Chicago's Auditorium Building: Opera or Anarchism

Joseph M. Siry

The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 57, No. 2. (Jun., 1998), pp. 128-159.

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http://www.jstor.org Wed Sep 12 08:02:16 2007 Chicago's Auditorium Building Opera or Anarchism

for, nor appreciating deeply the music, find [the opera house] JOSEPH M. SIRY, Weskyan University a peculiar and valuable social feature. Its boxes afford a rare ew buildings in the modern period have been as closely opportunity for the display of beauty and toilet[te]s. They also identified with a city's architectural culture as Adler and give opportuniw for the informal exchange of social courte- F - A A - Sullivan's Auditorium Building in Chicago, designed and built sies, being opened to select callers through the evening; the from 1886 to 1890 (Figure 1).Regarded as a definitive monu- long waits between the acts especially favoring such inter- ment for its place and period, it is a work that did much to change."3 This method of financing "in no small degree launch Chicago's reputation as a major center for modern determines the size and character of the house," where provi- architecture. The Auditorium Building has always figured sion had to be made "for accommodating liberally and el- centrally in accounts of Adler and Sullivan's oeuvre because of egantly the boxholders who have built this house, guarantee it its technical and aesthetic virtuosity, both as a construction against loss, and receive their special accommodations as a and as a theater.' This study attempts to situate the Auditorium return for the same."4 Building within the social history of Chicago in the 1880s, Appointed after a competition in 1880, Cady designed the when the city's theatrical and musical culture was part of a original Metropolitan Opera House for a site 200 feet wide larger ongoing struggle between Chicago's leading capitalists from Thirty-ninth to Fortieth Streets and 260 feet long from its and property owners and a local working-class political move- front on Broadway back to Seventh Avenue (Figure 2). For this ment for socialistic anarchism. site, as Edith Wharton recalled, New Yorkers wanted "a new As an ideologically calculated response to its historic mo- Opera House which should compete in costliness and splen- ment, Chicago's Auditorium adapted traditions of theater dor with those of the great European capitals."j The chairman architecture and urban monumentality as these had devel- of the Metropolitan's building committee wrote that "there is oped in both Europe and the United States in the late nine- not a Theater or Opera House in the country that can be teenth century. The building's planning and design answered taken as a model for what we intend to have."6 Before he to its social purpose. Such analysis of this pivotal work provides became the Metropolitan's architect, Cady, although an accom- a different perspective on the phenomenon of the Chicago plished organist and musician, had never designed a theater School of architecture with which the Auditorium is linked in nor seen an opera and had never traveled to Europe. His the modern movement's historiography. The case of the Audi- appointment prompted him to tour European opera houses torium points up the need to examine not only the protomod- in 1881 prior to executing his final plans.' ern construction and expression of Chicago's commercial In Cady's built plan for the Met, the auditorium housed a buildings from 1880 to 1900 but also their patr~nage.~ ring of equally sized boxes in the tradition of La Scala in Milan (1776-1778) and Edward M. Barry's Covent Garden in Lon- NEWYORK CITY'S METROPOLITANOPERA HOUSE don (1856-1858). However, the Met's larger auditorium was a As its patron and architects later commented, Chicago's Audi- slightly modified version of their horseshoe-shaped plans. To torium Theater was designed partly in opposition to New ensure good sight lines from boxes near the stage, Cady York's original Metropolitan Opera House of 1881-1883. Un- shaped the boxes as a lyre in a plan that flared outward where like the Auditorium, the Metropolitan was paid for by indi- it met the stage. Indeed he named his original competition vidual stockholders who purchased boxes in the projected project "Lyre," alluding to the musical instrument of Apollo, theater for their private use. As the Met's architect, Josiah the god of music, whose image appeared in the mural over the Cady, explained: "In this country, where the government is proscenium. The auditorium's large overall area and its dis- not 'paternal,' aid has been found in another quarter: the tended curvature enabled Cady to include a total of 122 boxes wealthy, fashionable classes, who, even if not caring especially in three full tiers around the horseshoe and an additional half

128 JSAH / 57:2,JUNE 1998 FIGURE I: Adler and Sullivan, Auditorium Building, Michigan Avenue and Congress Street, Chicago, 1886- 1890, from southwest, showing houses on Congress Street (lower right) tier of boxes beneath the lowest full tier. This half tier of boxes] to the sides and the rear of the stage, to ascertain how baignoire (meaning bathtublike) boxes was near the stage, much of the view of the stage would be lost from that point, where the lowering of the parquet permitted its insertion and the contour of the auditorium and the pitch of each tier (Figure 3). As in La Scala, each box at the Met had an [of boxes] were modified in conformity with the results of anteroom or salon for receiving visitors. The box itself seated these studies to the arrangement actually ad~pted."~In opti- at most six persons, yielding a total capacity of 732 persons in mizing sight lines from boxes, the Metropolitan converted its boxes. Stockholders purchased outright only the boxes on the wealthiest patrons "into a republic of oligarchs with no prece- two lower full tiers. Those on the lowest half tier and the upper dence among themselves, nodding on equal terms all around full tier were rented, at first for $12,000 a season. When the Olympus. "lo Metropolitan opened, newspapers printed diagrams showing In 1966, before its closing and demolition, accounts of the who owned each of the boxes. To ensure adequate ticket old Metropolitan praised its acoustics, especially for the voice. revenues, the entire auditorium was to seat 3,045, making it Yet in its first season (1883-1884), the theater was deemed too larger than major European theaters such as the Paris OpGra, large to be an acoustically optimal space because its huge which had 2,156 permanent seats.8 volume made it difficult to hear performers (especially those To avoid competition among patrons, the Met omitted with less strong voices) in the uppermost galleries." In addi- visually prominent boxes close to the stage in the side walls of tion, although Cady's office prepared 700 drawings to adjust the proscenium, which were characteristic of earlier opera sight lines, such studies did not perfect the quality of views houses. To make all the boxes equally desirable, "sight lines from seats in the balcony and top gallery above the three tiers were drawn from every part of the house in each tier [of of boxes. In the topmost gallery, only a fourth of the seats had

SIRY: CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 129 FIGURE 2: Cady, Berg and See, Metropolltan

Opera House, New Yo& City, I88 I - 1883, half-plans of (nght) first story and (left) sec- ond story. From Harper's Monrhly 67 (Novem- ber 1883) 1 a view of the stage, while in the theater overall, 700 seats had form of the auditorium. When viewed from the stage, the only partial views of the stage. At the close of the Met's first house appeared as an encompassing wall of box tiers. On the season, one editor concluded that "the problem of providing parquet, the seating rose in a shallow curve up from the stage. over three thousand good seats-that is to say, seats in which The total volume of space was largely determined by the three all the occupants can hear well and see well-in a theater of tiers of boxes. Above these, the old Met had a gallery and an which three tiers are given up to less than seven hundred uppermost balcony around three sides. Above the upper people [in boxes] is an insoluble problem. The Metropolitan balcony, the ceiling had a height of 80 feet over the stage. The Opera-house is probably the last attempt that will be made at high ceiling demanded a tall frontal opening or proscenium its s~lution."'~ consistent with the overall proportions of the room. Thus The Met's concept of audience determined the volumetric Cady's proscenium was as tall as it was wide, or about 50 feet in

130 JSAH / 572, JUNE 1998 FIGURE 3: Metropolitan Opera House, origi- nal interior showing parquet rows, lowest half-tier (baignoire) boxes, three full tiers of boxes, and balcony below gallery. From New York Daily Graphic (23 October 1883) both directions, crowned by an attic, as shown in Figure 4. As lion, exclusive of the land. No opera house of its size, or one contemporary wrote, the need for boxes in many tiers pretension, had previously been built in the United States. In increased the theater's height to create "an enormous unoccu- Cady's view, the interiors of such a building were so complex pied space within the auditorium." As a result, "the voice and costly in construction, equipment, and ornament that becomes diluted, its quality changes, and as the singer forces "there is little money left with which to make it a noble work of his tones to make them reach his distant hearers, half the art, or a monumental work."14 Thus it would be best "if the pleasure is lost."13 Demands of patronage had resulted in a architect acknowledges the situation frankly, and meets it in a functionally compromised hall. simple manner. . . following some honored and appropriate The style chosen for the Metropolitan's exterior conveyed style, especially adapted to the economy he must e~ercise."'~ its institutional program. The building cost almost $1.8 mil- For the exterior, Cady chose a round-arched style centered on

SIHY: CHICAGO'S AUDITORTUM BUILDING 131 FIGURE 4: Metropolitan Opera House, view of original stage and proscenium,showing frieze with central mural of Apollo flanked by individual figural portraits of the muses and paintings of "The Ballet" and 'The Chorus" by Francis May- nard to either side of the frieze above topmost gallery. From Century Magazine 28 (July 1884) a portico of three bays as the main frontal entrance on tone as to border on the disreputable as a form of public Broadway (Figure 5). To the sides were corner blocks that rose amusement. This view became dominant with changing reper- to seven stories. Only the first two stories were internally part toires of the 1860s, when plots of new operas gave greater of the opera house, articulated as such by larger windows. The emphasis to personal mores.lg To cerq the Met's social corner blocks' ground floors contained shops, with ballrooms acceptability, its sober fronts were meant to contrast with those and restaurants above on the second floor. Their rents were to of the Casino Theater of 1882 (Figure 6), standing opposite on supplement income from the theater, whose operations alone the southeast comer of Thirty-ninth Street and Broadway. were not expected to be profitable. Additional income was also Designed by Francis H. Kimball and Thomas Wisedell, the expected from the corner blocks' upper stories, which were Casino was Manhattan's main center for light opera and initially identified as apartments for bachelors.16 The residential burlesque. This theater's exterior was highly eclectic and corner blocks were crowned by a bracketed cornice and balus- picturesque. Its round corner tower and bowed loggia curving trade, so that the round-arched exterior style was distinctly out above the arched entrance on Thirty-ninth Street com- italianate, considered appropriate for a theater initially intended bined with Islamic motifs to evoke exotic fantasy that bespoke for Italian opera. Since funds were insufficient to allow employ- the productions within. The loggia signaled the presence of a ment of costly stone and marble, Cady's walls were of a pale roof garden-the first space of its kind in Manhattan- yellow brick with ornamental terra-cotta trim of the same intended for informal musical performance^.^^ By contrast, Cady's fronts for the Metropolitan signified the idea of the Metropolitan was deliberately restrained to convey its opera as a legitimate entertainment. In New York, opera was purpose of housing grand opera. Communicating an appropri- popular, with audiences acclaiming leading musical artists ate urban character was a central issue for the Chicago Audito- imported from Europe to perform Italian works since the rium's design, yet its founders had a different theater in mind, 1850s.18Yet some regarded these operas as so emotional in one shaped by their city's social and cultural situation.

132 JSAH / 57:2, JUNE 1998 FIGURE 5: Metropolitan Opera House, on west side of Broadway between Thirtyninth and Fortieth Streets, 1 881 - 1883; demolished 1966; from the southeast, showing New York Times Building (1904) at right. Photograph (c. 1905) by Detroit Publishing Co.

CHICAGO'SGRAND OPERA FESTIVAL AND ANARCHIST and gradually acquired a series of centrally located properties DEMONSTRATIONS whose values rose with the city's growth. When their father The old Met's completion quickly stirred Chicagoans to act. died, Ferdinand and his brothers, who were also instrumental Dankmar Adler recalled: "The wish of Chicago to possess an in building the Auditorium, took over management of the Opera House larger and finer than the Metropolitan, a hall for Peck properties. By 1890 these holdings constituted most of great choral and orchestral concerts, a mammoth ball-room, a the fourth largest private fortune in Chicago, with the Peck convention hall, an auditorium for mass meetings, etc., etc., all wealth estimated at $10 million.22Devoted to a series of civic under the same roof and within the same walls, gave birth to causes, Ferdinand Peck was a major supporter and president the Auditorium proper."21 As Adler implied, Chicago's build- of the first Chicago Athenaeum, an urban college and culwral ing was to be broader in its program and range of purposes center for working people, which in 1890 moved into a build- than the Metropolitan's. It was also intended to be a theater ing close to the A~ditorium.~~By all accounts, Peck showed an and a monument responding to local urban conditions as unusual degree of concern for workers' lives. His fortune was these were interpreted by the project's chief patron, Ferdi- based on the rental values of family-owned urban real estate, so nand W. Peck (1848-1924). His vision was a frame of refer- he was not a socialist. However, unlike many wealthier Chicage ence within which Adler and Sullivan created the Auditori- ans, he was neither an industrialist nor a merchant who dealt um's interiors and monumental exterior. directly with workers or their associations. This relative dis Peck was the youngest son of Mary Kent Peck and Philip F. tance from confrontations between capital and labor may have W. Peck, who came to Chicago from Rhode Island in the 1830s fostered his more charitable outlook. He had "always been

SIRY CHICAGO'S AUDlTORIUM BUILDING 133 predated Chicago's Auditorium. In France the revolution of 1789 had initiated a prolific development of popular theater in Paris, where numerous new buildings for public commer- cial theater were built before the Restoration. By 1847 the growth of Parisian popular theater had led to the creation of the OpCra National, whose repertoire, staging, seating, and pricing were intended to attract workers. A democratic ideal also informed Charles Garnier's building for the Paris Opera of 1861-1875, wherein the architect carefully orchestrated the spatial system of arrival and circulation to accommodate a range of ti~ketholders.2~A comparable goal informed the design of Parisian municipal theaters built under the Second Empire for popular audiences, where auditoriums were en- cased by rented shops and apartments. These included Gab- riel Davioud's Thtiitre du Chiitelet and the ThCiitre Lyrique (the latter built for a reincarnated OpCra National) sited on the Place du Chiitelet, commissioned in 1859 and inaugurated in 1862. Early in the Third Republic, Davioud designed the large TrocadCro Theater (1876-1878) as a popular concert hall where opera could also be staged.30Built for the Paris International Exposition of 1878, the Trocadtro recalled the program and scale of the Royal Albert Hall (1867-1871) in South Kensington, London. This hall had a vast metal dome FIGURE 6: Kimball and Wisedell, Casino Theater, southeast comer, Broadway and that recalled the scale of the Crystal Palace built for the Great Thirty-ninth Street, New York City, 1 882; demolished Exhibition of 1851. When rebuilt at Sydenham in 1854, the Crystal Palace had also housed large-scale popular ~oncerts.~' outspoken in his defense of the rights of workingmen, and he As Roula Geraniotis has shown, perhaps the most direct heartily despises all forms of snobbish aristocracy."24Another architectural and ideological precedent for Chicago's Auditu observer wrote that Peck was "very sympathetic towards the rium was one of the most innovative new European opera man who could not afford to indulge his propensities in the houses, Richard Wagner's Festspielhaus in Bayreuth. Its archi- direction of culture without pecuniary aid."Z5 This concern tects, Otto Bruckwald and Carl Runkwitz, worked with the shaped his vision of the Auditorium, which drew on a broadly theater's technical director, Carl Brandt, to design a setting informed knowledge of theaters. specifically for Wagner's musical dramas. The project grew As the Auditorium was being completed in June 1888, Peck from the composer's earlier collaboration with architect noted that "the thing had been in my mind a long time."26 Gottfried Semper to design a comparable theater in Munich, How long is unknown, although Peck was said to have traveled which was never built.32At Bayreuth, Wagner selected the site repeatedly to Europe, where he cultivated his lifelong enthusi- and specified the Festspielhaus's plan. Built from 1872 to asm for Italian grand opera.27 He was not the only wealthy 1876, this famed hall featured an amphitheater-like sweep of Chicagoan to acquire culture from European travel. For ex- seating designed to give spectators a broad view of the stage ample, Philo T. Otis, one of the key supporters of the Chicago (Figure 7). The theater seated about 1,500, including the rear Symphony Orchestra and author of its history, noted the boxes and a rear gallery above. Bayreuth had neither a main operas he had attended in an account of his Europeanjourney foyer nor aisles running to the stage between seating groups. of 1873-1874. For Otis, as for many of his American contempu Instead, the audience entered through five doors on the right raries, the productions of the Royal Italian Opera Company at and five on the left. Each of these led to a certain number of London's Covent Garden were a prime link to European seating rows entered from the sides, leaving an unbroken operatic culture. By the 1870s this was the home of the curvature of seating in front of the stage. As with Semper's premier vocalist of the period, Adelina Patti, who also sang in projects for Munich, the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth explicitly New York and at the Auditorium's 0pening.2~ recalled the amphitheater-like shape of ancient Greek the- Peck's emphasis on democratic access to high culture in aters. On one level, the architecture's Classical allusion was music and theater, especially opera, may have been based in consistent with Wagner's ideal of musical drama rooted not in part on familiarity with comparable European efforts that Italian court opera but in ancient Greek theater. On another

