Vol 16 No 6 Lincoln Building
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PRESERVATIONAND CONSERVATIONASSOCIATION Volume 16 November-December, 1996 Number 6 Focus on: Lincoln Building Located at the southwest comer of East Main and Market streets in downtown Champaign, the Lincoln Building was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places for Architecture as a local- ly significant example of the Commercial Style. With its tripartite division of base, shaft, and capital; fixed storefront sash and second story display sash, each with transoms; and regularly spaced double- hung upper story windows, the Lincoln Building represents a state-of-the-art store/ office building for early twentieth century Champaign. Five stories tall and fireproof in construction, the mottled brown brick building with Oassical North and east elevations of the Lincoln Building, 44 East Main Street, Champaign. (Alice Revival inspired brown terra cotta trim Novak, 1996) and a copper cornice includes fine materials and solid construction, an ap- the style of these evolving late nineteenth Characteristics of the Commercial Style propriately handsome building built by and turn of the century buildings may be include a building height of five to six- one of Champaign's most prominent open to debate, but typically, some teen stories; steel skeleton construction families. The interior of the Linmln Build- variety of these buildings get lumped into with masonry wall surfaces; minimal, if ing features an extensive use of marble, the term "Commercial Style." Marcus any, projections from the facade plane; terrazzo, and wood trim in its office cor- Whiffen credits the first use of the term in flat roofs; level parapets or mrnices; 1/1 ridors of intact suites with single light print to an anonymous editor of four double-hung sash; prismatic transoms; doors and three-light interior corridor volumes of IndustriJlIChicago,published and minimal applied ornament. By far, transoms. Today, the building's architec- in 1891. Cites Whiffen, the greatest element of the style is win- ture and impressive high degree of in- The CommercialStyle is.thetitle suggested dows, mmprising much of Commercial tegrity contribute to this building's mn- by thegreat officeand mercantilebuildings Style buildings' main facades. The result tinu~ landmark presence in downtown nowfound here. The requirements ofcom- of the total area of glass exceeding that of Champaign. The period of significance is merceand the business principles of reales- the brick (or other structural or facing 1916, representing the building's date of tate owners calledthis style into life. Light, material) is a skeletal appearance. H any completion. The building was designed space,air and strength were demandedby ornamentation is used on the building, it by prominent local architect HR Temple, such requirements and principles as thefirst is clearly ancillary to the fenestration. who had an office in the Lincoln Building objectsand exterior ornamentation as the Wmdows of this style are rectangular, upon its opening. second. very large, and variously divided; the The second principle of the aforemen- fenestration pattern, whether of single or Commercial Style tioned-exterior ornamentation-opens grouped windows, is quite regular. One companion stylistic comparisons: Rich- popular form of grouped window used Technical advances such as steel skeleton ardsonian Romanesque, Sullivanesque, in the Commercial Style became known construction, elevators, electric lights, and and even Classical Revival. The term as the Chicago window-a broad central telephones contributed to the innovation "Chicago Style" also mmes into con- 'fixed sash flanked by narrow double- of the "skyscraper," which, at the turn of sideration. Whiffen notes the tendency hung sash. In still other examples, win- the century, was any building five stories toward crediting Chicago as the birth- dows are located in semi-hexagonal bays or taller. With the steel skeleton support- place of the Commercial Style, as well as which extend the entire height of the ing the building, walls were new territory the city in which the style reached its ul- building (above the first or second for design changes, chiefly in a greatly in- timate development. He credits the stories). Typically, facades are terminated creased percentage of wall space oc- period of the Commercial Style from 1875 in mrnices, varying from plain to highly cupied by windows. What, exactly, to call through 1915. demrative treatments. Built in 1915-16, the Lincoln Building in on the Lincoln Building is not surprising. Harry Roberts Temple was a 1900 Champaign is a relatively late example of The Oassical Revival style was especially graduate of the architecture program at the Commercial Style. By the 188Os,the popular for public buildings