The Monadnock Building (historically Monadnock Block ; pronounced "English respelling pronunciation"> m? - NAD -nok ) is a skyscraper located on 53 West Jackson Boulevard in the Loop area south of Chicago, Illinois. The northern half of the building was designed by the firm Burnham & amp; Root and built starting in 1891. The highest load-bearing brick building ever built, it uses the first portal system of windbreaks in America. The ornamental staircase represents the first structural use of aluminum in building construction. The southern half, built in 1893, was designed by Holabird & amp; Roche and has a color and profile that is similar to the original, but the design is more traditional. When finished, it is the world's largest office building. The building's success is the catalyst for an important new business center at the southern end of the Loop.
The building was renovated in 1938 in one of the major skyscraper renovations ever undertaken - an offer, in part, to revolutionize how building maintenance is done and stop the demolition of an old skyscraper in Chicago. It was sold in 1979 to an owner who restored the building to its original state, in one of the most comprehensive skyscrapers attempted in 1992. The project was recognized as one of the top restoration projects in the United States by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1987. The building is divided into offices from 250 square feet (23 m 2 ) to 6,000 square feet (560m 2 ) in size, and primarily serves independent professional companies. It was listed for sale in 2007.
The northern half is a vertical mass of unbranded purple-brown brick, soaring out gently at the base and top, with bay windows continuously projecting out. The southern half is vertically divided by a wall at the base and up into a large copper cornice on the roof. Projecting a window gap in both sections allows a large glass exposure, giving the building an open appearance despite its mass. Monadnock is part of the Barisan Printing District, which also includes the Fisherman Building, the Manhattan Building, and the Old Colony Building.
When built, many critics call the building too extreme, and less stylish. Others find the lack of ornamentation which is a natural extension of the commercial purpose and expression of modern business life. Early 20th century European architects found inspiration in his attention to functional goals and expressions. This was one of the first buildings named Chicago Architectural Landmark in 1958. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and was named as part of the National Historic Landmark of South Dearborn Street - Printing House Row North Historic District in 1976. Modern critics calling it a "classic", an "integrated design victory", and "one of the most exciting aesthetic experiences generated by American commercial architecture".
Video Monadnock Building
History
Half North (1881-1891)
Monadnock was commissioned by Boston real estate developer Peter and Shepherd Brooks in the building boom after the Depression of 1873-79. The Brooks family, which has accumulated wealth in the shipping insurance business and has invested in Chicago real estate since 1863, has arrested Chicago property manager Owen F. Aldis for managing the construction of a seven-storey Grannis Block on Dearborn Street in 1880. This is Aldis, one of of two Louis Sullivans who were considered "responsible for the modern office building," which convinced investors like the Brooks brothers to build a new skyscraper in Chicago. By the end of this century, Aldis will create over 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m 2 ) of new office space and manage nearly a fifth of the office space in the Loop.
Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root met as young designers at the Carter, Drake, and Wight companies in Chicago in 1872 and went on to form Burnham & Root the following year. At Aldis's insistence, the Brooks have retained a young firm to design the Grannis Block, which is their first major commission. Burnham and Root will be the architect of choice for the Brooks family, for whom they will complete the first high-rise building in Chicago, the 10th-floor Montauk Building, in 1883, and the 11-Story Rookery Building in 1888.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 had destroyed 4 miles (6.4 km) by 0.5 miles (0.80 km) from the city between the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, and the subsequent commercial development expanded to areas further south of the business district main stream along the river which came to be known as the "Loop". Between 1881 and 1885, Aldis bought a series of lots in the area on behalf of Peter Brooks, including a 70-by-200-foot (21 by 61 m) site on the corner of Jackson and the streets of Dearborn. The location is remote, yet interesting for several reasons. The construction of the Chicago Board of Trade Building in 1885 had made nearby LaSalle Street the city's main financial district, raising the value of property, and railroad companies buying more land south to build new terminals, creating further speculation at the southeast end of the Loop. Brooks commissioned Burnham & amp; Root for designing buildings for the site in 1884, and the project was announced in 1885, with a brief trade record that the building would cost $ 850,000 ($ 23.2 million in 2017 dollars). The Chicago building community has little confidence in Brooks's choice of location. Architect Edwin Renwick will say:
When Owen Aldis installed Monadnock on Jackson Boulevard, there was nothing on the south side of the road between State Street and the river, but a cheap one-story hut, just a hut. Everyone thought Mr. Aldis is crazy to build a road out there on the edge of a ragged city. Then when he took the building through Van Buren Street, they were sure he was there.
