Chicago Architecture and Design

Chicago is world famous for an architectural tradition that has influenced building around the globe. It is the birthplace of the skyscraper and the cradle of modern architecture; it gave rise to the urban office building as we know it, and to the flowing, open floor plans of today's homes. This book chronicles Chicago's architectural tradition from the nineteenth through the early twenty-first century, examining its evolution in the context of broader historical, social, technological, and artistic currents. It explores Chicago architects' quest for a quintessentially American style, and the century of innovation that pushed buildings ever higher, opened them to space and light, and increasingly dissolved the boundaries between indoors and out. It looks at world-renowned structures from the inside out, giving special attention to the interiors that were and remain so important to Chicago's architects. It traces the course of modern architecture from the structural simplicity of Chicago School commercial building, to the low-slung Prairie School house, the streamlined Art Deco skyscraper, and the minimalist Miesian tower of glass and steel, all the way through to the strikingly original, diverse designs of the present day's so-called second modern movement. This eminently readable text vividly discusses both the life and work of such towering figures as Daniel Burnham, John Wellborn Root, Louis H. Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mies van der Rohe - as well as that of the many lesser-known architects who have made outstanding contributions.