134 JSAH / 57:2, JUNE 1998 level, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus's deemphasis of boxes in the opera houses of Vienna and Franl~furt.~~As Peck stated in loges or tiers fulfilled Wagner's aim to provide a more demu 1888, "We've had the plans of all the leading opera houses and cratic and unified experience for the audience. In this goal, he theaters of Europe in our architects' offices from the begin- was carrying forward Semper's earlier intentions for his Court ning of the [Auditorium] enterpri~e."~~He was ideologically Opera House at Dresden (1837-1841). Similar democratic opposed to the concept of an opera house primarily for the impulses had underlain the amphitheater-like main floor of privileged classes, with its space dominated by private boxes. Karl Friedrich Schinkel's Royal Theater, or Schauspielhaus at On 7 December 1889, two days before its theater opened, he Berlin (1818-1824), although both there and at Dresden, loges wrote to the Auditorium's 180 stockholders, who constituted of boxes still predominated around the theater interior.33 the city's capitalist elite, stating that the great opera houses of The opening of Wagner's Festspielhaus in August 1876 was Europe, those of Paris, Vienna, Frankfurt, Dresden, Berlin, an international event described in detail in NewYork newspa- and Milan, "are all smaller in capacity, exclusive boxes occupy- pers. At least one project for the Metropolitan Opera House ing much of the space. They are built rather for the few than incorporated ideas from Bayreuth's design, and, after its first for the masses-the titled and the wealthy rather than for the season in 1883-1884, the Met adopted a program of German people-lacking the broad democratic policy of providing for opera modeled closely on Bayreuth's, hiring Wagner's protege all which prevails in the arrangement of your Auditorium, to conduct performances in New However, the Met's thereby lessening the gulf between the classes."37 directors did not choose to build a theater whose form imi- This last phrase was rooted in Chicago's deeply troubled tated Wagner's at Bayreuth. Instead, by modeling the Met on social history of the years 1883-1886. A recession starting in Covent Garden and La Scala, Manhattan patrons chose the 1883, with its sudden layoffs and wage reductions in many earlier tradition of court opera houses to which Bayreuth's trades, had been the stimulus for a series of local labor actions, Festspielhaus had been opposed. beginning with a city-wide bricklayers' strike in the summer of Peck was familiar with the major opera houses of Europe, that year. The focus of the strike was Chicago's new Board of many of which he visited with Adler during the late summer of Trade Building then under construction at La Salle and Jack- 1888. Their itinerary included Bayreuth, among other Ger- son Streets, the cornerstone of which had been laid in Decem- man theaters. Louis Sullivan greatly admired Wagner, and ber 1882. Designed by William Boyington, the Board of Trade many Americans traveled to see performances at Bayreuth. Yet Building was then Chicago's most massive commercial monu- Sullivan also presumably knew the Paris Op6ra from his period ment, with the city's tallest tower (Figure 8). The building of study at the ~coledes Beaux-Arts in 1874-1875. Its exterior housed a legendary trading floor for grain and other commodi- had been visible from 1867, near the rue de la Paix, where he ties, while the leaders of its board controlled Chicago's railway recalled his pleasure in strolling and window shopping. The systems and manufacturing plants. This structure "was by all Paris Opera's opening as a theater on 5 January 1875 was a odds the most important project then under way, and the major national event, occurring before Sullivan sailed back to strike was looked upon as a challenge to the industrial and the United States in May. He later acquired Charles Garnier's financial might of the folio monograph on the building and similar publications on Although the bricklayers' strike was unsuccessful, it did help to initiate a rapidly growing labor movement in the city. The most politically radical and visible arm of this movement was the International Working People's Association (MA), whose leaders included Albert Parsons, publisher of Chicago's main English-language socialist newspaper, The Alam Parsons and his allies advanced a utopian ideal of anarchism as an alternative postcapitalist society based on freedom, brother- hood, and equality. As a part of the international anarchist movement, the IWPA opposed not only oppression of working people by propertied classes but also ideas of authority, privi- lege, and hierarchy in culture as in politics. An important part of the MA's program in Chicago was the nurturing of a workingclass counterculture that would provide a prerevolu- tionary model of the future utopia they envisioned. Toward FIGURE 7: Otto Bruckwald and Carl Runkwii, with Carl Brandt, Festspielhaus, this end, the IWPA organized orchestras, choral groups, the- Bayreuth, 1872- 1876, showing scene from Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold, at ater clubs, concerts, dances, lectures, and plays as politically theater's opening night, 13 August 1876. Drawing by L. Bechstein motivated alternatives to their bourgeois counterparts. For

SIRY CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 135 indoor events, workers rented local auditoriums, especially Capitalists like Peck and anarchists like Parsons both sought Turner Hall on the North Side and Vodrts Turner Hall on to provide alternatives to cheap, nonpoliticized, and depraved the West Side, both located outside the central city, where amusements for Chicago's workers. Both also valued the syrn- middle-class theater buildings and music halls predominated. bolic dimension of control over highly visible public space in In workers' halls, an ongoing series of musical and theatrical the city. Their alternative visions were apparent in two events fetes focused on revolutionary rhetoric and anarchistic that took place in late April 1885. The first, organized by Peck, speeches. The events were consciously intended as socialistic was the Chicago Grand Opera Festival, inspired partly by the rituals, offering politicized working people a collective identity new Metropolitan Opera Company's performances in Chi- not found in bourgeois theater and music.39 cago in January 1884. The Met's manager, Henry Abbey, had The IWF'A's cultural program was not only an alternative to brought a large orchestra and chorus. To support his touring capitalistic entertainment but also to the nonpolitical and productions, he had charged what were widely regarded as much decried amusements and leisure activities prevalent "unreasonable and extortionate" prices "which in Europe no among workers throughout Chicago. These were detailed in one would have the temerity to demand," for "in older the writings of religiously inspired middle- and upperclass countries the lover of music, however poor in this world's social reformers, such as George Wharton James's Chicago's goods, may hear great singers at a trifling expense."41 One Dark Places (1891). There were politically conservative trade editor asked why Chicago should not "have constantly within unions with their own programs of socially conventional enter- the easy reach of all classes of its citizens these ennobling tainment. Yet James and others described a widespread pov- divertis[s]ements? Music halls and art galleries, accessible to erty and demoralization represented by saloons, brothels, and the poorest, promote peace and good order, elevate the gen- general public immorality throughout the city's peripheral eral social tone and abound in all exalting infl~ences."~~ districts where most workers lived. These areas housed many In this context, Peck was a leader in incorporating the smaller theaters and music halls that were closely tied to Chicago Grand Opera Festival Association in April 1884. A key alcohol and prostitution.James painted a bleak picture of the ally was a local composer, Silas G. Pratt, editor of a booklet that lewd entertainments staged at these theaters as evidence of an described the association's aims. Presumably alluding to the alarming degree of social degradati0n.4~ Metropolitan's opening in October 1883, Pratt wrote: "Those who have observed operatic events for the last decade in America, have noted the gradual withdrawal of Grand Italian Opera from the enjoyment and patronage of the masses, and its limitation as a luxury to the hvored few of wealth and fi~shion."~~Peck's association was organized "primarily to remedy this evil, and provide Grand Opera for the pqbb at popular prices, within the reach of all, and, at the same time, to raise the performances to a higher standard of excel- lence."+' The only building in Chicago able to provide seating for an audience large enough to allow the festival to cover its costs was the Inter-state Industrial Exposition Building in Lake Park, on Michigan Avenue at Adams Street. Constructed in 1873, this building had repeatedly been identified with the city's capitalistic elite as a site for commercial expositions, music festivals, and national political c0nventions.4~However, the hall's enormous interior dissipated the sound of vocal artists. Such poor acoustics inhibited its ability to fulfill the social goals of music festivals, whose large choruses were intended to provide a spiritually upliing experience for audience^.^^ For the Opera Festival of 1885, Peck hired Adler and Sullivan to refit the Exposition Building's north end. Adler FIGURE 8: William Boyington, Chicago Board of Trade Building, 1882- 1885, with built new interior walls to lessen the room's volume, so that Jenney'sHome lnsurance Building (I 883- 1884), left foreground; Bumham and Root's "the entire opera hall will be inclosed, and also the stage."47 Rookery (1885- 1887). left background, opposite Bumham and Root's lnsurance He also built a massive sounding board extending upward Exchange Building (1 884- 1885) right background from the stage's arched proscenium and outward 80 feet into

136 JSAH / 572, JUNE 1998 FIGURE 9: Adler and Sullivan, Chicago Grand Opera Festival Hall, 1885, in north end of Inter- state Industrial Exposition Building, 1873, by William Boyington. From First Chicago Grand Opera Festival (Chicago, 1 885) the auditorium (Figure 9). Fan-shaped seating focused on the the hall?l Local taste was educated, and the audience for stage. Adler's sounding board ensured that the least strong grand opera broadened. At the end of the last performance, voices of singers would carry to the rear of the house, so that, Peck, in response to repeated calls to the stage, came forward as Peck asserted, "the seats most remote from the stage are in and declared that the festival "had shown what Chicago would as good hearing as those near the stage."48 Sullivan designed and could do, and he hoped that people would look upon ornamental art for the sounding board in papier-&hi as this as a stepping stone to a great permanent hall where extensions of the elaborate theatrical scenes on the stage, thus similar enterprises would have a home. The continuation of making "the auditorium itseyan attractivefeatureofthe f~~tival"~~ this annual festival, with magnificent music, at prices within In this setting, two weeks of grand opera were staged, the reach of all, would have a tendency to diminish crime including Italian, French, and German works. More than and Socialism in our city by educating the masses to higher 8,000 people attended each performance, including Chica- things."52 go's wealthy citizens as well as those with modest incomes. Peck spoke those words on 18 April, just ten days before Peck and the festival's guarantors were "prominent citizens Parsons and others led the most dramatic socialistic demonstra- who are willing to assume any loss which may occur in order tion Chicago had yet seen. Since 1883, the IWPA had staged that the people may have opera at reasonable prices." The massive urban workers' parades that wound their way through lowest-priced ticket for a reserved seat in the main balcony cost the streets. Lines of 3,000 to 4,000 workers marched to music, one dollar for a single performance. During the Met's opera carrying and waving flags of socialistic groups. These events tours before 1885, Chicagoans had "constantly complained reached a climax in response to the Board of Trade Building's that they have been kept away by the high prices, and that they dedication on 28 April 1885, three days before the annual could not afford to pay all the way from $3 to $6 for a seat." For workers' May Day parade. On the evening of 28 April, Parsons the Grand Opera Festival, "the action of the association and led a protest march to the Board of Trade to disrupt the the public spirit of the guarantors have now made it possible inaugural banquet. Singing an anarchistic adaptation of the for them to attend fourteen performances for $12 by buying "Marseillaise," the workers approached what they termed the season seats, and to obtain the best seats in the house for the "Board of Thieves" who had erected a "Temple of Usury." season for a little over $2 a performance. If they fail to avail When police lines blocked their approach at every street, the themselves of this extraordinary privilege they will have no workers marched around the building, then rallied elsewhere, right to complain in the future."50 With such low-priced tickets where leaders decried poverty amidst ~ealth.5~ for general admission, the festival attracted a total of 115,000 Such demonstrations continued through the spring of people, yielding receipts in excess of $170,000, which enabled 1886, when Parsons led a May Day parade down Michigan the association to cover costs of the productions and to refit Avenue, past the future site of the Auditorium. The year be-

SIRY CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 137 fore, he and others had led Sunday-afternoon labor meetings course, great musical occasions in the nature of festivals, on the lakefront at the foot of Van Buren Street, almost operatic and otherwise, as well as other large gatherings, could directly east across Michigan Avenue from where the Audit@ be held."59No such facility then existed in the city, and public rium was later built. In the spring of 1886 the workers' cause funds would not be available. There was sufficient local private focused on the eight-hour day, an idea supported by the capital to pay for construction, but to cover operating costs, American Federation of Labor, which declared that it should the building had to have "sufficient area to produce adequate go into effect nationally on 1 May 1886. Strikes and other rentals out of improvements attached to and surrounding the demonstrations followed in an effort to force employers to auditori~m."~~The Auditorium Theater would be encased by yield. It was in this context that the labor rally at the Haymar- a hotel, rentable shops, and offices. ket, an urban square on Chicago's near West Side, took place Peck offered his vision not only within the context of on the evening of Tuesday, 4 May 1886. As leaders addressed a Chicago's response to Haymarket but also as part of an onge crowd, police arrived and ordered the group to disperse. A few ing effort to improve the city's cultural life. In the spring of moments later, someone (never identSed) hurled a bomb of 1880 the Commercial Club had devoted a meeting to "the dynamite toward the police. After the explosion and ensuing fostering of art, literature and science" in Chicago. Another gunfire, seven officers and at least four civilians were fatally session was devoted to "the cultivation of art, literature, sci- wounded, with scores more seriously injured.j4 ence, and comprehensive charities, and the establishment of The shock of the violence at Haymarket devastated civic art museums, public libraries, industrial schools and free morale throughout Chicago, whose labor movement retreated hospitals" attendant to the commercial prosperity in great in the face of a wave of reactionary rhetoric and legal action. cities.61In the early 1880s one of the club members, Nathaniel Part of what made the anarchist movement so threatening to K. Fairbank, the primary supporter of the construction of the propertied Chicagoans was its foreign element. For example, Central Music Hall in 1879, had initiated the idea of an opera the city's oldest extant socialist newspaper was the German- house and public hall. Adler, who had designed the Central language Chicagoer Arbeiter-m'tung launched in 1876 and ed- Music Hall as his first independent theater building, worked ited by two leading anarchists, August Spies and Michael with Sullivan on studies for Fairbank's opera-house project. As Schwab, who were tried for the Haymarket bombing. As many Sullivan later recalled, it did not progress to effective fund- of Chicago's workers were of German origin, their native raising because of its perceived elitist appeal.G2In proposing language was often used in the radical speeches and banners the Auditorium to the Commercial Club within weeks of prominent at anarchist gatherings.3"hus Haymarket repre- Haymarket, Peck was offering aversion of his friend Fairbank's sented an urban society divided not only along class lines but earlier idea, but broadening its civic purposes in response to also between foreign and native-born. Newspapers other than the sense of urgency brought on by the recent violence. The those with socialist leanings, and most clergy, condemned the political situation in the city lent support to Peck's aim of violence. More broadly they decried the depth of social divi- recasting the opera house, a type of building long associated sion within the city. The Reverend David Swing, whose liberal with urban elites, into a novel kind of structure aimed at the ministry Peck supported, earlier saw the need for a symbolic cultural inclusion of workers. counterweight to structures like the Board of Trade Building, By May 1886 one of Peck's allies had acquired an option on noting, "There is perhaps only one city in the world having a a set of contiguous properties that would become the core of population of half a million along whose streets no traveller or the Auditorium Building's site at the northwest corner of citizen can find a single structure built by local benevolence. Michigan Avenue and Congress Street, then the southern Chicago has the honor of being that city."5G limit of Chicago's commercially developed center. In Peck's view, this was "the only place available" for an auditorium THEORIGINSAND PLANNINGOF THE AUDITORIUM "which will fulfill all the requirements," meaning sufficient Less than four weeks after Haymarket, Peck outlined his vision area for revenue-producing appendages and a central location of a permanent Auditorium Building at the Commercial Club's providing access by streetcar from all parts of the To have first meeting after the tragedy, which addressed the topic "The sufficient funds for land rental and building construction, Peck Late Civil Disorder: Its Causes and Lessons."j7 As a leading organized the Chicago Grand Auditorium Association in July organization of businessmen, the Commercial Club had been 1886to provide a corporate framework for the issuing of stock in founded in the fall of 1877, shortly after the railroad strikes of the enterprise. He led the effort by pledging $100,000, with that summer." Peck detailed his proposal for the program, $30,000 more from the Peck family. The next largest stock- siting, and financing of a new civic structure, "a large public holder wa5 Marshall Field ($30,000). Adler and Sullivan, who auditorium where conventions of all kinds, political and other- had been making studies for a permanent auditorium since wise, mass-meetings, reunions of army organizations, and, of 1882, also purchased shares in the amount of $25,000.64

138 JSAH / 57:2,JUNE 1998 FIGURE 10: Auditorium, interior looking north- west from stage, showing rising floor of parquet with vomitorio-like tunnels from west foyer, north boxes, main balcony, lower and upper galleries. Albert Fleury's mural of autumn on north wall is faintly visible in bright daylight from shlight over main balcony behind ceiling arches. Photograph by J. W. Taylor

By January 1887, when construction began, the Audito- than boxes were priced too high to fill the house. As Adler rium Association had increased its capital stock to $1.5 million. recalled, the Auditorium, with its larger theater and encasing Peck sought to broaden the base of stockholders to include all spaces, was to be "self-sustaining, and not like the Metropoli- classes.65Citizens subscribed to the project without "any finan- tan Opera House, a perpetual financial burden to its owners."70 cial inducement being held Peck wrote that the aim Peck had also consistently opposed boxes as a symbol of was "the benefit and elevation of the public, and to add to the those differences in social class that had been so sharply drawn glory of our city-the public spirit and liberality of citizens in Chicago, which the Auditorium was intended to lessen. Its being necessary here to produce what governments build and lack of boxes "was [Peck's] idea, for he has no belief in support in other countries." His purpose was "not to create a privileged classes, and regards the Metropolitan Opera House commercial rnte~pise."~~For Peck, the paradigm of a state effort of New York, where the whole structure is sacrificed to the was the Paris Opera, which he disliked. He did not refer to boxes, with infinite scorn and patriotic dislike. This was a Parisian municipal theaters built, like the Auditorium, for repetition of effete European ideas, and if there was one thing popular audiences and encased by rented shops and apart- he impressed upon the architects, it was that he wanted the ments.@Instead, he compared the Auditorium to European Auditorium to represent the present and the future and not state opera houses. Even if the Auditorium were to be privately the corrupted past."71 Although Peck initially preferred no and locally funded, Peck believed that itwould attain the status boxes, their conventional place in Chicago theaters presum- of a national monument like major European opera houses.69 ably led to the inclusion of forty boxes in the Auditorium Unlike the Metropolitan's stockholders, purchasers of shares Theater as finally built. However, these were set to the sides of in the Auditorium did not acquire a box because, as Peck the theater in two tiers above the parquet, and even the most originally envisioned the theater, it would contain no boxes. frontal boxes were set well back from the proscenium. The The Met's boxholders were the guarantors against the annual boxes were also open to one another, unlike the Met's, which losses of the theater, which was never expected to be profit- were separated by partitions. The Auditorium's lower boxes able. In the Auditorium, sizable hotel and office revenues were formed an arcade, while upper boxes had only posts between to be the theater's guarantors against loss. Peck elected not to them (Figure lo)? In all, the Auditorium's boxes, which follow the Met's operating plan for both financial and ideologi- individual Chicagoans bid to possess for a season, accommo- cal reasons. In its first season of 1883-1884, the Met's boxhold- dated about 200 people, or less than five percent of the ers had agreed to guaranty the theater's manager against a theater's total seating.73As Sullivan said: "We are democratic in possible loss of $60,000. After the season of sixty-one perform- America and the masses demand the best seats. The boxes, you ances, the Met amassed a loss of at least $250,000, due in part see, are on the sides and do not furnish the best possible view. to initial high costs of scenery and costumes. Also, seats other In the imperial theaters the boxes are closed and take up all

SIRY CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 139 THE AI:I)ITORIUhI, CIIICACO-PIAN OF FIRST STORY.