The initial sketch shows a 13-story building with Ancient Egyptian ornaments and a little burning at the top, divided visually into five sections with ornamental motifs of lotus flowers. This design was never approved, because Brooks waited for the real estate market in South Loop, still mostly warehouses, to be repaired. Where Root is known for its detailed design ornaments (as seen in the Breeding House), Brooks is known for his stinginess and preference for simplicity. For Monadnock, Brooks insists that architects refrain from intricate ornamentation and produce "the effect of solidity and strength, or the design that will produce that effect, rather than the ornament for a prominent appearance." In a letter of 1884 to Aldis, he wrote:
My idea is to have no surface projecting or indentations, but to have everything flushÃ, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, Ã, So high and narrow a building must have some ornaments in such a flashy situation... [but] projection means dirt, also not add strength. to the building... one big annoyance is the dove and pigeon lodge.
While Root was on vacation, Burnham made the draftsman create "irregular and straight facades." First of all, in the end, Root threw himself into the design, stating that the heavy lines of the Egyptian pyramids had captured his imagination and that he would "throw it away without any decoration".
In 1889, a new plan was announced for the building: a thick-walled brick tower, 16 stories high, with no ornamentation and suggestive from Egyptian poles. Brooks insists that the building has no projections, which for that reason the plan does not include bay windows, but Aldis argues that more leased space will be created by projecting the oriel windows, which are included in the final design. Monadnock's final height is calculated as the most economically economical for load-bearing wall design, requiring a 6ft (1.8m) wall at the bottom and 18 inches (46 cm) at the top. Larger altitudes will require walls of such thickness that they will reduce the space that can be rented too large. The last altitude is heavily ignored by the owner, but the decision is forced when the city proposes a regulation that limits the height of the building to 150 feet (46 m). To protect future revenue potential, Aldis seeks permission for a 16-story building soon. The building commissioner, though "reeling with the sixteen story plan", granted permission on 3 June 1889.
With 17 stories (16 leased plus attic), high-rise wall height 215 feet (66 m) is the highest of any commercial structure in the world. To support towering and reinforcing structures against the wind, masonry walls are glued together with interior frames of cast and wrought iron. Root is designed to frame this first attempt on a windbreaking portal system in America, where iron struts are glued between frame columns for reinforcement. The narrow lot allows only one single, double-loaded corridor, designated with a 3-foot (0.91 m) high wardencot of white Carrara marble, red oak trim, and furrowed glass that allows outside light to filter from the office on each side to hallway. Floor covered with mosaic mosaic tile carved hand. Skylit open ladder is made of bronze cast iron on the top floor. On the ground floor, they were made in cast aluminum - an exotic and expensive material at the time - representing the first use of aluminum in building construction.
The building was built by the firm George A. Fuller, who was trained as an architect but made his mark as the creator of the modern contract system in building construction. His company has overseen the construction of Rookery, and later built the New York Flatiron Building with Burnham in 1902. The Monadnock Block was built as a single structure but legally is two buildings, Monadnock and Kearsarge, named Mount Monadnock and Mount Kearsarge in New Hampshire. The work was completed in 1891. Monadnock, whom Root calls "Jumbo", is his final project; he died suddenly while being built.
South half and early history (1891-1893)
Driven by the early success of the building, Shepherd Brooks bought a 68-by-200-foot (21 by 61 m) lot that coexisted southward in 1893 for $ 360,000 ($ 9.81 million in 2017 dollars). Aldis recommends company Holabird & amp; Roche, who had designed the Pontiac Building for Peter Brooks in 1891, to extend Monadnock south to Van Buren. William Holabird and Martin Roche had trained together in William LeBaron Jenney's office, and in 1881 formed their own law firm, which would be one of the city's most prolific and recognized leaders of the Chicago architecture school. The northern half has struggled with cost overruns and Holabird & amp; Roche presents a much more cost-effective design. The design, for two buildings called Katahdin and Wachusett (also called for the New England mountains), connects them to the northern part as a single structure with an estimated cost of $ 800,000 ($ 21.8 million in 2017 dollars). Construction began in 1892, under the supervision of Corydon T. Purdy who would later earn an award as a structural engineer for many of Chicago's famous skyscrapers and New York.
