Masterpieces of Chicago Architecture

Book Description
Chicago is universally recognized as the cradle of modern architecture. It is known worldwide for the development, beginning in the late 1800s, of the renowned "Chicago School" of commercial building. In the early 1900s, Chicago saw the birth of Wright's "Prairie School" of residential design, which gave rise to the modern, open-plan house we know today. Other world-renowned architects were also based in Chicago, such as Louis Sullivan, who designed the Chicago Stock Exchange, and Daniel Burnham, architect of the famous Rookery Building of the 1890s.

The 1940s were to see the completion of Mies van der Rohe's revolutionary Illinois Institute of Technology and his astonishing Lake Shore Drive apartment buildings. Skidmore Owings & Merrill's landmark Inland Steel Building was finished in 1954, their John Hancock Center in 1970, and their Sears Tower in 1974. Philip Johnson and John Burgee's 190 South LaSalle Street office tower went up in 1987.

The 200 illustrations in this volume all come from The Art Institute of Chicago's repository of 150,000 architectural drawings, vintage photographs, models, and building fragments, which comprise one of the most important such archives. These illustrations reveal interiors and details that give us a greater appreciation of Chicago in particular and architecture in general. With its definitive text, the book is a striking record of Chicago's great buildings and will be an important reference on the subject for years to come.


About the Author
John Zukowsky is Curator of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Martha Thorne is Associate Curator of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Stanley Tigerman is both a practicing architect and a professor of architecture, and has often been called the dean of Chicago architecture.



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Zukowsky, curator of architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago, has authored or edited the best efforts so far at producing a definitive account of Chicago's preeminent role in U.S. architectural history. His readers may be excused, then, for finding his latest book to be something of a disappointment. Masterpieces is little more than an attractively packaged promotional vehicle for the institute's indisputably important work in collecting, documenting, and promoting Chicago's architectural heritage. Too selective to provide a balanced historical overview, this gorgeously illustrated catalog of over 80 buildings offers glimpses of the institute's considerable holdings and boasts of its splashy and popular exhibitions. Associate curator Martha Thorne's epilog takes a quick look at exciting building projects in the works since 2000. Chicago Architecture 1872-1922: Birth of a Metropolis and Chicago Architecture and Design 1923-1993: Reconfiguration of an American Metropolis, both edited by Zukowsky and still in print, remain the volumes of choice for libraries serious about documenting Chicago's inestimable contribution to U.S. and world architecture.-David Soltesz, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, OH Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


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