FIGURE I I:Auditorium, main entry-level plan. From Engineering Magazine 7 (August 1894) the best part of the house. Those occupying boxes in America this type. Such a capacity, with a large number of inexpensive desire to be seen, probably, more than they desire to see."74 seats, was meant to ensure financial viability and democratic Sullivan's position corresponded closely to that of Adler, access. The theater was a rectangle, measuring 118 feetwide by whose views appeared in an essay on the theater probably 178 feet deep from the stage's front to the foyer's rear. The site written shortly before his death in 1900. Adler argued for a permitted a main entrance only on the south side (Figure 11). progressive view of architecture, meaning that older building The Auditorium's different concept of audience shaped its types like theaters should adapt to modern social changes by interior appearance. The Metropolitan's interior read from avoiding nonfunctional historical conventions. He wrote that the stage as an encompassing wall of box tiers. The Auditori- in 1800 just one kind of theater had been "common to the um's multiple aisles and tunnel-like passageways leading into civilized world. The typical characteristics of its auditorium them from the rear foyers recalled vomitoricca term Adler were: level or nearly level pit; high surrounding walls masked used-like vaulted entrances to Roman amphitheaters (Figure by many balconies and galleries; a ceiling raised high above 10).77 In theater planning, he advocated a maximum number these high walls by the interposition of an entablature or cove, of narrow aisles (rather than fewer wide aisles) for facilitating or of both; within the ceiling a dome rising high enough to egress in case of fire. A maximum number of aisles also allow the main central chandelier to be hung above the line of resulted in a larger number of aisle seats, which were the most vision of the greater part of the audience; and a proscenium desirable. On the main floor and balcony, no seat was more fashioned and decorated according to the rules convention- than seven seats away from an aisle.78 ally accepted for the proportions of a doorway in a palace of Horizontally, the Auditorium's deep rectangular plan en- the period of the Renaissance. Almost the entire nineteenth abled inclusion of a large number of seats in two sections of century has lapsed, and theater design is still dominated by seating on the main floor: the parquet near the stage and the reverence for this historically transmitted type."75Adler advu parquet circle farther back from the stage. The seating in both cated "non-historical theater design," for "neither historical directions was set in "generous sweeping curves."79Adler did nor conventionally aesthetic considerations justify the use of not specify these curvatures, but Figure 12 shows that they are forms and types which do not adapt to practical req~irernents."~~ segments of circles. He did not center seating rows at the In Chicago's Auditorium, Adler sought to provide views stage's front, and as a result, the rows did not reflect sound and acoustics of similar quality for all patrons in a room whose back to its source on the stage front, thus avoiding echoes 4,237 seats would make it among the world's largest spaces of there.80 In the theater, the central point of the circle from

140 JSAH / 57:2, JUNE 1998 I'tIF. AI'1)ITORI~MCHICA(;O--I'L.\Y OF SECOSI) STORY.

FIGURE 12: Auditorium, second-story plan showing (a) central point of circle defining curvature of seating rows in lower parquet, (b) central point of circle defining curvature of seating rows in upper parquet, and (c) seating rows at sides of upper parquet with rows of convex cu~aturetoward stage. From Engineering Magazine 7 (August 1894); graphic additions by author which the arcs of the parquet rows are swung is at the stage's rear center (Figure 12, a), while the central point of the circle from which the arcs of the parquet circle rows are swung is behind the first parquet row (Figure 12, b). At the parquet circle's frontal sides, the curvature of the seating rows reverses, becoming convex rather than concave relative to the stage to ensure optimal views of the stage from these lateral seats (Figure 12, c). As Adler wrote, the main balcony (Figure 13) was elliptical in plan. Rows have a broad, shallow curve yielding superb views of the stage from the 1,429 seats on this high level. Vertically, as Charles Gregersen showed, Adler adapted the ideas of John Scott Russell in order to calculate the steep rise in seating rows of the main floor (17 feet from front to rear). Adler had first used this method in the Central Music Hall of 1879, which was the auditorium where Ferdinand Peck regu- larly worshiped as a supporter of the hall's main tenant, the Reverend David Swing's Central Ch~rch.~~Ascending rows enabled observers to see and hear above the heads of others directly in front, as shown in the section (Figure 14).82The resulting banked tiers of seating rise impressively from the stage up through the main floor, continuing into the balcony and galleries, the topmost of which has an extreme slope of forty-one degrees. From the uppermost row of this topmost gallery, one clearly hears an unamplified singing voice from FIGURE 13: Auditorium, main balcony plan showing elliptical curvature of seating the stage. As Adler said, "[TI he acoustic properties of the rows. From Diagram of the Seats and Boxes of the Auditorium Theatre, Chicago (after house are such as to permit the easy and distinct transmission 19 10)

SIRY CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 141 FIGURE 14: Auditorium, longiiudinal section looking south, showing (a) hinged ceiling panels for closing off lower and upper galleries, and (b) trusses spanning Auditorium's width above stepped ceiling. Historic American Buildings Sutvey, 11-1 007, Drawing No. 40; graphic additions by author of articulated sound to its remotest parts."83 Tickets for this cally optimal design of theaters remained a standard reference uppermost gallery were initially priced at one dollar, the same before the matter received sustained scientific inquiry begin- as the least expensive tickets for the Chicago Grand Opera ning in the late eighteenth century. s' Vitruvius endorsed the Festival, whose theater was also to enable acoustical access for idea of raising tiers of seating to optimize acoustics. To avoid the least wealthy.84 the problem of spectators blocking sound from those behind The Auditorium's design contains a number of features them, he advised that "it should be so contrived that a line that indicate Adler's interest in ancient Roman and Greek drawn from the lowest to the highest seat will touch the top theaters as functionally viable models for modern theaters. In edges and angles of all the seats. Thus the voice will meet with referring to the Auditorium's tunnel-like passageways as vomi- no obstructi~n."~~Citing Vitruvius's writings on acoustics in toria, Adler implicitly recalled the prototype of the Roman his discussions of the topic, Adler described it as a phenom- Colosseum, the only ancient theater to which he referred in enon of concentric waves of sound that emanate from a his writi11gs.8~ Known for its efficiency of circulation, the source,just as the Roman architect had described the transmis- Colosseum was also elliptical in shape. Adler and Sullivan's use sion of sound in ancient theaters, where seating rows were set of the ellipse in designing the balcony floor and ceiling arches in concentric rings around a stage. Like Vitruvius, Adler of the Auditorium recalled a preference for this form for maintained that sound waves travel outward from a source theaters by European architectural writers since the late eigh- until they are obstructed by an object. To enable sound to flow teenth century. For example, Gottfried Semper, whose studies unobstructed, "ancient architects, following in the footsteps of of theater design with Richard Wagner provided one basis for nature, perfected the ascending rows of seats in theatres from the latter's Festspielhaus at Bayreuth, had also believed in the their investigations of the ascending voice," endeavoring "to advantage of the ellipse for the projection of s0und.8~ make every voice uttered on the stage come with greater Adler's essays on theater design echoed ideas propounded clearness and sweetness to the ears of the audience."sg Thus, by the Roman architect Vitruvius. His analysis of the acousti- in adapting Scott Russell's isacoustic curve, Adler reworked a

142 JSAH / 57:2, JUNE 1998 circle, the centre for the radius of which shall be behind the proscenium, instead of in front of it as in the Greek form." Just as Adler did, Fox argued for multiplying the points of egress to subdivide the audience for rapid exit in case of fire. During performances, the Greek idea of rising tiers of seats gave the opportunity "for every one in the hall to see almost everybody else. . . . There is no more valuable adjunct to noble architec- ture than this sea of interested and sympathetic faces, supple- mented by the bloom of color in varied co~turnes."~~This social effect anticipated descriptions of the Auditorium's open- ing, when the full house became a metaphor for civic uniV2 Such an American adaptation of Greek theaters both re- sembles and differs in key ways from the adaptation of the ancient model at Bayreuth's Festspielhaus, which was an exten- sion of Semper's ideas. Both buildings abandoned the primacy of the loges or tiers of boxes in favor of seating that was more equal, democratic, and unified. The dramatic upward rise of the seating at Bayreuth was also modeled on Scott Russell's idea of ensuring acoustical and visual access to the stage?3 But, unlike Adler's theaters, Bayreuth's Festspielhaus had no main public foyer and no aisles running to the stage between seating groups, leaving an unbroken curvature of seating as a more direct evocation of an ancient Greek theater. Also, vertically, the Festspielhaus gallery was relatively small, whereas in Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium Theater the main balcony and two galleries above accounted for well over half the seating. Bayreuth's Festspielhaus featured a triple proscenium, pro- ---- I --. 1. ,g--- k viding multiple rectangular frames for the stage?4 The Chi- \Irs,l~.rn \al?nt?tios ,+ItI!o (ircnk Form - 1'I.tta ~"$1S*rlinn. cago Auditorium's arched proscenium expanded out into a FIGURE 15: Plan of an ancient Greektheater, from James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, multi-arched ceiling that had no precedent in European or 7heAntiquities ofAthens (London, 1762- 1830), and modem adaptation ofthe Greek American opera houses. The Met's acoustical difficulties were form, with longitudinal section at right, from John A. Fox, "American Dramatic caused by its high proscenium and ceiling needed to accomme Theatres. Ill," Amencon Architea ond Building News 6 (2 August 1 879): 36 date tiered boxes. Adler believed that a proscenium higher than necessary for sight lines hampered an auditorium's acous- principle of design that he knew from Vitruvius's description tics since the amount of unwanted reverberation is directly of Classical theaters. proportional to a room's volume. He lowered the proscenium Adler's contemporary, architect John A. Fox of Boston, to reduce the room's volume, thus conserving sound pre had articulated the rationale for modern American adapta- duced on stage and directing it outward to the audience, tion of ancient Classical theater design. In a lecture of 1879 analogous to retaining density of sound projected through a Fox noted that the term "theatre" was derived from the Greek trumpet or a speaking tube. This principle implied fan-shaped word signlfylng "to see." He cited James Fergusson, then seating on raised levels, "but the effort to conserve the sound perhaps the most widely read English architectural historian, waves influences to a still greater extent the vertical dimen- who wrote that the Greeks "hit on the very best form in plan sions of the auditorium. The proscenium must be low, not a for the transmission of the greatest quantity of sound, with the foot higher than is necessary to permit full view of any possible greatest clearness, to the greatest possible number."g0 Fox grouping at the back of the stage from the last and highest seat proposed a modern adaptation of a Greek theater plan (Fig- in the house."95 ure 15) that anticipates Adler's Auditorium plan. In a modern Adler complemented the low proscenium with "a gradual theater, the need to see into the stage's depth to a distance increase in height of ceiling from the proscenium outward." beyond the proscenium called for abandoning the extreme He modulated the rising ceiling planes "into a profile which side seats in a Greek semicircular plan. The result was "the deflects the sound waves downward toward the rear of the fan-shape; or more accurately, a portion of the sector of a lower portion of the house."96 The Auditorium's ceiling was

SIRE CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 143 FIGURE 16: Auditorium, interior showing elliptical ceiling arches, main organ screen to left of stage (with portraits of Wagner and Haydn in arch spandrels), and iron-and-plaster reducing curtain framing stage. Photograph by j. W. Taylor thus designed as four elliptically arched segments with a concerts. The chorus seems thus to blend with the audience, common center. These repeat the proscenium arch at progres and the house is so open that one can see at a glance almost sively larger scales overhead (Figure 16). The four arches the entire audience and the whole chorus."98This effect was contain the sound emanating from the stage and reflect it apparent on the Auditorium's opening night, when the reduc- back down into the theater quickly enough to prevent a ing curtain was raised to bring the whole stage into view from discernible echo of direct sound from the stage?7 the house, including a chorus in banked seating on the stage To further control the size of the opening around the stage, (Figure 18). the Auditorium had an iron reducing curtain, covered with Combined lectures and choral performances were a part of ornamental plaster, which could be raised or lowered. This Peck's social vision of the Auditorium. He proposed a series of reducing curtain framed the central heavy silk curtain. When Sunday-night lectures by eminent orators of the English- lowered, the reducing curtain framed an opening 47 feet wide speaking world. These were "not to be the star performances and 35 feet high for opera, drama, lectures, and concerts with of mere oratory, but real speeches upon important questions no chorus (Figures 16, 17). Alternatively, to accommodate of the day-philanthropic, economic, educational, artistic, large choral performances, the reducing curtain was raised social."ggThe lectures were to be accompanied by great choral and the stage's entire width of 75 feet was made spatially performances of 500 voices drawn from the Chicago public, continuous with the rest of the auditorium. Adler wrote: "The with choral responses from the audience filling the house. success of the room is greatest when used as a hall for mass Wealthy guarantors such as Peck would underwrite the cost of

144 JSAH / 57:2,JUNE 1998 for like purpose in seating capacity and utility."lo2 Sullivan's design was keyed to the theater's electric lighting. The Met still had gaslights, whereas by 1889 almost all of Chicago's theaters were lit electrically. The Auditorium Building had the world's largest lighting plant, with 3,500 incandescent bulbs running along the ceiling arches and lines of bulbs along the fronts of the balcony and galleries. The lighting scheme eliminated the conventional chandelier in the center of a domed ceiling. The Met's boxholders had asked that the gaslights remain raised during shows so that patrons in boxes would be visible, whereas the Auditorium's arcs of electric lights enveloped the audience as a whole. In this period before urban power systems, only the FIGURE 17: Auditorium, stage set for scene from Lohengrin, showing panoramic sky in most uptodate commercial buildings had electricity, generated background, stage framed by reducing curtain, and Charles Hollowa~smural along from their own power plants. Electric lighting was then a privi- proscenium arch lege associated with high capital, still rare in individual homes. The Auditorium brought this new utility to a mass audience.lo3 As Sullivan had done in his earlier remodeling of McVick- er's Theater in 1885, in the Auditorium Theater he created a scheme of color and ornament that was meant to complement the novel electric lighting. Under the flicker and glare of gaslights, the Met's original interior had been yellow-white with gold relief.lo4The Auditorium's softer, more even electric light came from clear-glass, carbon-filamentbulbs each radiat-

i.,: 2.. ,, : ing 25 watts. When dimmed to pinpoints of light, these re- I '. sembled jewels. This new way of lighting would enable "the ...... _... fullest appreciation of the most delicate tints and the most subtile [~] gradation^."'^^ The bulbs formed a part of the decoration, their light springing from surrounding ornament. As in McVicker's, Sullivan selected a dominant color of old ivory for the Auditorium. Subtly graded tones of this one color FIGURE 18: Auditorium, opening night, 9 December 1889, showing reducing curtain were applied in oil to unify the interior. No surface was raised and seating added to stage flanking chorus. From Frank Leslie's lllustroted red-the conventional color for theaters-so that the Audito- Newspaper, New York (2 1 December 1889). rium looked "sumptuous and chaste," its color conveying the ideal of a temple for high culture.lo6 such events to ensure that seats could be sold at nominal prices Over the ivory-toned surfaces were areas of pure 23carat to intelligent workers "upon whom the existing inequalities of gold leaf, which Peckvalued for its permanence. Flat stenciled social conditions weigh most heavily." Men would be "brought ornament of gold leaf (not extant) ran along the ceiling arch into a higher range of ideas and more stimulating and self- soffits. Along the vertical faces of these ceiling arches, Sullivan rewarding thought than that possible for them to pick up in also designed scores of foliate motifs in cast plaster relief as assembly-rooms or in the little reading their daily fatigue settings for the projecting bulbs. As Adler wrote, "The use of permits them."100In 1889-1890 the Auditorium's Recital Hall richly-modulated plastic surface ornament is an important aid housed meetings of workers and capitalists aimed at resolving to successful color decoration. It gives a rare interest to even differences.lo1 the simplest scheme of color distribution by the introduction of modulations of light and shade, by the constant variation of SULLIVAN'SDESIGN FOR THE AUDITORIUM'SINTERIOR perspective effects, and by the brilliancy of the protuberant As Peck and Adler saw the Auditorium Theater's planning to points and edges as they catch and reflect the light."lo7 be different from European state opera houses, so Sullivan Although richly inventive in its motifs, the ornamental viewed its interior as departing from such precedents. As one interior of Chicago's Auditorium was simple and reserved in observer wrote, "Compared with the greatest European audi- contrast with European houses, the archetype of which, from toriums [Chicago's] will fall below many of them in costly Chicago's viewpoint, was Charles Garnier's Paris Op6ra. As ornamental display, but will excel any edifice in the world used one French visitor to the city wrote, Chicagoans considered

