (an amazing accomplishment in both quantity and quality), the thing that strikes me most remarkable about Atwood is his versatility. Below are photographs of the Fine Arts Building at the Columbian Exposition, the Reliance Building, the Fisher Building and Marshall Field at Wabash and Washington. All his and all completed within a four year period. Field's and the Reliance may have been on the boards at the same time!

THE FINE ARTS BUILDING

MARSHALL FIELD and COMPANY

THE RELIANCE BUILDING

THE FISHER BUILDING

A Greek Temple.  An Italian Palazzo.  Something kinda French.  And Chicago School Gothic (with eagles!)  What was he smoking??

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Daniel Burnham. A New Assistant.

CHARLES B. ATWOOD

On January 15, 1891, in the midst of planning the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, John Wellborn Root died -- leaving his partner, Daniel Burnham, "holding the bag." What emotion, other than rage, would be appropriate?

"I have worked.." (quotes Thomas Hines in his Burnham biography) "I have schemed and dreamed to make us the greatest architects in the world. I have made him see it and kept him at it --- and now he dies ---damn! Damn! Damn!

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THE ROOKERY.  John Wellborn Root

THE FISHER BUILDING. Charles B. Atwood

Damn is right. I might have added sunnuvabich.

Daniel was often surrounded in his long career by roadblocks  that might have stopped a lesser man. Recession. Panic. Drug Addiction. Corporate poltics. Earthquake. Ill health. But in 1891 D.H.Burnham picked himself up without missing a step, and went on to produce what was arguably the most successful World's Fair in the Country's history. It just took a shift of personnel.

Burnham selected New York architect Charles B. Atwood as his new Assistant.. Daniel paid handsomely - 27% of D. H. Burnham and Company's profits. But he was rewarded -- The Peristyle and The Fine Arts Building at the Exposition,   Marshall Field and Company (Wabash at Washington), The Reliance Building, and the Fisher Building.

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VACATION RAMBLINGS.

Re-reading Donald Hoffman's JOHN WELLBORN ROOT while travelling I-15 north from Las Vegas to Cedar City...... Contemplating those elegant drawings. Yesterday's visit to Gehry's Center for Brain Health much on my mind. And Libeskind's shopping mall at City Center. The Arbiteurs of good taste had said that Vegas needed those accoutrements to be taken seriously. To be World Class. The desert, the mountains, and the neon alone, apparently, couldn't do that.

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Hoffman says that Chicago School Architects did not "express structure" in some deep-seated philosophical statement. Structure was simply exposed when unnecessary skin and ornament was removed from it -- to make it lighter -- to allow tall buildings to be built on the swamped onion fields of Chicago. The School did not channel the mystic aura of some future Mies. In fact all they really wanted (even John Root -- look at the Boatman's Bank, below) was to design something in the style of Francis I. Or Romanesque, maybe. Or Georgian. (Yes, Georgian). But they needed something lighter. (Damned engineers. And damned foundations.)

Chicago architects -- forced to "reason" by the Chicago swamp.

JOHN ROOT.  Boatman's Bank

STUDIO LIBESKIND. Crystals. Las Vegas, Nev.

FRANK GEHRY. Center for Brain Research. Las Vegas, Nev.

Forced to reason.

So that the same mutant flower of Bilbao might not rebloom in Las Vegas. Or LA. So that the "metaphysics of presence" is, at least, contextually confrontational. Not idealogically static in its manifestations. Heaven knows that even Studio Libeskind can't compete in status with Louis Vuitton. Now, so does Daniel.  I'll refrain from commenting re: convoluted logic. Or the appropriateness of a Frankish reincarnation in Cook County.

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The product of the Chicago School, those "bridgebuilders", cliffdwellers, (and Daniel Burnham foremost) was neither the product of an undisciplined hand nor unlimited resources. It was the product of a problem and a problem solved.

A remarkable creativity born of reason.

That simple. That durable. That inspiring. Reason. Found.  Speeding north. Past Moapa. In the desert heat of a Nevada Fourth of July. 2010.

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Credit due Donald Hoffman, ARCHITECTURE OF JOHN WELLBORN ROOT, p 138.  This is a great little volume produced by Johns Hopkins Studies in 19th Century Architecture.

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