The addition, 17 levels high, retains the color and vertical profile of the original, but is more traditional in its design, with its majestic entrance and more neoclassical touch. The buildings are reflected in the design of the transition that takes place in the design of the skyscraper from the retaining wall to the steel frame construction. The Katahdin, built first, uses the same masonry brick construction as the original. The Wachusett is entirely made of steel. Where the northern half requires a very large brick thickness on the load-bearing wall, the addition is used only in the form of thin facing bricks and terracotta trim, providing a larger and faster expanse of glass, cheaper construction. The southern half costs 15 percent less, weighs 15 percent less, and has 15 percent more space to rent from the northern half. Connected on every floor except the upper floors and sharing common basements, each of the four component buildings is equipped with its own heating system, elevators, stairs, and drains to facilitate separate sales if required. The combined final cost in 1893 was $ 2.5 million ($ 68.1 million in 2017 dollars).
When completed, Monadnock is the largest office building in the world, with 1,200 rooms and more than 6,000 occupancy. The Chicago Daily Tribune commented that residents in most Illinois cities in 1896 would fit comfortably in the building. It is a postal district of its own, with four full-time carriers sending letters six times a day, six days a week. It was the first building in Chicago connected to electricity, and one of the first to be fireproof, with a hollow fire clay tile lining the structure so that the metal frames would be protected even if the facing bricks had to be destroyed.
Brooks's decision to build a building of such scale and in such a small location is justified by the success of Monadnock - it is the most profitable investment they have ever made. The Economist, the Chicago real estate journal, acknowledged in 1892 that:
the speed that Monadnock and Kearsarge... have hired is one of the phenomenal features in the city's real estate market. The constructive and successful establishment of these buildings has just formed, in a very short time, an important business center on the southwest corner of Jackson and the streets of Dearborn, a point previously thought to be too far south to prosper. Central business.
The initial tenants, according to Rand McNally, include "big companies, banks, and professional people... among them Santa Fe, Central Michigan, and Chicago & Alton Railroads, and American Exchange National and Globe Savings Banks.
In 1897, the Union Elevated Railroad Company opened the Union Loop line from Chicago "L", the last leg that ran directly beside the Van Buren side of the building. Aldis filed a lawsuit against "L" in 1901 for $ 300,000 in damages ($ 8.82 million in 2017 dollars), complaining that:
[a] means of access to the building... have been disconnected and light, air, and views are obstructed, and the enjoyment of property is disturbed by the throwing of smoke, dust, ash and dirt... by creating and causing a loud and unpleasant sound, and by causing the ground to shake and vibrate... say the building and the place is very damaged.
Aldis lost the case, but won on appeal, when the Illinois Supreme Court found that property owners bordering the "L" line could recover damages if the property had been injured by noise, vibration or blocking light, paving the way for many lawsuits for followed.
Modernization (1938-1979)
The explosion in new construction after 1926 created intense competition for old buildings such as Monadnock. Occupancy decreased from 87 percent in 1929 to 55 percent in 1937 and buildings began to lose money. In 1938, building manager Graham Aldis (Owen's nephew) announced the so-called Chicago Daily Tribune as "the largest and most modern modernization work in town" in an attempt to stop the destruction of an old skyscraper in Chicago. Rejecting the term "modernization", Aldis calls his plan a "progressive force", which he believes will revolutionize the way building maintenance is carried out to conserve multimillion-dollar buildings that would otherwise be destroyed. "There is no reason why", he said, "any well-designed office building needs to be torn down because of obsolescence." Skidmore & amp; Owings, who has pioneered functional design, is retained to lead the $ 125 million program ($ 2.17 million by 2017 dollars) to the main entrance restyle, overhaul lobby and ground floor stores, modernize all public spaces, and further modernize office suites as demand. required. Modernization includes covering mosaic floors with rubber tiles and terrazzo, attaching elevators and decorative stairs, and replacing marble and oak finishes in corridors and offices with modern materials. By the end of 1938, 35 new tenants had signed the lease and 11 existing tenants had rented additional space in the building.
In 1966, Aldis & amp; Co., which has been managing the Brooks plantation for 75 years, was dissolved and Monadnock sold for $ 2 million ($ 15.1 million in dollars 2017) for Sudler & Co, owner of John Hancock Center, the Rookery Building, and Old Colony Building. The new owners again modernized the interior, installed carpets, fluorescent lamps, and new doors, and made a great effort to shore up a 1,75 inch (44 mm) northern wall during the construction of the Kluczynski Federal Building on Jackson Street in 1974.
In 1977, high operational costs, low rents, and occupancy rates fell to 80 percent. Struggling to make loan payments, owners are forced to sell buildings to avoid foreclosure. It was bought by a partnership led by William S. Donnell in 1979 for $ 5 per square foot ($ 53.82 per square meter) or about $ 2 million ($ 6.74 million in 2017 dollars).