SIlW CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 145 the Auditorium Building to be their rival to Paris's Opera, ... YLI Ill.- r- - even though on the Auditorium's exterior "the decorative element, painting, and sculpture, so abundant, too abundant even in our [Opira], is here totally lacking."108 Peck con- trasted the Auditorium with European opera houses, most of which had "grand approaches and splendid vestibules, embel- lished with costly frescoes and statuary which governments have paid for."lo9He reminded his stockholders that the Paris Opira cost more than twice the amount for the Auditorium and took thirteen years to build, yet it contained a hall whose capacity was only half that of the Auditorium Theater. The Auditorium Theater eschewed the elaborate Classical and political iconography of the Paris OpCra as a key monu- ment of the French Second Empire. Rather, Sullivan, with FIGURE 19: Charles Holloway, drawing of mural over proscenium,Auditorium, 1 889. Peck's approval, created a distinct symbolic program for the From Chicago Daily Inter Ocean (I I December 1 889) room that was to embody Sullivan's ideal of architecture as nature. This program appears in Sullivan's many ornamental growth and decadence as the two great rhythms of nature.l16 motifs. One of these was the plasterwork relief framing the Above the proscenium arch is a continuous processional mu- light bulbs on the ceiling arches. One observer likened these ral of life-size figures on a gold background (Figure 19). They to sunflowers, sign9ng the theater's locale as a prairie me are not muses, symbolic of the inspiration for creating musical tropolis.l1° On the main balcony, Sullivan also repeated inter- art, to be found over the prosceniums of the Met and other pretations of the milkweed pod, a plant native to the Chicago opera houses. Rather, they are groups of monks, young women, region, thereby creating a botanically specific reference to and others who express "the manifold influence of music on place rather than a variation on a historical style of orna- the human mind-the dance, the serenade, the dirge.""' ment."' As one contemporary wrote, "It is indubitable that For Sullivan, these effects took their inspiration from the there is within these walls an architecture and a decorative art deeper rhythms of life and death that are cyclical in nature. that are truly American, and that owe nothing to any other This theme appeared in his prose poem "Inspiration," which country or any other time.""* he first read to the Western Association of Architects in Chi- Allusions to nature recur throughout the Auditorium The cago in November 1886,just before Adler and Sullivan were ater. As initially completed, the room had stained glass sky- confirmed as the Auditorium's architects.l18The idea is repre lights over the balcony for daytime illumination, unlike the sented by the winged figure before a bright fire, at the mural's Metropolitan, and its main European models. One observer south end (to the right as one faces the stage). This image, wrote that the light along the arches was "so even, so white and typlfylng youth and inspiration, signified the dawn of life or free from shadows, that it resembles a mild sunlight."l15 springtime, like an allegro tempo in music. The winged figure Evocation of nature became more literal in Sullivan's scheme at the north end (at left), representing twilight and memory, of ornament for the reducing curtain. These reliefs appear to reaches down to a low fire flickering to its end, like autumn, have been inspired by representations of nature found in analogous to an adagio effect.llg operatic stage sets of the period, as shown in a scene from At the proscenium mural's central crown are three figures Wagner's Lohengrin on the Auditorium's stage (Figure 1'7).ll4 representing the past (south) and future (north). The central In this view, dating from 1890, the canopy of trees forms a figure is not an ancient deity like the Apollo who presided over naturalistic arched frame that reiterates the proscenium's the Met's proscenium but rather a personification of the elliptical arch above. At the rear is a distant expanse of present, enthroned below a phrase based on Sullivan's poem landscape receding in perspective toward a painted backdrop "Inspiration": "The utterance of lie is a song, the symphony showing horizon and sky. The foliage on stage continues the of nature." As he declared in the poem, Sullivan's ideal for the foliate plaster ornament in the reducing curtain framing the present was a spontaneous and vital art coming fresh from stage, linking representation of nature in operatic scenery to nature rather than from inherited styles. In this spirit, all the theater's permanent architecture.l15 forty-five figures were painted by a young American artist, This theme continues in the mural paintings that frame the Charles Holloway (1859-1941), "who made the sketches from Auditorium's interior, all of whose imagery was modeled from living models posing for each separate figure" so that "every- life by the artists. Having selected the themes for these murals thing is true to nat~re."l*~Asone observer wrote, "Thousands to create a unified program, Sullivan wrote that they expressed of the spectators who enter the Auditorium will look admir-

146 JSAH / 57:2, JUNE 1998 ingly on that work of art, but few will stop to reason out the subject treated there."121 The two murals toward the rear sides of the house contin- ued the theme used over the proscenium. They were painted by the French-trained artist Albert Fleury (1848-1924). Origi- nally educated as an architect, Fleury entered the ~coledes Beaux-Arts after the FrancePrussian War to study painting. His time there overlapped with that of Sullivan, and also of George L. Healy and Louis J. Millet, under whose guidance Fleury worked at the Auditorium. Fleury had come to the United States in 1888 to assist his former teacher, mile Renouf, in making a large commissioned painting of the Brooklyn Bridge. At this time, both Renouf and Fleury re- ceived offers to assist in the Chicago Auditorium's decoration, and Fleury accepted. Like Holloway's mural, Fleury's were I subject to the approval of the Chicago Auditorium Associa- FIGURE 20 Albert Fleury, south mural (Spnng Song), Aud~tonurn,1889 tion's Executive Committee, headed by Peck.122As an archi- tect, Fleury not only specialized in murals but also enhanced the relation of such paintings to built interiors. His side murals for the Auditorium are large in scale and have the perspectival depth of landscape, giving the illusion of extending the inte- rior space of the adjacent balconies. They recall the illusionis- tic natural expanse created by scenic backdrops for opera on the frontal stage. Fleury's images of nature were originally illuminated by natural daylight from the artglass skylights over the balcony. As in the proscenium's mural, the south mural depicts spring (Figure 20), while the north shows an autumnal scene (Figure 21). From his youth, Fleury "was always a lover and a close student of nature, and besides he always followed the practice of painting his figures in the open air."lZ3 He sketched the north mural's scene "from a Wisconsin dell," like the wooded Wisconsin landscapes where Peck spent much time. The south mural depicts "a scene near Highland Park," ,.: , a suburb on Chicago's North Shore, further emphasizing the FIGURE 21 : Fleuty, north mural (Autumn Reverie), Auditorium. 1889. From Garqm- Auditorium's regional character.124 ski, Auditorium Each side mural shows a single creative figure or poet who is communing with the season as a source of inspiration. As arches spanning the Auditorium's ceiling between south Sullivan wrote, " [B]y their symbolism do these mural poems (spring) and north (autumn), as if these elliptical forms suggest the compensating phases of nature and of human life represented the solar cycle of seasons and years in expanded in all their varied manifestations. Naturally are suggested the repetition. Thus out of the ceiling's arched functional form as light and the grave in music, the joyous and the tragic in a solution to optimal acoustics for a mass audience, Sullivan drama."125 Through these murals and their inscriptions, Sulli- developed a program of ornament and images that gave the van linked his personal belief in nature's emotive effects on ceiling a cosmic symbolism different from the conven- the artist with the Auditorium as a theater wherein musical tional shallow dome at the Metropolitan or many European drama moved audiences. In "Inspiration," Sullivan referred theaters. repeatedly to the sun's daily course across the sky and its repetition through the seasons as a measure of nature's cycli- THE AUDITORIUMBUILDING'S EXTERIOR cal rhythm of growth and decay. In his travels by railroad Adler and Sullivan developed the exterior from their earliest- around the United States, he recalled having "visualized [the known design of September 1886 to after their working draw- country's] main rhythms as south to north, and north to ings of April 1887.12' From their first studies, they treated the ~outh."~~"eury's murals suggested such a meaning for the building as a major civic monument in keeping with Peck's

SIRY CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 147 * v . - 'kL It..... 4. 0 . . ; ;, ;~; i *C X - 1 --& g. ;, :I ?;I ?L 1 -- .

FIGURE 22: H. H. Richardson, Marshall Field and Co. Wholesale Store, Chicago, 1885- 1887, show- ing ratio of frontal width to height of 2.5: 1 ; graphic additions by author aims. If the Auditorium Theater's interior space conveyed its The [bricklayers'] union is what stands in the way of the social ideals, then the exterior communicated symbolic inten- erection of these buildings."131 Because of its size, the Audit* tions through its architectural style. Adler and Sullivan's con- rium offered steady work for many over a long period, and temporaries still thought in terms of a building's style and progress on its construction continued, partly with workers historical associations as principal carriers of meaning. The who had left their union to return to work, and who were Auditorium's exterior style evolved in the course of its design sometimes subjected to intimidation. Adler stated that some and construction partly in response to social conditions and to had returned to work because they had "become so destitute Peck's aims. during the strike that they have sold their tools, and we have Viewed from a distance, with its cubic mass and tower had to supply them."132 (Figure I), the Auditorium announced Chicago to travelers The strike of 1887 brought the issues of Haymarket into the from the eastern United States coming to the city along the building trades and into the history of the Auditorium, a railroad lines running north into town at the lakefront.lZ8 structure that was intended to alleviate social tensions. Adler Early designs had featured walls of pressed brick and ornate later did not recall that the change in the Auditorium's design terra-cotta above a granite base. In May 1887, in the course of a from brick to stone had been the result of the strike. Rather, he bricklayers' strike, the Auditorium's directors resolved that the attributed the decision to "the deep impression made by upper walls above the three-story granite base be clad in an Richardson's 'Marshall Field Building' upon the Directory of Indiana limestone.12gAs the architect of four buildings under the Auditorium Association," combined with a "reaction from construction and of nine more for which plans were ready, a course of indulgence in the creation of highly decorative Adler had much at stake in this strike. At that time, and in later effects on the part of its archite~ts."'~~Why did Peck and his essays, he described his professional role as the representative colleagues look to Henry Hobson Richardson's monument as of his clients, the building owners. Like Peck, Adler politically a model? was not a socialist, though he did sympathize with the plight of One answer is that it was then one of only two recently built workingmen, writing that "there is much that is great and local structures covering a comparable halt-block site. Field's noble even in the trades unionism of our day."130But, during store (Figure 22) and the Auditorium block showed the same the protracted strike of 1887,Adler saw the bricklayers' actions ratio of frontal width to height of about 2.5 to In symbolic as causing workers to lose income. He noted that his clients terms, Sullivan and others saw Richardson's building as largely waiting to build were "all agreed not to have a stroke of work a monument to its patron, Marshall Field. His conservative done until this strike is ended by the giving in of the workmen. views were well known, and the completion of his building was Auditorium Theater's interior spatial form. Garczynski's per- ception of the building's allusions to Rome aligned with Peck's choice of the name "Auditorium" rather than the term "Grand Opera House." In its ancient Latin usage, auditorium (as distinct from a ruler's private palace, or palatiurn) referred to the space of the audience in a theater as a public hall for cultural and political gatherings,just as Chicago's Auditorium would hold both opera and conventions.140Within its walls, music and drama would be interpreted "not, as in the capitals of modern empires, to a favored few, but, as in the ancient republics, to the people of the city and Nation."141 The Auditorium's exterior form thus conjoined Roman monumen- tality with modern democratic ideology. So did the buildings of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, for which Peck FIGURE 23: Aqua Claudia, near Rome (A.D. 38-52) chaired the local finance committee, and whose classical archi- tecture he subsequently praised.142 delayed by labor agitation until June 1887. Field had insisted As an architectural response to Chicago's urban class strife that Richardson change his initial design for the upper walls in the era of Haymarket, the Auditorium's exterior may be from brick to a red sandstone, which was quanied near Field's compared to other buildings that represented differentinstitu- birthplace. After Peck, Marshall Field was the Auditorium's tional responses to labor unrest. One of the most prominent largest stockholder. Although he declined to serve as a direc- of these was a new armory for the First Regiment of the Illinois tor, his brother and partner, Henry Field, also a major stock- National Guard, a project first proposed in 1885. Organized in holder, took his place on the board, and the latter's response 1874, the First Regiment came to enroll about 600 local men to Richardson's building was thus predictable.ls5 who represented Chicago's middle and upper classes. Among Adler admired this structure, noting, "How American is its members was one of Adler and Sullivan's draftsmen. Having Richardson's reproduction of the sombreness and dignity of twice dispersed crowds without firing during the railroad the Palazzo Strozzi in the Marshall Field Building."136Scholars strikes of 1877, the unit also confronted labor protests at of Richardson's work have also pointed out that his building several points around the city in November 1886. To radical for Field recalled the monumental form of ancient Roman leaders of Chicago's workers, the First Regiment epitomized aqueducts that Richardson had seen on his trip to Europe in armed force in the service of ~apita1.l~~When the First Regi- 1882, photographs of which he acquired.ls7 One contemp* ment sought to build anew, Marshall Field offered to lease it a rary wrote: "It may be truthfully said in general of the styles site he owned on the northwest corner of Michigan Avenue used in Chicago . . . that the principal complex features came and Sixteenth Street, not far from his own home. Field, who from the roman^."'^^ For Edward Garczynski, author of the was closely identified with this regiment, agreed to lease the commemorative book on the Auditorium of 1890, its exterior site to the unit for $4,000 per year (then only half its value) recalled the forms of Roman construction. The tall arched with no annual rent increase. Daniel Burnham and John bays compare to those of the Aqua Claudia (A.D. 38-52) near Wellborn Root designed the First Regiment Annory in March Rome (Figure 23). Such a style contrasted with the ornate 1889, and it opened in September 1891 (Figure 24) Second Empire hotels of post-fire Chicago. As Garczynski Burnham and Root's First Regiment Armory was described wrote, between such structures and the Auditorium, "the as "perhaps the most massive structure in Chicago," with its progress has been a mighty leap forward . . . making this build- heavy stonework rising unbroken to a height of 35 feet on all ing the commencement of a new era. Here all is simplicity, four sides.145The front had a wide sally port for troops stateliness, strength. There is in its granite pile a quality that marching abreast. Above the rusticated granite base were strongly reminds the traveled spectator of those grand engineer- brick walls with arched openings and round corner bartizans. ing constructions which the Romans raised in every part of Atop all four walls ran a projecting machicolated cornice their vast empire." Peck presumably saw such monuments crowned with gun slits. The exterior left no doubt as to its during his travels to Europe. Their influence on the Audito- purpose in the charged atmosphere of the time. Within there rium "was an inspiration" from Peck, to whom "it is most was a large drill hall that Adler and Sullivan redesigned in 1893 probable we must look for its Roman as a temporary theater known as the Trocadero Music Hall, The exterior style's association with antiquity paralleled named after the Parisian theater designed by Gabriel Davioud Adler's interest in ancient theaters as one source for the in 1876. Adler and Sullivan's client was Dr. Florence Ziegfeld,

SIHY: CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 149 Citizens' Assocation, founded in 1874 to fight corruption in municipal government,yet which supported the militia against labor agitation in 1877 and 1885. They also led the Chicago Citizens' Law and Order League founded in 1877justafter the city's railroad strikes in order to prevent the sale of alcohol to minors, as it was believed the strikers included a large number of halfdrunken boys. In this context, both the First Regiment Armory and the Auditorium were facets of a broad range of elite responses to threats of social unrest.148 The Auditorium was neither an armory nor a fortress, but it did have as its social aim the pacification of urban workers, not by means of armed control but rather by cultural suasion. As a capitalist monument, the Auditorium did present an image of indestructibility, as exemplified by its granite base near the citizen's eye. Moreover, the tower, in addition to the slotlike FIGURE 24: Bumham and Root, First Regiment Armory, northwest comer, South windows within its stylized machicolated cornice, had windows Michigan Avenue and Sixteenth Street, Chicago, 1889- 189 1 (largely rebuilt after fire, within its arches below that Garczynski described as "square 1 894; demolished 1929). From Gilbert and Btyson, Chicago and Its Moken and deeply recessed, like embrasures in a fortification."149In its style, the Auditorium provided a model for Ferdinand Peck's own house, which he commissioned William Le Baron Jenney and William A. Otis to design in 1887 (Figure 25). Educated at the ~coledes Beaux-Arts, Otis translated chapters from Edouard Corroyer's L'Architecture Romane (Romanesque Architecture) immediately after its publication in 1888. This book traced the continuous development of medieval Ro- manesque from ancient Roman architecture, a link consistent with contemporaneous perception of the Audit~rium.'~~Lo- cated at 1826 South Michigan Avenue, within three blocks of the First Regiment Armory, the Peck house exhibited a rough- hewn stonework similar to that forming the Auditorium's base. Its tower above a heavy lintel spanning the porch in- cluded a shadowed loggia below a foursquare crown, so that the house read in part as a miniature version of the Audito- rium. When President Benjamin Harrison was entertained by Peck at this residence on the day of the Auditorium Theater's FIGURE 25: William Le Baron Jenney and William A. Otis. Ferdinand Peck House, opening, he remarked that the house was "the Auditorium, 1826 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, 1887. From Gilbert and Btyson, Chicago and Jr." Peck responded that "the same spirit prevailed in both Its Moken buildings."151The house reminded all that the Auditorium was Peck's project. Two buildings, by different architects, founding president of the Chicago Musical College, which had imaged one patron. its quarters in Adler's Central Music Hall. The armory the- Interpretation of the Auditorium as a heavy lithic mass ater's performances were to raise funds for the regiment, contrasts with its place in the conventional historiography of which received little state aid. In April 1893 fire destroyed this the Chicago School of architecture, which stressed local efforts last theater designed by Adler and Sullivan five days before it to lighten or open up walls of the city's commercial buildings was to open.14'j from about 1880 to 1900. From this viewpoint, the Auditori- Peck was not a benefactor of this regiment. Its treasurer was um's exterior was valued not for its solid piers of walling but Charles Hutchinson, who was also treasurer of the Chicago rather its arched voids of windows. In this light, the Audito- Auditorium Association. In 1885 the committee in charge of rium compares not with Burnham and Root's Armory but with the regiment's new armory had proposed to Peck that the the building closest to Peck's own attitude toward urban armory and the Auditorium project be combined in the same workers: the new quarters for Chicago's Athenaeum (Figure structure.14' Auditorium directors were leaders of Chicago's 26), opened in May 1891. It stood on the same block as the

