New school meets old

My last post ended with a photo of 333 N. Michigan Avenue.  Designed by the firm of Holabird + Root and completed in 1928, 333 N. Michigan was described by Carl Condit as "the decisive step in breaking with the past and reintroducing to Chicago the modern skyscraper."

333 N. Michigan Ave

But what precipitated the design of 333 N. Michigan and the "modern skyscrapers" to follow?  Some of the winning entries from the Tribune Tower competition of 1922 were influential on its design.  But Holabird + Roche (the firm that would become Holabird + Root in 1928) set a precedent with the Lumber Exchange Building, commonly referred to as Roanoke Tower (after an earlier building that once occupied the site). The tower portion, completed in 1925, was the first Chicago skyscraper to incorporate stepped massing and restrained ornament. As such, it became a harbinger of the modern "Vertical Style" as uniquely expressed in Chicago in the late 1920s and early 1930s, including 333 N. Michigan Avenue.

Postcard of Roanoke Tower
Building designed by Holabird + Roche, 1925

The Lumber Exchange Building / Roanoke Tower is a bit of a strange hybrid with a complex history of additions and renovations.  Now known simply as 11 South LaSalle Street, it began life in 1915 as a classic, 16-story Chicago School office tower designed by Holabird + Roche. In 1922, a 5-story addition was added  (again, designed by Holabird + Roche).  With the enactment of the 1923 zoning ordinance allowing for taller office towers, the owners of the Lumber Exchange Building decided to build a 37-story addition to the back of the original 1915 structure.  Here's a photograph of the tower taken a few years after its completion in 1925 including the "aerial beacon" that served as a warning for nighttime pilots:

Roanoke Tower, circa 1928
with Foreman State National Bank under construction (left)
and the spire of the Chicago Temple visible in background (right)
Photo courtesy the American Memory Project, Library of Congress

Although Holabird + Roche were the architects of note, the firm had contracted with an outside architect, Andrew Rebori, to design the tower itself.  Rebori designed the lower floors of the tower to seamlessly blend with the architectural style of the original 1915 building.  But his design for the upper stories of the tower boldly contrast with the old "Chicago School" office block. Rebori designed the projecting tower as series of set-backs, gradually culminating in a penthouse that served as a platform for the aerial beacon.  Although the decorative flourishes on the upper stories reflect the historically derived details of the older structure, the tower itself is remarkably restrained in its use of ornament.

Today, almost lost in a sea of newer office towers, the building is somewhat difficult to photograph at street level.  But the following photos give a sense of the tower's ornament, stepped massing, and relationship to the older structure at its base:

The 1923 zoning ordinance was hugely influential in determining the shape of the addition, especially the tower's relationship to the older office block.  The ordinance allowed for the main office block to rise to a height of 260 feet above street level. Additional floors built above the 260-foot height limit were permitted if they took-up 25% or less of the building's overall footprint and made-up only 1/6 of the building's overall volume -- hence the slender proportions of the Roanoke Tower addition.

This particular formula created very distinctive skyscraper designs in Chicago during the 1920s and 1930s.  Essentially, two types emerged, largely dictated by a building's lot size: "Office Block + Projecting Tower" (like the Lumber Exchange / Roanoke Building) and  "Throne Chair" (like the Chicago Board of Trade Building) ...

... more on these two types to follow in future posts.  The next post, however, will look at another expression of modernity of the late 1920s and early 1930s: Chicago's first airports.

Sources for this post include:

Carl Condit, Chicago 1910-1920: Building, Planning, and Urban Technology, pp 118-119.

Pauline Saliga, The Sky's the Limit: A Century of Chicago Skyscrapers, pp 83-84.

Carol Willis, "Light, Height, and Site: The Skyscraper in Chicago" in Chicago Architecture and Design: 1923-1993, p 130.