Recovery and then (1979 -)
The Donnell building that was purchased in 1979 has declined badly. The entrance of Dearborn has been closed, the ground floor has been "marred by tawdry signs", and the bricks have been painted and peeled off. Inside, the marble sheath has been painted and many original oak doors have been replaced with cheaper mahogany. The decorative staircase rail has been closed, and several stairs and corridors have been completely closed. Many of the original mosaic tiles have been destroyed - some carpeted floors, others ceramic tiles or terrazzo. Half of the sixteen lifts are still manually operated. "It's as if it has been updated partly every ten years throughout its history," Donnell said, "it's never finished entirely."
Donnell, who has studied architecture at Harvard, plans to clean the building and build a new, modern office complex in his historic shell. Failing to get financing for renovation, he instead started an additional project, "pay as you go" to return Monadnock to its original state with meticulous detail. The project, according to historian Donald Miller, restored the most comprehensive skyscraper ever undertaken at the time; it took thirteen years to complete. Working from the original drawings found at the Art Institute of Chicago, and two older photographs, Donnell and John Vinci, one of the country's leading preservation architects, restore the building to the condition when it was first built, before modernization, work gradually as the office became blank.
The color of the lacquer was matched with a cupboard where wood was not darkened by exposure to light. Mosaic floors were recreated by Italian craftsmen at a cost of $ 50 per square foot ($ 538.12 per square meter). A local company was discovered that could reproduce the complicated process of sandblasting and hide glue applications used to make genuine bristle glass. This reproducible glass is used to restore the natural partition and corridor of the Root design. To recreate wooden doors and tiles, Donnell bought a company that had created the original oak - and still used the same 19th century machine. The perfect replica of the original aluminum lamps is made from early photographs and carbon filament bulbs are obtained to create original lighting effects. A living aluminum ladder is found behind a wall, restored, and used as a model for rebuilding the lobby and metal staircases. The upstairs wainscoting was restored with marble rescued from the recently modernized, near 19 LaSalle and the Manhattan Buildings. Marble is purchased from the same Italian mine that supplies the original Root construction to restore the walls and ceiling of the lobby.
The driveway of Dearborn Street is reopened and the large granite and edges are cleaned from a black paint coat or replaced. A source is found for the bricks needed to repair or replace the curved angle. The large plate glass windows at the entrance have been removed and replaced with double-glazed windows that match the original design. Fiberglass shades resembling the original linen version are fitted to maintain the facade look. The average cost of restoration work was $ 1 million per floor ($ 1.97 million in 2017 dollars) in 1989, or $ 47 per square foot ($ 505.92 per square meter).
Donnell's goal is that Monadnock will "not only look like the original, it's also life as it once was," and he's looking for tenants for street-level shops that are similar to those 19th-century residents. The shop windows are cleaned of all signs and obstructions to preserve the intended view from the corridor all the way to the street. Fluorescent lights are prohibited and only the writing of gold leaf on the glass is allowed for the nameplate. Shops, all individually owned, are chosen to fit the architectural character of the building. A florist, for example, is chosen that evokes a medieval atmosphere, as well as a hairdresser with antique fixtures and decorations. A tobacco seller with oak furniture, a pen-shop with a glass box, shine stand, and other service companies are represented, in the words of Donnell, "the type of small-scale entrepreneur who occupied the space at the turn of the century, vitality and life to the building because they have shares in it. "
Restoration works both critically and commercially. The building was occupied 80% when purchased in 1979 and leased for $ 5.50 per square foot ($ 59.20 per square meter). In 1982, 91 percent was occupied and ordered a lease of $ 9 per square foot ($ 96.89 per square meter). Monadnock was selected as one of the country's top restoration projects by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1987, noting "the extraordinary quality of the overall restoration effort", and the precision, detail and loyalty of interior restoration, particularly the lobby, which "serves as a model for national conservation. "
The restored monadnock is divided into offices from 250 square feet (23 m 2 ) to 6,000 square feet (560 m 2 ) In 2008, it was 98.9 percent leased; 300 tenants are companies and independent professional entrepreneurs. Rents range from $ 21 to $ 23 per square foot ($ 226 to $ 247 per square meter), plus electricity.
The building was offered for sale in 2007, at an expected price of $ 45 to $ 60 million. The tentative agreement was reached at a price of $ 48 million in 2008.