150 JSAH / 572, JUNE 1998 ing urban institution, including the Reverend David Swing on its faculty. In December 1889 the Athenaeum's head, the Reverend Edward I. Galvin, a Unitarian minister, congratu- lated Peck on creating in the new Auditorium "such a building for the public good in culture and wholesome recreation [as] must find universal endorsement." He wrote: "[Tlhe next crowning glory of your life will be the completion and opening of the Athenaeum B~ilding."'~~ As the Athenaeum's president during the same years he was directing the Auditorium project's realization, Peck had bought the Van Buren Street site for the Athenaeum and had overseen the expansion of its building from four to seven stories. As designed by Thomas Wing, the new structure had classrooms, a large lecture hall, recreational rooms, a library, and a gymna- sium, all accessible to members for a nominal annual fee. Facing north, the Athenaeum's street front had an abundance of windows with minimal piers and columns between, creating the image of a typical Chicago loft building of the period. The Athenaeum's appearance was determined almost wholly not by stylistic considerations but by utilitarian needs to light interior spaces and limit costs of construction. The Roman associations of the nearby Auditorium's exterior were lacking in this building also meant for the cultural uplift of workers, but one that did not have the Auditorium's monumental scale, lakefront site, and representational purpose.

CONCLUSION The Chicago Auditorium, whose design Adler and others ascribed to the wishes of its patrons, conveyed many messages simultaneously. On one level, it was a civic and cultural monu- ment; on another, it projected the city's power and enterprise; on yet a third, it stood for an elite's will to direct Chicago's social, economic, and political future. The outer architecture FIGURE 26,Thomas W~ng,Ch~cago Athenaeum, south s~deofVan Buren Street west figuratively stood against socialism and anarchism, while the of M~chlganAvenue, as expanded and remodeled into a seven-story building, theater inside offered alternatives to politicized and nonpoliti- 1890189 I, demolished. From Chicago Tnbune (I 0 May 89I): I cized workers' amusements. As Adler concluded more than two years after the building had opened, without doubt "Chi- Auditorium on the south side ofVan Buren Street, adjacent to cago has an Auditorium far better as an opera house or a the original Art Institute of Chicago, built on the southwest concert hall or a ballroom than either the Metropolitan Opera corner of Van Buren and Michigan Avenue in 1887.Peck and House or the Music Hall [the Academy of Music] in New other Auditorium patrons had also been founding supporters york,"l~5Adler, like Peck and Sullivan, knew these theaters of the Art 1nstit~te.l~~ from eastern trips. Adler's claim rested on his building's Styling itself as "The People's College," the Athenaeum innovative plan for audiences in terms of circulation, seating, was open to men and women regardless of "nationality or sight lines, and lighting, as well as acoustics. Sullivan's ornamen- religious belief."153Its instructional program was partly in- tal and symbolic program for the theater's interior was compa- tended to provide skills that would qualify students for employ- rably original, meant to contrast with the Met and European ment with local businessmen whose philanthropy supported state opera houses, which he, Adler, and Peck had studied. They the college by heavily subsidizing costs of instruction. Thus all rejected the predominance of boxes in these theaters. From both the Athenaeum and the Auditorium were cultural re- the Auditorium's stage, "the performers can neither sing to the sources that provided workers with capitalist-structured alterna- boxes nor play to them, but must address themselves to the tives to leftist political culture. It was to be a unifying, upbuild- public" as "an immense mass of spectators without a break."156

SIRY: CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 151 Study of the Auditorium's origins, planning, interiors, and Building, Chicago," InlandArchitect andNewsRecord 11 (March 1888): 31-32 and - A " exterior suggests how to continue to move beyond earlier plates; "Stage Mechanisms," ibid. 13 (March 1889): 42-43, also published in BuildingBudgd 15 (February 1889): 21-22; "The Auditorium Tower," American modernist views of the Chicago School of architecture. The ~~hiwtand Buiuing)Jms 32 (4 ~~ril1891): 15-16; ''The chicago ~ ~ d i ~ ~ influential historians Sigfried Giedion and Carl Condit used rium," Architectural Record 1 (April-June 1892): 415-434; "Theater-Building for American Cities; First Paper," Engineering Magaziw 7 (August 1894): the term to refer to the city's of the 717-730; '#Second paper," ibid (September 1894): 815-829; "Convention 1880s and 1890s. They Valued these structures for their techni- Halls," Inland Architert and News Record 26 (September 1895): 13-14; ibid. cal innovations and their external expression of new metal- (October 1895): 22-23; and "The Theater (c. 1900)," ed. Rachel Baron, Prairip School Review 2 (Second Quarter 1965): 21-27. frame construction. The Auditorium's story underscores the Sulli\an2s writintrs- related to the Auditorium include: "Plastic and Color value of a historiographic approach that considers the ideol- Decoration of the Auditorium," originally published as "Harmony in Decora- of patrons in the of chicagots dynamic and tion," Chirago Tribune (16 November 1889): 12, reprinted in Industrial Chicago (Chicago, 1891), 2: The Building Interests, 490-491; in Sherman Paul, Louis of the Such an of the Sullivan:AnAnhitectinAmefican Thought (Enelewood Cliffs. N.1.. 1962). 143-146, "," d. ,, Auditorium's development also shows that patrons were aware and in Robert Twombly, ed., Louis Sullivan: The Public Papers (Chicago, 1988), of competing in E~~~~~ and in ~~ city, adapting~ y 74-76;~ "Development~ ofk Construction, I," Economist 55 (24June 1916): 1252, reprinted in Twombly, ed., Sullivan: Public Papers, 214-222; and The Autobiogra- some like the Festspielhaus~and rejecting Abhl;, of" an Idea (1924; New York. 1971). 292-294. 303. 309. See also Sullivan's others, like the Paris Opira and the Metropolitan. As did remarks quoted in "Church Spires Must Go," Chzcago Tnbune (30 November architects elsewhere through the nineteenth century, ~d l 1890):~ 36, partly~ reprinted in Twombly, ed., SuUivan:Public~apers,72-73. Other accounts of the original building include Edward R. Garczynski, The and thought in terms of wesand their Audithum (Chicago, 1890);Industrial Chicago, 1: The BuildingInterests, 194-196; possible variations, in addition to pursuing- a -general ideal of Montgomery Schuyler, "Glimpses of Western Architecture: Chicago," Harper's appropriately functional modern form. This latter side of their Magazine 83 (August 1891): 395-406, and A Critique of the Wmks ofAd2pr and Sullivan, D. H. Burnham L+ Co., Ha? Iues Cobb, Great American Architects thinking had attracted Giedion and Condit. Yet, as we have Series, no. 2: Architecture in Chicago (New York, 1896), 2-27; Paul F. P. seen, Adler and Sullivan were not fullv removed from histon- Mueller, Testimony, in Chicago Auditorium Association vs. Mark Skinner cism and the symbolic associations of older styles, for the Willing and the Northern Trust Co. as Trustees, etc., et al., in the United States Circuit Court ofAppeals for the Seventh Circuit, October Term, A.D. 1925, no. Auditorium was not only part of the continuing development 3733, 440-470, reprinted in Edgar J. Kaufmann, jr., "Frank Lloyd M1right's 'Lieber Meister,' " in Niw Commatarips on Frank Lloyd Wright (New York and of an American RomanesaueA swle, but also a monument that conveyed allusions to ancient Rome. Cambridge, Mass., 1989): 42-62; Paul Sabine, "The Acoustics of the Chicago Civic Opera House," ArchitecturalForum 52 (April 1930):599-604; Frank Lloyd Giedion and Condit were correct, however, in stressing the Wright, An Autobiography (New York, 1932), 105-106; Hugh Morrison, Louis regionally distinct identity of Chicago's architecture in the Sullivan: Prophet of Moh Architecture (New York, 1935), 80-110; Wright, quoted in "Chicago's Auditorium Is Fifty Yean Old," Architectural Fmm 73 1880s, as Sullivan's interior for the theater showed. For Peck, (September 1940): 11-12; Frank A. Randall, Histq oftheDeve@mmt ofBuilding however, this regional identity had not so much a stylistic ConstructioninChicago(Urbana,I11.,1949), 117;~right,Genituandthe~obocracy impetus as an ideological origin, rooted in his and others' (New York, 19491, 42-53; Carl W. Condit, "Sullivan's Skyscrapers as the Expression of Nineteenth Century Technology," Technoha and Culture 1 (win- ter 1959): 78-93; Historic American Buildings Survev. IL-1007: Auditorium concepts of Critics Schu~lerof New " York and Paul Bourget of Paris both explored this ideal as Building (1960; Addendum, 1980); Albert Bush-Brown, LOUUSullivan (New peculiarly characteristic of chicago architecture, which B ~ ~ York,~ 19601,- 15-16; Willard Connely, Louis Sullivan As He Lived (New York, 1960),101-122; Condit, The Chzcago Srhool ofArchitecture:A Histq of Commercial get described as "a new kind of an art of made andPublic Buildinain- the Chicapo Arm 1875-1925 (Chicago." 1964). 69-79: Paul by the crowd and for the crowd."15sAt the Auditorium, Peck E. Sprague, "The Architectural Ornament of Louis Sullivan and His Chief developed this ideal in terms of working people's access to Draftsmen," Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1968,396-398; William H.Jordy, Ammican Buildings and Their Arrhitects, uol. 4: Progressive and Academic Ideals at the events limited to those with higher incomes. Turn ofthe Twatirth Centup (1972; reDr., NewYork. 1986). 101-104.118-119. Adler and Sullivan's technical and ornamental inventiveness, 161-162; Wilbur T. Denson, "A History of the Chicago Auditorium," ph.~. both in interior space and exterior form, served to embody diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974; Daniel H. Perlman, The Audit* rium Building: Its Histq and Architectural Sign$canre (Chicago, 1976); George Peck's aims. Together patron and architects forged a link C. Izenour, ThPnterDesign (NewYork, 1977),82-86; Sprague, Thehwings of between ideology and style arising from conditions of the Louis Henv Sullivan (Princeton, 1979), 6-7, 334-337; Charles E. Gregersen, Auditorium's historical moment, which their building, in turn, "The Chicago Auditorium: A History and Description," Addendum, HABS Survey, IL-1007 (1980);Narciso Menocal, Architectureas Nature: The Transcenden- did much to define. talist Idea of Louis SuUivan (Madison, UTis.,1981), 18, 45-46; John A. Burns, "Structure and Mechanics as Sculpture," AIA Toulna172 (April 1983): 44-49; Charles E. Grimsley, "A Study of the Contributions of Dankmar Adler to Notes the Theatre Building Practice of the Late Nineteenth Century," Ph.D. diss., I am most grateful for advice and assistance from Charles Laurier, Roosevelt Northwestern University, 1984, 215-304; David S. Andrew, Louis Sullivan and University Library; Robert Bruegmann, University of Illinois at Chicago; and the Polrmics of Modern Architecture (Urbana, Ill., 1985), 82-92; Michael Forsyth, Miles Berger, Chicago. Buildingsfor Music: The Arhitect, the Musician, and the Listmtrfrom the Smateath ' Adler's published writings related to the Auditorium include "The Para- Catury to the Present (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), 236-243; Lauren S. Weingar-- mount Requirements of a Large Opera House," InlandArchitect and News Record den, "The Colors of Nature: Louis Sulli\an's Architectural Polychromy and 10 (October 1887): 45-46, also published as "Theatres," Amn'can Architect and Nineteenth Century Color Theory," Winterthur Portfolio 20 (1985): 250-252; Buildingh'ews22 (29 October 1887): 206-208; "Foundations ofthe Auditorium David Van Zanten, "Sullivan to 1890," in Wim de Wit, ed., Louis Sullivan: The

152 JSAH / 57:2,JUNE 1998 Function of Ornament (Kew York, 1986), 36-51; Jordy, "The Tall Buildings," Anhitectural and Cultural History (New York, 1973), 43-44; and Nikolaus Pevs ibid., 65-71; Twombly, Louis Sullivan: His L@ and Wolk (New York, 1986), ner, A History of Building 7j;r,~s(Princeton, 1976), 74. On Barry's Covent 161-195; Joseph Rykwert, "Louis Sullivan and the Gospel of Height," Art in Garden, see Richard Leacroft, The Development of the English Phjhow (New Ama'm 75 (November 1987): 162-165; David G. Lowe, "Monument of an York, 1973), 221-230. Age," American Crnft 48 (June/July 1988): 40-47, 104; Weingarden, "Natural- One description of Cady's building concluded: "In the arrangement of the ized Nationalism: A Ruskinian Discourse on the Search for an American Style stairways and passages, the Metropolitan Opera-house bears considerable of Architecture," Wintprthur Portfolio 24 (spring 1989): 63-67; Gregenen, resemblance to Covent Garden" ("In the New Opera-House," New Yolk Times Dankmr Adh: His Theatm and Audztonums (Athens, Ohio, 1990),4-6,9-23, [22 July 18831: 9). Briggs, Yellow Brick Brewery, 9, noted that Covent Garden's 65-70; Ross Miller, American Apocalypse: Chicago and the Myth of the Great Fire impresario, Ernest Gye, hoping to be named the Met's manager, made plans of (Chicago 1990),11 1-121; Roula M. Geraniotis, "German Design Influences in Covent Garden available to Cady. Cady also relied on a German-trained the Auditorium Theater," in John S. Garner, ed., The Midwest in American associate, Louis de Coppet Bergh (1856-1913), whose sister had studied music Archittrture (Urbana, Ill., 1991), 42-75; Miles L. Berger, T@ Built Chirago: in Italy and provided pictures and details of European opera houses such as La Entr@-mn Who Shaped a Great City's Architecture (Chicago, 1992), 93-103; Scala. See Milton Stansbury "Romance in the Opera House," Opera News5 (10 Hans Frei, Louis Hmry SuUivan (Zurich, 1992), 68-75; Donald L. Miller, Ciy of March 1941):4-9. the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making ofAmerica (New York, 1996), Schuyler, "Metropolitan Opera-House," 883. On the form of the Metropoli- 354-366; and Mario Manieri Elia, Louis Henry Sullivan (New York, 1996), tan's proscenium, see also \an Rensselaer, "Metropolitan Opera-House," 76, 38-59. who noted that the Met was "a building in which each and every stockholder 2 Influential characterizations of the Chicago School include Sigfned Giedion, should have an equal chance of seeing-and being seen. No variations of plan Space, Time and ArchitPcture, 5th ed., revised and enlarged (Cambridge, Mass., were to be allowed the architect in favor of architectural effect which would be 1982), 368-393; Condit, "The Chicago School and the Modern Movement in at the expense of this perfect equality. All the boxes were to be of the same Architecture," Art in America 36 (January 1948): 19-36; The Rise of the Skyscraper character and the same size, and, in so far as it was possible to human skill, all (Chicago, 1952); and ThP Chicago Srhool ofArrhitecture. See H. Allen Brook, were to be equally advantageous as regards seeing the stage, and being seen by "The Chicago School: Metamorphosis of a Term," JSAH 25 (May 1966): the rest of the audience." 115-118, and Robert Bruegmann, "The Marquette Building and the Myth of lo Schuyler, "Metropolitan Opera-House," 883. the Chicago School," Threshold (fall 1991): 6-23. Important revisions of 'I At the Metropolitan's opening, "much disappointmentwas caused by the Giedion's and Condit's ideas appear in The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago comparative failure of the acoustic properties of the auditorium.. . . In the and New Ymk: ArchitPctural Interactions (Chicago, 1984); John Zukowsky, ed., upper rows of the boxes and in the balcony only the high voices were distinctly Chirago Architecture, 1872-1922: Birth ofa Metropolis (Munich, 1987); Daniel M. heard. Nor were the facilities for seeing much better in some portions of the Bluestone, Constructing Chicago (New Haven, 1991); Berger, They Built Chirago; auditorium than the facilities for hearing" ("The New Opera House," New Yolk and Robert Bruegmann, The Architerts and the City: Holabird and Roche of Chicago, Times [23 October 18831: 1). See also "Metropolitan Opera-House," ThPRTntion 1880-1918 (Chicago, 1997). 37 (25 October 1883): 848-849. After a first season, it was noted: "The "osiah Cleaveland Cady, "The Essential Features of a Large Opera House," Metropolitan Opera-house season has been financially a disastrous failure." Inland Architect and News Record 5 (October 1887): 46-47, reprinted in Amcan Only consistently solduut performances would have enabled a profit, but "the Architect and Building News 22 (29 October 1887): 208. Before 1883, the prime house is never full, and never can be, because there is such a large part of it in venue for opera in Manhattan had been the New York Academy of Music which no one can see or hear" ("Patti M7ill Go To London," New Ymk Times [16 (1853-1854) on the northeast corner of Fourteenth Street and Irving Place. February 18841: 5). Later praise for the Met's acoustics was noted in Briggs, Although it seated over 3,000, the Academy had only eighteen proscenium YuIlow Brick Breuier?, 15, and Eisler, Metropolitan Opera, x. boxes owned by the city's oldest wealthy families. It was New York's recently l2 Editorial, "Mr. Abbey's Retirement," New Ymk Times (14 February 1884): monied elite, led by the Vanderbilts, who financed the Metropolitan with its 4. Cady's care for sight lines was noted in "A Grand Temple of Music," ,Veu Ymk many boxes. See "The Metropolitan Opera House," TheNation 37 (25 October Times (14 October 1883): 5. Briggs, Yellow Brick Brewq, 15-16, and Mayer, Met, 1883):348-349; [Montgomery Schuyler], "The Metropolitan Opera-House," 40-41, reported unresolved difficultieswith sight lines up to the time of the old Harper's New Month4 ~Mngazine67 (November 1883): 877-889; Marianna G. Metropolitan's demolition in 1966. \'an Rensselaer, "The Metropolitan Opera-House, New York," American Archi- l3 Letter, "Its Boast and Its Snare," New Ymk Times (4 May 1884): 4. ktand BuildingArews 15 (16 and 23 January 1884): 76-77, 86-89; Henry E. l4 Cady, "Essential Features of a Large Opera House," 47. Krehbiel, Chaptm ofOpera (NewYork, 1911), 86-88; Frank Merkling et al., The l5 Ibid. Golden Hors~shoe:The Lij? and Times of the Metropolitan Opera Hme (New York, I6James Roosevelt, first president of the Metropolitan Opera House Com- 1965), 13-21; Quaintance Eaton, The Miracle of theMet: An Informal Histq ofthe pany, acknowledged: "We never expected that it would pay. None of us went Metropolitan Opera 1883-1967 (New York, 1968), 43-53; Irving Kolodin, The into it with the idea that we would ever get our money back, but simply for the Metropolitan Opera 1883-1 966 (New York, 1968), 3-6; John Briggs, Requipmfm a enjoyment to be derived from having a first-class opera-house. No opera-house Yellow Brick Brewery (Boston, 1969),6-17 Martin Mayer, The Met: Une Hundred in the world has ever paid as an investment, and none will ever pay" ("The Years of Grand Opea (New York, 1983), 15-23; Paul E. Eisler, The Metropolitan Opera House Scheme," Neui Ymk Times [14 March 18821: 1).Van Rensselaer, Opera: The ktTwmQ-Five Years, 1883-1908 (New York, 1984), 9-19; John "Metropolitan Opera-House," 76, noted that the corner masses on Broadway, Dizikes, Opera in America: A Cultural Hirtory (New Haven, 1993), 214-221; and being built in January 1884 after the theater opened in October 1883, were "to Kathleen A. Curran, A Forgottm Architect ofthe Gilded Age: Josiah Cleaveland Cad? 's contain shops below, above large ball-rooms and restaurants, and above these hgaq (Hartford, 1993), 16-20. again bachelors' apartments." A special committee of the Metropolitan's Cady, "Essential Features of a Large Opera House," 47. Board of Directors reported that "the advantage in finishing would be that the Edith Warton, The Age of Innocmce (1920), in R. W.B. Lewis, ed., Edjth plans of the corners included the building of reception and supper rooms, Wharton:Armiels (New York, 1985), 1017. which would enable the Directors to rent the house for balls" ("The Opera's Egisto P. Fabbri, Chairman, Committee on Building, Metropolitan Opera New Home," Nmu York Times [24 May 18831: 1). House Company quoted in Mayer, Met, 15. "Van Rensselaer, "Metropolitan Opera-House," 76. Mayer, Met, 19, noted Cady's tour of Europe following the Metropolitan la On operatic culture in New York City before the Met's construction, see Board's decision to build on 4 March 1881. Richard Grant U'hite, "Opera in New York," Centu~Magazine 23 (March Schuyler, "Metropolitan Opera-House," 884, noted that boxes in the lower 1882): 686-703; (April 1882): 865-882; 24 (May 1882): 31-43; (June 1882): two full tiers were sold to stockholders, while the manager rented those in the 193-210; George C. D. Odell, Ann& of the hkw Yolk Stag? 1815-1925, 15 vols. half tier below and the topmost full tier above. Briggs, Yellow Brick Brewq, (New York, 1927-1949); and Lawrence W.Levine, Highbrm/Lowbrm: The 22-23, recalled newspaper diagrams of the Metropolitan's boxes. On the shape Emerpzce ofCultura1Hierarchy in America (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), 85-104. of Cady's plan, see van Rensselaer, "Metropolitan Opera-House," 86-87. On its '"n moral concerns in New York City about operas of Verdi and Offen- name, see Maver, Met, 16. On La Scala, see Simon Tidworth, Thentres; An bach in the 1850s and 18605, see Dizikes, Opera in Americn, 171-173, 193-194.

SIRY: CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 153 Schuyler, "Metropolitan Opera-House," 880, wrote that earlier local buildings Its Tim1880-1955 (Chicago, 19553, 119, and Berger, Thq Built Chicago, 94. made for opera, such as the New York Academy of Music (1852-1854), The operas for the Auditorium Theater's first season in 1888-1889 were designed by Alexander Saeltzer on the northeast corner of Fourteenth Street predominantly in the Italian tradition. See "The Auditorium and the Italian and Irving Place, one block east of Union Square, and the Brooklyn Academy Opera Revival," Chicago Tribune (17 November 1889): 5, and "The Dedication of Music's first building of 1859-1861, designed by Leopold Eidlin, on Mon- of the Auditorium," ibid. (8 December 1889): 12. In the Auditorium Theater's tague Street, were similarly conservative in style: "It is quite certain that when later years, Peck "attended every opening night. He loved Faust, [Ill Trovatore these edifices were built, it would have been as difficult to obtain the money for and Bohemian Girl" ("Ferdinand Peck, Widely Known Chicagoan, Dies," 19). an undissembled opera-house as twenty-five years later it has proved easy to Philo T. Otis, Impressions of Europe 1873-1874: Mwic, Art and Histq obtain ten times as much." On New York's Academy of Music, see James V. (Boston, 1922). See also Otis, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra: Its Organization, Kavenaugh, "Three American Opera Houses: The Boston Theatre, The New Growth and Druelopmt 1891-1924 (1924; reprint, New York, 1972). On Patti, York Academy of Music, The Philadelphiahmerican Academy of Music," Ph.D. see H. Sutherland Edwards, The Pnma Donna: Her Histq and Surroundzngsfrom diss., University of Delawxre, 1967, 28-51, and Dizikes, Opea in America, the Seventeenth to the Ninetenth Centu~,2 ~01s.(London, 1888), 2, 64-124; 166-167. Herman Klein, The Reign ofPatti (London, 1920);and Dizikes, Opera in Amm'ca, " On the Casino Theater, see American Architect and Building Nms 18 (27 223-230. Bluestone, Constructing Chicago, 22, noted traveled Chicagoans' aware- August 1885): 102; James Taylor, "The History of Terra Cotta in New York ness of cultural amenities in European cities as inspiration for Chicago's City," ArchitecturalRecord2 (October-December 1892): 136-148; Montgomery improvement. Schuyler, "The Works of Francis H. Kimball and Kimball and Thompson," 2g On the development of commercial theaters in Paris after the revolution Architertural Record 7 (April-June 1898): 494, 496, 497; Lloyd Morris, Incredible of 1789, see G. Radicchio and M. Sajous D'Oris, IYS thiitres d~ Park pmdunt In ,\ku Ymk: High Lzfv and Low Lifv ofthe Last Hundred Bars (New York, 1951),189, fiolution (Ban, 1990), and Anthony Sutcliffe, Park: An Architectural History 267; Young, Famow American PInyhowes, 223-225; Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory (New Haven, 1993), 67-68. On the Opera National, see Jane Fulcher, The Gilmartin, and John M. Massengale, hku Ymk 1900: metropolitan Architecture and ,\'ation 's Image: French Cknd Opoa as Politics and Politicized Art (Princeton, 1987), Lrrbanism 1890-1915 (New York, 1983), 206-207, 220-221. On the Casino's 113-121, 171. On Garnier's design for the arrival and circulation of different roof garden, see Robert H. Montgomery, "The Roof Gardens of New York," classes of operagoers, see most recently Christopher C. Mead, Charles Gamier's Indoon and Out2 (August 1906): 214-219. Park Opera: Architectural Empathy and the Kenawsance of French Clnssicism (New 2i Adler, "Chicago Auditorium," 415. York and Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 113-127. 22 "The Men of Millions," Chicago Tribune (6 April 1890): 25. Chicago's 30 Ctsar Daly and Gabriel Da~loud,Les TGitres de In Place du ChBtelet (Paris, larger private fortunes were there listed as Marshall Field ($25 million), Philip 1874), and Mead, Gamier's Park Opera, 128-129. See also T. J. Walsh, Second D. hrmour ($25 million), and George M. Pullman ($15 million). Potter Palmer Empire Opera: The TGitre Lyrique, Park 1851-1870 (London, 1981). On these and Mrs. Cyrus McCormick were also then reported to have fortunes of $10 theaters, the TrocadCro, and Davioud's unbuilt project for a new Orphton million. Many Chicago properties of the Peck estate and their assessed values Municipal (1864-1867), see also Daniel Rabreau et al., Gnbriel Davioud: Archi- were listed in the Illinois Bureau ofLabor Statwtics, hrinth Biprcnial R~port;Subject: tecte, 1824-1881 (Paris, 1981), 54-75, 76-83, 89-102. On Davioud's and Franchises and Taxation 1896 (Springfield, 1897). Biographical sources on Peck Bourdais's related project of 1875 for a "People's Opera House" in Paris, see include C. Dean, The IYurld's Fair City and HerEnterpzsing Sons (Chicago, 1892), Izenour, TheaterDesign,93. 36-74; The Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Galw of Rppresentatzve Men of 31 Michael Musgrave, The Mwical Li/e of the Cqstal PaInce (Cambridge, 1995). Chicago. . . (Chicago and NewYork, 1892), 106-109; John J. Flinn, Hand-book of On the Royal Albert Hall, see Hitchcock, Archztecture h'zneteenth and Twentzvth Chicago Bzography (Chicago, 1893), 283-284; hrba N. Waterman, Historical Centuries, 4th ed. (NewYork, 1977), 236; and Izenour, TheaterDeszgn,168-169, Rmww of Chicago and Cook County and Selected Biography, 3 vols. (Chicago, 1908), 252-254. 3,926-930; "Ferdinand Peck, Widely Known Chicagoan, Dies," Chicago Tribune 92 Geraniotis, "German Design Influence in the Auditorium Theater," (5 November 1924): 19; Paul T. Gilbert and Charles L. Bryson, Chzcago and Its 47-54. Descriptions of Bayreuth's Festspielhaus include Edwin 0.Sachs and Makm (Chicago, 1929), 625; and Berger, Tbq Built Chzcago, 93-104. In 1857 Ernest A. Woodrow, Modern Opera Howes and Theatres, 3 vols. (London, Philip Peck moved with his family to a new home at Michigan Terrace, the most 1897-1898), 1,19-31; Albert La~ignac,The ~MwicDrnmasofRichard Wapand elite rowhouse block in the city. It stood on Michigan Avenue's west side, from His Festi7ial Theatres in Bayreuth, trans. Esther Singleton (New York, 1904), Van Buren to Congress Streets, where the Auditorium and its neighboring 54-67; Pevsner, Histq ofBuzlding 7jpes, 86-87; Izenour, TheaterDesign,75-82; structures to the north rose in the 1880s. On Michigan Terrace, see Bluestone, Forsyth, Buildings for music, 179-182; Heinrich Habel, Festspiulhaw und Wahn- Constructing Chicago, 75-78. fiwd GPpInnte und aw~yfiihrteBautplt Richard UTagners (Munich, 1985); and 23 On Chicago's Athenaeum, see Alfred T. Andreas, Hwtory ofChicago, 3 vols. Frederic Spotts, Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festzval (New Haven, 1994), (Chicago, 1884-1886), 3, 416-417; and Kathleen D. McCarthy, Koblesse Oblige: 38-54. Peck included the Bayreuth Festspielhaus among those theaters that Charity and CulturalPhilanthr@ in Chzcago, 1849-1929 (Chicago, 1982),82-84. Adler was to examine during his trip of 1888 (see n. 36 below). Adler Peck supported the Athenaeum from its origins after 1871 and served as its presumably knew of the building earlier. In his paper "Stage Mechanisms," 42, president for four years (1887-1891). He also secured the Athenaeum's he referred to Carl Brandt's work as a theattical engineer in connection with building at 56 East Van Buren Street in 1890, on the Auditorium's block. See stage equipment for the Opera House in Frankfurt-am-Main,built 1873-1880. Kineteenth Annual Rtport ofthe Chicago Athenaeum 1889-'90 (Chicago Historical 33 On Semper's first Hoftheater at Dresden, see Mallgrave, Gotthd Semper, Society), and Rand, McNally & Co., Bird's-Eye Vipius and Cuzde to Chzcago 117-129. On the seating arrangement in Schinkel's Schauspielhaus at Berlin, (Chicago, 1898), 31, in Randall, Building Construction in Chicago, 160. Peck see Barry Bergdoll, Karl Friedrich Schznkel: An Architecturefor Prwsia (New York, served for five years (1886-1890) on Chicago's Board of Education and as its 1994), 60. On these buildings, and on Aupst Sturmhoefel's unbuilt project of \ice president. See Proceedings of the Board of Educatzon of the City of Chicago, 1888 for a Volkstheater,or People's Theater, see Geraniotis, "German Design 1886-1890. He was also a trustee of the old and the new University of Chicago. Influence on the Auditorium Theater," 54-55,58-62. In 1870 he had helped to found the Illinois Humane Societ): and in 1880 he On Semper's unbuilt designs for Munich's Festspielhaus and their relation was a founder of Chicago's Union League Club, which sought reform of city to Wagner's dramatic theory, see Harry F. Mallgrave, Gottfiwd Semper: Architect of government. He also supported thehrt Institute of Chicago and the Reverend the Kinetemth Century (New Haven, 1996), 251-267. On Wagner's interest in David Swing's Central Church of Chicago, which was the main tenant of ancient Greek drama as a model for his art, see Brian Magee, Aspects oflVagnrr Dankrnar Adler's Centtal Music Hall (1879). See Bluestone, Constructing Chi- (New York, 1988), 5-9, and Dieter Borchmeyer, Richard Wagner: Theq and cago, 99-101. Theatre, trans. Stuart Spencer (1982; Oxford, 1991), esp. 59-86. 24 Waterman, Chicago and Cook County, 3,930. 3%n American reports of Bayreuth's opening, see Dizikes, @era in Ampn'ca, 23 Gilbert and Bryson, Chicago and Its Makm, 625. See Dean, World'sFair City, 238-239. Among these reports were those by Leopold Damrosch, the Metropoli- 71; and Sullivan, Autobiography ofan Idea, 292,293. tan Opera's future conductor of German opera, who wrote: "To Day's Musical 2"'The Great Auditorium," Chicago Tribune (18June 1888): 7. Wonder," ,Vnu Ymk Sun (13 Aupst 1876): 2, and "The Twilight of the Gods," 2' Bruce Grant, Fight fora City: The Story ofthe Lrnion League Club ofchicago and ibid. (23 August 1876:2). See also the editorial "Wagner, the Art Revolutionist,"