Maps Monadnock Building
Architecture
Together, the two sections of the building have a 420 feet (130 m) front section on Dearborn Street with a depth of 70 feet (21 m). The genuine southern half brings the masses of brick-brown plain and unbroken blues, contoured to create a soft curve at the base of the building and an outer flare to form a hard barrier wall at the top. Soft swellings at the base and cornice, observed historian Donald Hoffman, "came very close to the bell-shaped columns that the Egyptians had obtained from papyrus." The corners of the building are gracefully lined up as they go up and the oriel windows are lined up at their base. Floor divisions are not marked on the outside; the unbroken building is only disturbed by a series of cantilever windows, separated by a single row of window filled into the vertical face. Its entrance is small, a portal with a single height above it with a plain stone lintel.
The southern section maintains the lines and colors of the older buildings, but is vertically divided by the stringcourse above the second story, emphasizing the base of the building, and the large ornamental copper cornice on the roofline. Large block of red granite, 6 feet thick (1.8 m), framing large two-story entrance. The projection window slit from the original is repeated, but alternately in the two bay pattern of the four windows into a hidden lane window to create a wavy facade display which is the original trademark of Holabird & amp; Roche. Carl Condit, a Chicago school historian, commented that:
The general appearance of Monadnock almost disowns the masonry construction. Shadows projecting walls with large glass areas provide light and open appearance structures regardless of their large mass.... Stripped from any residual ornaments, strict geometry is only softened by a slight arch into the wall at the top of the first story, the outer flare from the parapet, and progressive rounding from the corners of the bottom up, smooth and proportional, Monadnock is a strong yet powerful expressive composition in the horizontal and vertical lines.
Monadnock relies on a floating foundation system created by Root for the Montauk Building that revolutionized the way high buildings were built on the land of Chicago sponges. A 2-foot (0.61 m) concrete layer, reinforced with steel blocks, forms a foothold that extends up to 11 feet (3.4 m) below the surrounding streets, spreading the weight of the building over a large area of ​​the earth. The building was designed to settle 8 inches (200 mm), but in 1905 it had completed it a lot and "a few inches more", necessitated the reconstruction of the first floor. In 1948, he had settled 20 inches (51 cm), resulting in a step down from the road to the ground floor. The entire east wall is supported on caissons that sink to hardpan, mounted when the Blue Line subway was dug under Dearborn Road in 1940.
The narrow building allows external exposure to all 300 offices, which pass through natural light through an outer window that is hung double through split glass and partition passage into a single central corridor. Skylights bring sunlight to the stairs open. The northern half corridor has a width of 20 feet (6.1 m) and the southern half of the corridor is 6.5 feet (3.51 m). In the north, there are two open staircases in the middle at the third point, with holes in the staircase, white marble footprint, and a decorative steel fence. There are two banks of four elevators on the west side of the corridor, one for passengers and the other for delivery. In the south, there is a bank of elevators in the northern part of its length. The southern edge is abandoned and placed on every floor. There is a ladder behind each of these shafts with a marble footprint, a closed cast iron guard, and an ornamental ledge. The basic office office is 600 square feet (56 m 2 ), which consists of one outside office and two or more offices. The heavy internal walls in the quarter and the half dots, the arch that manifests Root's ground roots, marks the boundaries of the original four buildings.
Nearby
Monadnock belongs to the Printing District of House Row, a National Historic Landmark that includes the Manhattan Building, the Old Colony Building, and the Fisher Building, some of Chicago's early skyscrapers. The Manhattan Building, built by William LeBaron Jenney in 1890, was the first building in Chicago with a complete steel frame or "Chicago" construction, an innovation that Jenney introduced at Home Insurance Building in 1884. The first 16-storey building in America, it is "considered with awe and fear". Jenney's work, Manhattan is regarded as a technical victory in construction. 17-floor old colony, built by Holabird & amp; Roche in 1894, was considered one of the structural masterpieces of his time for the revolutionary portal of bracing. This is the only survivor of a bunch of Chicago school buildings with rounded corner bays. The Fisher Building, built by Burnham in 1894, is an engineering marvel - the first commercial building built almost entirely without bricks. Steel frames and thin terracotta curtain walls allow two-thirds of the surface to be covered with glass.
The district overlaps geographically with the Printer's Row environment, which was originally the center of Chicago's printing and publishing industry, but is now largely converted into housing. This area is also home to the world's largest public library, Harold Washington Library, named for the first Chicago-American mayor of Chicago, and the campus of Loop of Depaul University, the largest Roman Catholic university in America.
Immediately west on Jackson Street is the Union League Club of Chicago, founded in 1879 as a civil organization for "honest and law-abiding businessmen". In the north there are three buildings consisting of the Minimalist Federal Plaza Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe: The 1964 Everett McKinley Dirksen, United States Court, the only court house designed by Mies; United States Post Office Loop Station 1973; and the 1975 Federal Building of Kluczynski, the final project of Mies, which is considered to mark the peak of his career. Metropolitan Correctional Center 27 levels of triangle, a detention center serving Federal courts in the Dirksen Building and Federal Building Ralph H. Metcalfe, to the southwest of Monadnock at Clark and LaSalle.
The southern leg of the Chicago Transit Authority increases the rail loop next to the building on Van Buren Street; CTA Brown, Orange, Pink, and Purple Lines served by the State Library/Van Buren stop one block to the east. The Jackson subway station, serving the Blue Line, is on the side of Dearborn Street.
Critical reception and historical significance
Contemporary Chicago critics consider building too radically a departure from Burnham & amp; The Root design was earlier and too extreme in its simplicity and disregarding the prevailing aesthetic norms, calling it a "engineer's house" and a "thoroughly puritanical" example of a commercial style. European critics even disagree. In the words of French architect Jacques Hermant, "Monadnock is no longer the result of an artist who responds to a particular need with intelligence and takes away from them all the possible consequences.This is the work of a worker who, without the slightest study, super-imposed the 15 stories it is identical to make the block and then stop when he finds a fairly high block. "
Other critics see this lack of style as "natural" and what makes Monadnock truly modern. New York's Critic, Barr Feree wrote in 1892 that "There is no effort on the facade... there is no decorative complement, nothing but a series of windows, frankly declaring that its structure is an office building, devoted to business, requiring and using every surfaces that are available. "Other critics praise the truth of the building for business ideals, which, while" not necessarily the highest we want in art... are the only ideals that business building must confront ". Montgomery Schuyler, one of Monadnock's most enthusiastic supporters, argues that Monadnock's lack of ornamentation is not a lack of art, but "emits the gravity of modern business life".
Monadnock was widely praised by early twentieth-century German architects, including Mies, who at his arrival in Chicago in 1938 declared that "The Monadnock block is such a force and force that I am at once proud and happy to make my home here." European Architect it finds building attention to purpose and functional expressions that inspire. The Bauhaus architect Ludwig Hilberseimer writes that "False solutions - unfortunately too common - impose meaningless and misplaced jewelry here are instinctively avoided.The innate feeling for proportions provides great inner consistency of buildings and logical purity."
Modern critics praise Monadnock as one of the most important copies of the Chicago school, along with Louis Sullivan Carson, Pirie, Scott, and Company Building. It has been called an "integrated design win" comparable to Marshall Field Grocery Store's Henry Hobson Richardson, and "one of the most exciting aesthetic experiences ever produced by our commercial architecture".
This building was one of the first five selected by the Chicago Commission on Landmarks Architecture in 1958, "in recognition of its original design and historical importance as the highest beam-wall structure in Chicago". The Commission went on to note that "the use of controlled bricks, large walls are soaring, the removal of ornamental forms, united in a simple yet grand building." In 1973, the Chicago City Council voted unanimously to appoint Monadnock a Chicago Landmark, stating that "Two parts of this building provide a unique perspective to examine the history and development of modern architecture.... Together, they mark the end of one builds traditions and beginnings from others. "Critics of the landmark status of Monadnock objected that it would prevent the demolition of the necessary buildings, which is" a fine example of a building that... no longer fulfills a function that is designed to be fulfilled "and" fruitless "performance is less good and far more valuable than the land where he stood.
List of National Historic Sites, where Monadnock was added in 1970, notes that "the unformed walls of this building formed a powerful mass of being, prophetically, the pioneers of the 'skyscrapers' - an unpopular style until the late 1920s -an "and that" two parts... make up, as ensembles, one of the strongest but finest architectural statements in the development of 20th century architecture. "His nomination as the National Historic Landmark in 1976, as part of South Dearborn Street - Printing House Row Historic District, including comments that it is "one of the most classic statements ever made in the idiom of a skyscraper."
Note
References
The work cited
External links
- Official website
- Historic American Buildings (HABS) No. IL-1027, "Monadnock Block", 9 photos, 7 pages of data, additional material
- Panorama 360 Â ° High Panorama and Picture of Monadnock Building | Art Atlas
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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