154 JSAH / 57:2, JUNE 1998 ibid. (19 August 1876): 2. Architects Potter and Robertson's nonwinning Company's Chicago tour of 1884, see Quainmnce Eaton, Opera Caravan: design for the Metropolitan Opera House included a lowered orchestra pit, Adurnlures of the ,bfetropolitan on Tour (New York, 1957), 8-13, and Ronald L. adapted from the one at Bayreuth ("Competitive Designs Prepared for the Davis, Opera in Chicago (NewYork, 1966), 35-36. Metropolitan Opera House, Kew York, N.Y. Messrs. Potter and Robertson, 12 Editorial, Indicator4 (9 February 1884): 96. Architects, New York, N.Y.," American Archztpct and Buzldinghkus 8 [I3 Novem- " Silas G. Pratt, ed., First Chzcago Grand Opera Festzual (Chicago, 1885). ber 18801: 234-235). In 1890 McKim, Mead and White's theater at NewYork's Ibid. Madison Square Garden was "to be built upon the plan of that at Ba~euth 45 On the Exposition Building, see Industrial Chicago, 1: The Buildinglntrrests, which Wagner caused to be built according to the most approved plans" ("New 157-158; .4ndreas, Histq o/Chicago, 2,655-657; "The Interstate Exposition at York's .Auditorium," Chicago Tribun~[25 January 18891: 2). On the Metropoli- Chicago," Inland Architect and hkus Record 16 (September 1890): 22; Bessie L. tan's C~rmanseasons, see Krehbiel, Chaptm of Opera, 109-138, 155-212; Pierce, Histq of Chzcago, 3 vols. (Chicago, 1957), 3, 18-19, 475; Helen L. Kolodin, Mvtropolitan Opera, 87-105; Eaton, Miracle of the ~Clet,66-74; Briggs, Horowitz, Culture and the City: Cultural Philanthr* in Chicagofi-om th1880s to YellowBrick Brauery, 30-38; Mayer, Mvt, 48-64; Eisler, Metropolitan Opera, 55-171; 1917 (1976; Chicago, 1989), 36-39; and Ross Miller, AmPn'can Apocalyppsu, 23, and Dizikes, Opera zn Ammica, 239-246. 91-92. 35 On Sullivan's window shopping in the vicinity of the Paris Opera, see 46 On the 1884 May Music Festival, see Andreas, Hwtory of Chicago, 3, Autobiography of an Idea, 227. On the facade's unveiling and the theater's 650-651; "The May Music Festival," Chicago Tribuw (31 May 1884): 3, and inauguration, see Mead, GurniPr'sPam Opera, 184-185,193-195. On Sulliban's "Limusements,"ibid. (1June 1884): 6. trip back to the United States, see Twombly, Louis SuUivan, 73. By 1909 Sullivan " "The OperaFestival," Chzcago Tebune (1 March 1885): 7. did own Charles Garnier, Le.Vou7wl Opha de Pam, 2 vols. (Paris, 1880); Richard "The Opera Festival," Chicago Tnbune (30 March 1885):9. Lucae et al., Dm @ernhaus zu Frankfurt am Main (Berlin, 1883);and Hans Auer, 4g Pratt, ed., First Chicago Grand Opma Festival. Adler and Sullivan's remodel- Das K. K. HofOpernhaus in Wki von van dn- Xu11 und von Siccardsburg (Vienna, ing of the Exposition Building's north end for the Opera Festival was discussed 1885). See Andrew, Louw Sulli7ian, Appendix 2: Inventory of Sullivan's Library, in "A Mammoth Opera House," Inland Architvct and Ahus Record 5 (March from Williams, Barker & Severn Co., Auction Catalogue no. 5533, "Household 1885): 25; "The Operatic Festival,'' ibid. (29 March 1885): 12; "The Grand Effects, Library, Oriental Rugs, Paintings, Etc., of Mr. Louis Sulliban," Chicago, Opera Festibal," Real Estate and BuildingJournal27 (4 April 1885): 160-161; 29 November 1909 (Burnham Library, ktInstimte of Chicago). On Sulliban Editorial, "The Opera Festivd," Chicago Tribunv (5 April 1885): 4; ibid. (12 and Wagner, see Sullivan, Autobiogmphy of an Idea, 208-209; Wright, Grr~zusand April 1885): 27; Sullivan, Autobiogmphy of an Idea, 292-293; Morrison, Louis the ~Moborrq,49, 54-56; and Jordy, Amen'can Buildings and Their Archztects, 4, Sullivan, 67-71; Denson, "Chicago Auditorium," 30-34; Yvonne Shafer, "The 161, 165. On Americans at Bayreuth, see Prvsto Music Tzmes 6 (31 August First Chicago Grand Opera Festival: Adler and Sullivan Before the Audito- 1889): 6. rium," Theatrr Design and techno lo^ 13 (March 1977): 9-13, 38; Grimsley, "Peck, quoted in "One of Our Wonders," Chicago Hernld (16 September "Dankrnar Mler," 184-189; Twombly, Louis Sulli7ian, 147-149; Gregersen, 1888): 17. He stated: "We intend to have the most complete stage in the world, DankmarAdlur, 115-16,55,60-61; and Frei, Louis Sullivan, 64-65. uith the best appliances. During my recent visit to Europe, I examined a io "The Grand Opera Festival," Real Estate and Buildzng Journal 27 (4 April number of stages with this end in view, and Mr. Adler, one of our architects, is 1885): 161. there now . . . for the purposes of examining and getting detailed plans of the " On the festival's financial and cultural results, see "Music for the People," finest stages in Europe, especially those of Buda-pesth, Frankfurt, Vienna, Chicap Inter Ocvan (3 May 1885): 6. See also Andreas, Histq of Chicago, 3, Dresden, Baireuth [sic],and La Scala, at Milan." Adler's account of his trip 652-653. appeared in his talk "Stage Mechanisms," in Inland Architect and .Vms &cord 13 52Peck, quoted in "The Opera Is Over," Chicago Tribune (19 April (March 1889): 42-43. See also Joan W. Saltzstein, "The A~~tobiopphyand 1885): 12. Letters of Dankmar Adler," Inland Archztvct 27 (September/October 1983): "Our Vampires," The Alarm (2 May 1885): 1, and "They Want Blood," 20-24, and Geraniotis, "German Design Influence on the Auditorium The- Chzcago Tnbuw (29 Apnl 1885) 2 See also Schaack, Anarchj and Anarchwts. ater," 44-47. 80-8 1, and A\nch, Ha)market Tragedj, 146- 149 " Peck, Annual Report of the President to the Stockholders of the Chicago 54 Recent accounts of the riot and its aftermath include Awich, Haymarket Auditorium Association, 7 December 1889 (Auditorium Collection, Roosevelt Tragedy,181-239, and Carl Smith, Cdan Disorder-and theShapr ofBelirf (Chicago, University Archives). 1996), 101-176. Accounts from the period include "A Hellish Dead," Chicago 38 Henry Ericsson, Six$ Yean a Buildrr (1942; repr., NewYork, 1972), 68. On Tribun~(5 May 1886): 1-2. On workers' lakefront meetings held from May to the strike, see Joseph Siry, "Adler and Sullivan'sGuaranty Building in Buffalo," November 1885, see Av~ich,Haymarket Tragedy, 109-110. JSAH 55 (March 1996): 21, 34 (nn. 48, 49). On the Board of Trade Building, " Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchwts, 44-73, and Av~ich,Haymarket Tragedy, see "The Board of Trade," Chicago Tiihne (28 April 1885): 9; ibid. (29 April 84-85, 218-219. See also Carol Poore, "German-American Socialist Culture," 1885): 3; Thomas Tallmadge, Architecture in Old Chicago (Chicago, 1941), 165; Cultural Cirrrespon&ce (Spring 1978): 13-20, and Eric L. Hirsch, Lrdan holt: and Randall, Building Construction in Chzcago, 108. Ethnzc Politics in the AVineteenth-CPnturyChzcago Labor ~Lfovmt(Berkeley, 1990), " Paul A\irich, The Haymadwt Tragdy (Princeton, 1983), 136-140. One esp. 144-170. major study is Kenneth L. Kann, "Working Class Culture and the Labor jbThe Reverend David Swing, quoted in Ericsson, Six9 Ears a Buzldvr, 235. Movement in NineteenthCentury Chicago," Ph.D. diss., University of Califor- For Swing's and other clerical first reactions to Haymarket, see "Denounced nia at Berkeley, 1977. Others include Hartmut Keil and John B. Jentz, eds., from Pulpit," Chicago Tribunt (10 May 1886): 1-2. See also Lewis F. U'heelock, German Workms in Industrial Chicago, 1850-1910: A Comparative Perspecti7w (De "Urban Protestant Reactions to the Chicago Haymarket Affair 1886-1893," Kalb, Ill., 1983). These studies refer to Michael J. Schaack, Anarchy and Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1956. Anarchists (Chicago, 1889),who described baried workers' meeting halls around j7Peck, address to Chicago Commercial Club, 29 May 1886, published in the city. The North Side's Turner Hall was at Clark Street and Chicago Avenue, "New Grand Opera-House," Chicago Tnbune (12June 1886):9. while Vorwarts Turner Hall was on U'est Twelfth Street. 58 See John J. Glessner, The Commial Club of Chicago (Chicago, 1910), and "George Wharton James, Chicago's Dark Plnces (Chicago. 1891). See also Andreas, History ojchicago, 3,404-405. On Chicago's first major railroad strike, William Stead, If Christ Came to Chzcago: A Plea for the Union of All Who Lovv in the see Robert V. Bruce, 1877: The EarofT.'zolence (New York, 1959),233-253, and Service o/All Who Suffrr (London, 1894). On the ciy's range of amusements, see Philip Foner, The Great Labor Lpisingof1877 (NewYork, 1977), 138-156. Harold R. Vynne, Chicago b~Day and?right: T/EPlvasure Seekeri Guide to thtParis of " Peck, in "New Grand Opera House," Chicago Tribunv (12June 1886): 9. Amnica (Chicago, 1892). On entertainments of nonrddical trade unions, see, " bid, A9 successfuil local examples of this building type, Peck cited Adler's for example, "Among the Turners," Chicago Herald (2 May 1886): 16; and Central Music Hall (1879), and the Chicago Opera House (1885), on the "Theatrical Folks' Hop" and "The Stone-Cutters' Ball," Chicago Tribune (8 southwest corner of Clark and Washington Streets, designed by Cobb and December 1887): 2. Frost. Adler and Sullivan remodeled its theater in 1886. On this building, see 4i Editorial, Indicator 4 (9 February 1884): 96. See also "The Abbey Opera Andreas, Histq of Chicago, 3, 668-669, and Rand, McNally & Co., Bird's-Eje Company," Indicator 4 (19 January 1884): 62. On the Metropolitan Opera V~IISand Guide to Chicago, 141, repr. in Randall, Building Construction in Chzcago,

SIRY: CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 155 206. Peck's family owned the building's site. See "A Question of Dollars," managed the Metropolitan in its first season (1883-1884), that Abbey had lost Chicago Tribune (20June 1889): 10. On the Cenual Music Hall, see n. 81 below. $600,000. See Briggs, Yellow Brick Brmery, 22, 28-29; Mayer, :!let, 43-47; and " Glessner, Commercial Club, 20. Eisler, Metropolitan Oppm, 50-53. Garczynski, Auditm'um, 20, noted that, in b2 Garczynski,Audithum, 20, recalled how, prior to the Peck proposal, "one contrast to Cincinnati, whose capacious Music Hall had succeeded from its of Chicago's most noble and most honored citizens, who, realizing this uant of opening in 1878, "New York, kith a far greater population, and with infinitely the city, had from 1882 to 1885,with the prompting and assistance ofTheodore superior wealth, had built the Academy of Music, and still more recently the Thomas, made many brave but ineffectual efforts to convince a number of her Metropolitan Opera House, with no better financial result than the obligation wealthy citizens and her supposed leaders in culture and refinement to join of the owners of these temples of the Muses to pay annual assessments for the him in giving Chicago a great Public Hall and Opera House." He added: "The maintenance of these structures." comprehensive studies of [Adler and Sullivan] made from 1882 to 1885 in 7' Garczynski,Auditorium, 122. connection with certain efforts in a similar direction under the auspices of Mr. 72 Adler, "Chicago Auditorium," 423, wrote: "The boxes, forty in number, Fairbank and Mr. [Theodore] Thomas, had enabled them to show that are arranged in two tiers upon each side of the parquette. The lower tier forms adaptation to a multiplicity of uses could be attained in the construction and an arcade of semi-circulararches kith rather light treatment and but little effect equipment of an Auditorium without imperiling its utility or its beauty." of inclosure, while the upper boxes are entirely open. In fact, there is nothing Theodore Thomas was the nationally known orchestra leader who played at at all of the boxlike and stuffy effect produced by the conventional treatment of Chicago's May Music Festi~alsof 1882 and 1884. the open box." The lower boxes' arches framed their occupants on view, yet Sullivan, "Development of Construction," repr. in Twombly, ed., Sullivan: interfered with views outward. Publzc Papers, 215, recalled that in about 1885, "there was a movement started 73 The Auditorium's boxes were sold for a season. See "An Opera Box for by N. K. Fairbank for the building of a great opera house in this city, and we $2,100," Chicago Tribune (23 November 1889): 1. The Met's first patrons paid [Adler and Sullivan] made some sketches, but somehow the thing did not pull $17,000 to own a box permanently. through. It lagged along. No one took a special interest in it, that is, interest 74 Sulli~an,quoted in "The Pride of Chicago," Chicago Daib h'ms (Morning enough to put up the money." In Autobiography ofan Idea (p. 292), Sullivan later Edition, 9 December 1889). wrote that prior to 1885: "For several years there had been talk to the effect that 75 Adler, "The Theater," 22-23. Chicago needed a grand opera house; but the several schemes advanced were 7Vbid.,23. too aristocratic and exclusive to meet with general approval." Variations on 77 Adler, "Chicago Auditorium," 423, wrote: "This unusually great rise of Sullivan's account appear in local reports of the early 1880s, such as the main floor has also made practicable the arrangement of six entrances, "Wanted-An Opera House," Chicago Tribune (21January 1883):4. similar to the 'vomitoria' of the Roman amphitheatre, by which the lower half b3 Peck, in "New Grand Opera House," Chicago Tribune (12June 1886): 9. of the parquette seats are reached without rendering it necessary to climb to 64 Original stockholders and their amounts were listed in Recur& of the the upper level of the main floor." Schuyler, "Glimpses of Western Architec- Chicago Auditorium Association, originally Chicago Grand Auditmiurn Association, ture: Chicago (1891)," in American Architecture and Oth~rWritings, ed. William December 11, 1886 to November 7, 1906, 2 (Auditorium Collection, Roosevelt Jordy and Ralph Coe, 2 ~01s.(Cambridge, Mass., 1961), 1, 260, saw the University Archives). This w a limited liability corporation created for pub Auditorium's entrances as vomitoria. He wrote (p. 258): "A place of popular licly beneficial purposes under the laws of the State of Illinois. While not legally entertainment, constructed upon a scale and with a massiveness to which we a nonprofit corporation, the Auditorium Association paid its stockholders a can scarcely find a parallel since Roman days, would present one of the dividend only once, in 1893, the year of the Columbian Exposition, as noted in worthiest and most interesting problems a modern architect could have if he Recur&, 228. were left to solve it unhampered." "Waterman, Chicago and Cook County, 3, 924. As the Auditorium neared 7%dler advocated a larger number of narrower aisles in "Paramount completion, Peck wrote to its stockholders that "it is desired and expected that Requirements for a Large Opera House," 46, and "Theater Building for other citizens not now identified with the project will unite kith us, thus American Cities; Second Paper," 815. continuing the policy originally adopted of distributing the ownership widely '9 Adler, "Chicago Auditorium," 421. among our people" (Peck, Annual Report of the President to the stockholders "Gregersen, Dankmnr Adlm, 10, notes that the idea of seating rows not of the Chicago Auditorium Association, 1 December 1888. Auditorium Collec- haling curvatures centered on the source of sound followed from the theaters tion, Roosevelt University Archives). of Adler's early employer, the architect Ozia S. Kinney, who died in 1869. ""The Grand Auditorium," Chicago Tribune (10 December 1886): 1. On Adler worked on the plans of the Central Music Hall for perhaps three Peck's fundraising, see "Subscribers to the Grand Opera Hall," ibid. (26 years, adapting suggestions of its patron, theatrical manager Ceorge B. Carpen- September 1886):7; "The 'Grand Auditorium,' " ibid. (28 November 1886): 7; ter (1835-1881), who had visited theaters throughout the United States for and "A Magnificent Enterprise," ibid. (5 December 1886): 15. See also ideas on the design ("Real Estate," Chicago Tribune [2 March 18791: 6). See also Morrison, Louis Sullivan, 86, and Twombly, Louis Sullivan, 164-165. "The New Central Music Hall," American Architect and Building Naus 6 (8 "Peck, Annual Report of the President to the Stockholders of the Chicago November 1879): 8, and "The Music Hall," ibid. (5 December 1879): 6. Views Auditorium Association, 12 December 1891. Auditorium Collection, Roosevelt and seating plans appeared in a pamphlet, Central Music Hall (Chicago Histori- University Archives. cal Society). Later accounts are in Joseph Fort Newton, David Swing: Popt On these buildings, see n. 30. Prencher (Chicago, 1909),34-35; Morrison, Louis Sullivan, 66,286-289; Condit, "Peck stated that "it is the wish of the projectors that the Auditorium shall Chicago School, 31-32; Twombly, Louis Sullivan, 9899, 139-141; Grimsley, eventually come to be the great art center of America" ("The Pride of "Dankrnar Adler," 80-130; Gregersen, Dankmar Adlm, 47-49; Bluestone, Con- Chicago," Chicago Daily lYms [Morning Edition, 9 December 18891). Similar structing Chicago, 101; and Frei, Louis Sullivan, 50, 63. themes recurred in speeches at the theater's opening. See "Dedicated to Music Dean, World's Fair City, 71, wrote of Peck: "Although holding no decided and the People," Chicago Tribune (10 December 1889): 1-2. The Auditorium's views regarding religious belief, he may be seen with his family at Central Music national significance stemmed partly from its intended use for national politi- Hall nearly every Sunday, listening to the logical and symmetrical discourses of cal conventions, which began with the Republican Convention there in June Prof. David Swing." Among the many publications of this minister's words, a 1888. Later President Benjamin Harrison and \'ice President Levi P. Morton, comprehensive collection from the period of the Auditorium is David Swing, nominated at that convention, joined several state governors and Canadian Sermons (Chicago, 1884). officials at the theater's dedication. Peck wrote that the "Auditorium will be in a 82 Gregersen, DankmarAdlm, 11-19. On John Scott Russell's methods for the sense nationalized by the presence of distinguished men of the country" (Peck, banking of auditorium seating, see Izenour, TheatPrDesign, 71, and Appendix 3 Annual Report of the President to the Stockholders of the Chicago Auditorium (597-599), which is a republication of Scott Russell, "Elementary Consider- Association, 7 December 1889. Auditorium Collection, Roosevelt University ations of some Principles in the Construction of Buildings Designed to Accom- Archives). modate Spectators and Auditors," from Edinburgh ,lieu PhilosophicalJournal 27 'O Adler, "Chicago Auditorium," 415. Krehbiel, Chaptpn ofOpma, 91, cited a (1838).See also Forsyth, Buildings furMusic, 235-243. claim by John B. Schoeffel, a partner of Henry Abbey, the impresario who "Adler, "Paramount Requirements of a Large Opera House," 46.

156 JSAH / 57:2, JUNE 1998

'I2 Garczynski, Auditmium, 114. In a later interview, Sullivan said of Mler's Sullilan, Autobiography ofan Idea, 300. 12' On the chronology of the Auditorium's exterior design, see Gregersen, and his design for the synagogue. . for Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv, Chicago (1889-1890): "It is the nineteenth century school. . . . That is all I can say for it. "Chicago A~iditorium:A History," 18-24. See also Morrison, Louis Sullivan, It has no historical style. It is the present. U'e have got to get away from schools 86-89, and Twombly, Louis Sullivan, 164-170. in architecture. .is long as we adhere to schools of anything there is no On the Auditorium's siting and urban visibility, see Garczynski, Audit@ progress; nothing gained, no advancement. Look at the Auditorium. What rium, 41-49. school does that represent? None" ("Church Spires Must Go," Chicngo Tribune l2YAt their meeting of 7 May 1887, the Auditorium's directors, headed by [30 November 18901: 36). Peck, voted to change the upper walls to limestone (Records,71. Auditorium lL3Garczynski,Auditmium, 128. Collection, Roosevelt University Archives). Paul Mueller, "Testimony," in Kauf- ""Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea, 208-209, recalled that Lohenp'n had an mann, ed., "M'right's 'Lieber Meister,' " .Vine CommtaGs, 49, and Wright, impact on his appreciation of Wagner, whose portrait, along with Haydn's, Genius and the Moborra~y,48, both recalled that Sullivan's initial designs for the appears in gold relief in the arch spandrels of the organ screen to the stage's upper walls were in brick and an ornate terra-cotta, cladding structural iron left. See "Auditorium Supplement," Chzcago In& Ocean (11 December 1889). columns. Johannes Gelert (1852-1923) sculpted these reliefs and those of Shakespeare lm Adler, "Architects and Trade Unions," Inland Architect and IVRUSRecord27 and Demosthenes to the stage's right. (May 1886): 32. Adler's ideas on labor and politics also appeared in "Delibera- ""he illusionistic backdrop for the Auditorium's stage consisted of a tions of the Architects," Economist6 (21 November 1891):857-858; "Municipal continuous canvas roll on which were painted panoramas of the sky in different Building Laws," Inland Architect and NRUSRecord25 (May 1895): 36-37; "Open seasons and weathers. The backdrop, 300 feet long and 75 feet high, was Letter to Chicago Mason Builders," ibid. 29 (February 1897): 2-3; "The painted by the Kautsky Brothers of Vienna, whose system of hydraulic lifts was General Contractor from the Standpoint of the Architect," ibid. 33 (June adapted for the Auditorium's stage. See Adler, "Chicago .L\uditorium," 428-429, 1899): 38-39. On the building trades strike of 1887, see Industrial Chicago, 1: and Garczynski, Auditorium, 133-135. Sullivan's designs of foliate ornament to The Buzldinglntrrrsts, 556-581. frame naturalistic stage imagery recurred in his studies for the proscenium and 13' .\dler, quoted in "U'hy the Strike Must Fail," Chicago Tribune (17 June curtain of the Pueblo Opera House (1888-1890). See Lloyd C. Engelbrecht, 1887): 1. "Adler & Sullivan's Pueblo Opera House: City Status for a New Town in the '32 Ibid. Rockies," Art Bulletin 67 (June 1985): 287,290. I3Qdler, "Chicago Auditorium," 417. lI"Suivan, "Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium," in Twombly, 134Field's Wholesale Store was 325 feet long east-west on Adarns Street and ed., Sullivan: Public Papm, 75. its seven stories stood 130 feet high. The Auditorium's front on Congress Street 11' Ibid., 76. is 362 feet long east-west, while its ten-story block is about 144 feet high. Both The title that Sullivan originally selected for the poem "Inspiration" was thus had a ratio of frontal width to height of 2.5:l. John Van Osdel's Farwell "Growth and Decadence." See Twombly, Louis Sulliuan, 224-225. On Sullivan's Wholesale Block (1886), on the west side of South Market Street from Monroe presentation of "Inspiration," see "M'estern Association of .kchitects," Chicago to .\dams, was the other recent building of comparable size in central Chicago. Tribune (18 November 1886):6, and American Architect and B~ilding~leus20 (27 See Rand, McNally & Co., Bird's-Eye Views and Guide to Chicago, 105-106, and November 1886): 254. Analyses of the poem include Paul, Louis SuUiuan, Randall, Building Construction in Chicago, 112, 123. 36-40, and M'eingarden, "Louis H. Sulli~an:Investigation of a Second French I" "Death of Henry Field," Chicago Tribune (23 December 1890): 1; and Connection," JSAH39 (December 1980): 297-303. Robert W. Thyman, Histq ofManhall Field & Co., 1852-1906 (Philadelphia, 'l"ullivan, "Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium," in Twombly, 1954), 62. Henry Field was a director of the Auditorium from December 1886 ed., Sulliuan: Public Papm, 75. to his death (Records, 8, 175. Auditorium Collection, Roosevelt Vniversity Iz0 "Pride of Chicago," Chicago Daib L"ldws(Morning Edition, 9 December Archives). Field's M'holesale Store's sandstone was quarried near Springfield, 1889). Massachusetts, less than thirty miles from Marshall Field's birthplace near 121 Ibid. Conway. On the building, see James F. O'Gorman, "The Marshall Field ]"At their meeting of 28 August 1889, Peck and his colleagues resolved Wholesale Store: Materials Toward a Monograph," JYXH 37 (October 1978): "that the architects and the decorative contractor [Healy and Millet] proceed 175-194. Sullivan, Kindergarten Chat \'I:"An Oasis," Kindergartm Chats and with landscape paintings for the side arches in the Auditorium-the cost Othtr Writings, ed. Isabella Athey (New York, 1947), 30, described the Field thereof not to exceed two thousand dollars ($2,000). It being fully understood Store as a monument to Field, "to the strength and resource of individuality that if not satisfactory they are to be taken down at the expense of Healy and and force of character." Field's associate, Harry G. Selfridge, noted that the Millet. . . the landscapes to be subject to modification in the original designs firm's architecture "met the moral requirements of Mr. Field himself' as "a and subject to the approval of the Executive Committee" (Minutes of Execu- lasting monument to his character" (Harold I. Cleveland, "Fifty-Five Years in tive Committee of Chicago Auditorium Association, 141. Auditorium Collec- Business: The Life of Marshall Field-Chapter XI," System 11 [May 19071: 459). tion, Roosevelt University Archives). On 5 June, the Executive Committee had '" Adler, paraphrased in "The Western Association of .kchitects," Ammican "voted to authorize Architect Sullivan to have figures placed over the prosce- Architect and BuildingLVms20 (27 November 1886): 253. nium arch of the Auditorium, the cost thereof not to exceed $2,000, and the 13' O'Gorman, "Marshall Field U'holesale Store," 190. See also Jordy, Ameri- design subject to the approval of this committee" (Ibid., 111). On Fleury, see can Buildings and TheirArchitects,4,34-37. Francis E. Towme, "Albert Fleury, Painter," Brush and Pencil 12 (April-Septem- 13' Industrial Chicago, 1: The Buildinglntmests, 25. ber 1903): 201-208. On Healy and Millet, see David Hanks, "Louis J. Millet 13%arczynski, Auditmium, 54. and the Art Institute of Chicago," Bulktin of the ArtInstitute of Chicago 67 (1973): la On the ancient Latin usages of the word "auditorium," see Birgitta 13-19. On Sullivan's friendship 191th Millet and Fleury in Chicago, see Connely, Tamm, Auditorium and Palatium: A Study on AssemblyR0om.s in Roman Pahs Louis Sullivan, 206. On Fleury's murals, see Garczynski, Auditm'um, 130-132. during the 1st Centu~B.C. and the 1st Centu~A.D., Stockholm Studies in Classical Fleury also painted the twelve murals in oil, each showing a different American Archaeology 2 (Stockholm, 1963), 7-24. regional scene, in the Auditorium Hotel's Banqueting Room. He soon became 14' Editorial, "The Auditorium Opening," Chicago Ink-Ocean (9 December an instructor in mural painting at the Art Institute and completed a number of 1889):4. later such commissions. Fleury wrote of his approach to painting open-air '42 On Peck's involvement with the World's Columbian Exposition, see scenes in "Picturesque Chicago," B7ush a?zdPmcil6 (September 1900):273-281. Flinn, Hand-book ofChicago Bzography, 283, and Gilbert and Bryson, C/~icagoand Iz' Torme, "Albert Fleury," 204. Its Makers, 625. Peck's enthusiasm for its architecture appeared in his Report of "Pride of Chicago," Chicago Daih Akus (Morning Edition, 9 December the Commissioner-Gwral for the United States to the International UnivrrsalExposition, 1889). On Peck's affinity for spending time in Wisconsin's woodlands, see Pani, 1900,6 vols. (UBshington, D.C., 1901), 1,60. Dean, Wmld'sFair CiQ,69-70. 14' On the unit's local history and reputation, see Souvenir Ahm and 12' Sullivan, "Plastic and Color Decoration of the Auditorium," in Twombly, Sketchbook of Chirago'sFirst Rrgimmt (Chicago, 1890); Andreas, Histq of Chzcago, ed., Sullivan: Public Paprrs. 75-76. 3, 586-587; and John J. Flinn, Chzcago: The ~MnrvelousCiQ of the West, 2nd ed.

158 JSAH / 57:2, JUNE 1998 (Chicago, 18921, 387-389. MTorkersearlier referred to this regiment's men as I52 On the Athenaeum's headquarters from 1890, see Industrial Chicago, 1: "Manhall Field's boys" ("Our\'ampires." The Alarm [2 May 18851: 1).M'right, The Building Intvrests, 275; Flinn, Chicago: MaruelmLF CiQ of the West, 265; Rand, Autobiography (1932), 96, identified Adler and Sullivan's draftsman, MTilliam McNally & Co., Bird's-Eye Views and Guide to Chicago, 31-32, repr. in Randall, (Billy) Gaylord, as "a candidate for pugilistic honors in the First Regiment at Daielopwwnt ofBuilding Construction in Chicago, 253. See also ~VilleteenthAnnual 'the Armory,' " presumably meaning the regiment's earlier armory building at Report of th Chzcago Athenaeum 1889-'90 (Chicago Historical Society). The 24 Jackson Street, opened in 1878. On this struchlre, see Industrial Chicago, 1: Athenaeum's earlier building stood on the west side of Dearborn Street,just The Building Interests, 185. north of Adler and Sullivan's Borden Block on the northwest corner of "4 On the First Regiment's Armory, see Inland Architect and hrms Record 13 Randolph. On the Art Institute's original patronage from its organization in Uune 1889):90; "MTas Laid with Pomp," Chzcago Tribune (13July 1890): 1-2; 1879, see Andreas, Histq of Chicago, 3, 421, and Helen L. Horowitz, "The Art Julian Ralph, "The First Regiment Armory in Chicago," Harperk Weekly (3 Institute of Chicago: The First Forty Years," Chicago Histmy 8 (Spring 1979): December 1892): 1163; Donald Hoffmann, The Architecture ofjohn Wellbm Root 2-19. (New York, 1973), 139-144; and Robert Fogelson, Amm'ca's Armmies (Cam- Ij3 "Warming Its New Home," Chicago Tnbune (10 May 1891): 1. bridge, Mass., 1989),81,146-147,151,158-159,160-162. 134 The Reverend Edward I. Gal~lnto Ferdinand W Peck, 13 December 145 Flinn, Chicago: Maruelous CiQ, 389. 1889, in Auditorium, Dedication Volume (Newberry Library). On Galvin and 14b On Adler and Sullivan's "Trocadero Theater" inside the Fint Regiment's the Chicago Athenaeum, see Andreas, Histmy ofChzcago, 3,417. Armory, see Gregersen, Dnnkmr Adlm, 86-87. On Ziegfeld, the father of the I5j Adler, "Chicago Auditorium," 433. famous twentieth-century showman, see Flinn, Hand-book of Chicago Biography, Ij'jGarczynski,Audztunum 132. 395. On the Parisian Trocadkro Palace and Theater, see Rabreau et al., Gnbriel 15' Studies that revise views of the Chicago School by examining its architec- Dauioud, 89-102. tural patronage include Bluestone, Constructing Chfcago,and Berger, Thq Built 14' "Music for the People," Chicago Inter Ocean (3 May 1885): 6. Chzcago. 14* On the Chicago Citizens' Association, see Frederic C. Jaher, The Udan 15R Paul Bourget, Outre Mm (Paris, 1895), 1, 161-162, trans. in Schuyler, Establishment:Up* Strnta in Boston, hrmYolk, Charlestm, Chicago, and 1.0s Angeles Cntiqwofthe I.Vorks ofAdlm %Sulliuan, in American Architecture, 2,380. Bourget in (Urbana, 1982), 505. On the Chicago Citizens' Law and Order League, see this context was discussing the exteriors of Chicago's tall commercial buildings. hdreas, Histmy ofChicago, 3, 288-290. SeeJordy,Amen'mn Buildings and ThPirArchitects, 4,5243. Schuyler wrote: "The 14y Garczynski,Auditorium, 111. type of an opera-house, which the [Chicago] auditorium essentially is, is so well

'jOSee Corroyer, "Romanesque Architecture," Inland Architect and "&us settled and so universally accepted that the variations ordinarily attempted &cord 13 (March 1889): 39-40; (April 1889): 51-53; (May 1889):65-68; (June upon it, even by architects of original force, are comparatively slight. M'hile the 1889): 83-86; (July 1889): 95-96; 14 (August 1889): 3-6; (September 1889): component parts of the accepted type are retained in this interior, they are 18-19; (November 1889): 48-50; (December 1889): 73-76; Uanuary 1890): transmuted into an entirely new result." The theater, in "extending and 90-92; 15 (February 1890): 3-5; (March 1890): 31; (April 1890): 43-45; (May proclaiming a hospitality as nearly as may be equal and undistinguishing, 1890): 55-57. Another contemporary view of the relation of Roman to Rc- illustrates, as plainly as the exterior of manystoried buildings, and in contrast manesque appeared in Montgomery Schuyler, "The Romanesque Revival in with the 'royal' and 'imperial' opera houses, M. Bourget's conception of 'a new New York (1891)," in Ama'can Architecture, 1, 191-195. On Romanesque in kind of art, an art of democracy' " (Schuyler, Critique of the T.TJorks of Adlm & Chicago's architecture, see Industrial Chicago, 1: The Builrlzng Interests, 67-68, Sullivan, in American Architecture, 2, 384-385). and Henry Van Brunt, "John Wellborn Root," Inhnd Architect and ,%us Recmd 16 (January 1891):85-88. On Otis, see Henry F. and Elsie R. MTithey,Bzographi- cal Dictionary of Amencan Architects (1956; Los hgeles, 1970), 450, and Art I11ustmtion Credits Institute of Chicago, Chicago Architects Design (New York, 1982), 44. Figures 1,10, 13, 16, 17,20. Courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago 13' "The President's Party," ChicagoEumingJournal(9December 1889): 2. A Figures 5, 14. Library of Congress rendering of Peck's house *as published in Inland Architect and ,Vms &cord 10 Figure 6. Museum of the City of NewYork (October 1887). Peck and Jenney were both members of the Union League Figure 7. Deutsches Theatermuseum, Munich Club, whose building of 1886Jenney designed. See Charles B. Jenkins, "M7.L. B. Figures 8,9, 18,22.Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society Jenney and Mr.B. Mundie," Architectural RpVim 1 (February 1897): 2-9, and Figure 23. Courtesy of hlinariScala/Art Resources International, New York Grant, Fight fora CiQ,81-95. City

SIRY: CHICAGO'S AUDITORIUM BUILDING 159