from the the University of Illinois at Urbana-cham~ style was already popular in New York, turn of the century to the mid-twentieth paign. Nelson Strong Spencer, a native of Chicago, and other large Eastern and century, havirig gained prominence Dixon, lllinois, was an 1882 graduate of Midwestern cities. Despite William Le- through its use at the 1893 World's the same program. Spencer Was an in- Baron Jenney's early examples of build- Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the structor in the Department of Architec- ings in the style (First Leiter Building, 1901 Pan-American Exhibition in San ture from 1880-83; from 1898-1902,he 1879 and the Home Insurance Building, Francisco. The exposition planners of the was Superintendent of Buildings and 1884-85, both in Chicago), some of the Chicago fair mandated a classical theme, Grounds at the University. (Spencer more notable Commercial Style buildings with many of the eta's noted architects would appear to have been a good ac- of the style's earliest period were designing dramatic colonnaded buildings quaintance of Professor Nathan Oifford designed by Adler and Sullivan. Included arranged around a central court. The Ricker, as Spencer's first child was named are the Troescher Building (the Chicago widely attended exposition inspired ar- Clifford Ricker Spencer.) The Spencer and Joint Board Building), 1884; the Wirt Dex- chitectural fashion around the country. Temple partnership lasted from 1908 to ter Building, 1887; and, at the end of that Located approximately 120 miles south 1914, according to city directories. The period, the Wainwright Building in St. of Chicago, Champaign-Urbana could firm's office was first at 55 North Neil Louis, designed in 1890, and exhibiting hardly be considered an architectural Street, then later moved to 72-1/2 North the Sullivanesque treatment. mecca, but the architectural trends which Neil Street, downtown Champaign loca- In the 1890s, the Chicago basedar- had inspired the nation were seen here as tions. Among the numerous local designs chitectural firm of Holabird and Roche be- well. The second story display windows by the Spencer and Temple firm are the came the most'successful firm specializ- of the Lincoln Building are not on any First Baptist Church, 1899, Champaign; ing in commercial work in the city. Their other puildings in Champaign-Urbana. the Masonic Temple, 1912, Urbana; and Tacoma Building, 1887-89 represented This element is at least reminiscent of (if the Mahomet Graded School, 1904. their first attempt at the Commercial not directly inspired by) the Adler and Temple worked with James White, the Style; demolished in 1929, that building Sullivan designed Guaranty (Prudential) University of lllinois's architect, on the was in the vertical bay mode of the style. Building in Buffalo, New York, 1895, and design of the University/s Agriculture En- Later examples of the firm's use of the the CarSon, Pirie, Scott and Company gineering Building at 1208 West Peabody. style, including the Marquette Building of Store, Chieago, 1899. The idea oEbase, The Lincoln Building represents one of, if 1893, discontinued that mode, uSing in- shaft, and capital tripartite vertical not the first, designs by Temple on his stead, broad rectangular windows extend- divisions of the building was a popular own. Spencer left for Chicago where he ing the full width of structural bays. Con- trend attributed to Sullivan. While some- had an office on Van Buren Street. Temple temporaneously, Sullivan was employing timE!sarchitectural stylistic categories resided at 909 West Church Street in facades with piers and spandrels in the may be subjective, few, if any, Cham- Champaign, a stucco, English Revival same plane, with long horizontal lines at paign-Urbana buildings would be clas- house; whether he designed the house is the siIllevels being unbroken. Examples sified as Commercial Style. not known. He eventually left Cham- are the Meyer Building, 1893, and the Car- Champaign-Urbana's architectural paign for the Quad Cities. Temple died in son, Pirie, Scott and Company Store, preferences favored the Oassical Revival Italy in 1923. 1899, both in Chicago. style or at least classical architectural ele- The building resume of the Lincoln The Lincoln Building in Champaign ments. The Inman Hotel, the First Nation- Building's contractors-the English fits well within the defining elements of al Bank Building, and the Masonic Brothers-reads as a "Who's Who" of sig- the Commercial Style. Five stories in Temple, all within a few blocks of each nificant buildings in Champaign and Ur- height, the Lincoln Building is con- other, are Classical Revival in influence or bana, and particularly at the University structed of structural steel encased in style, although varying considerably in of lllinois campus. In addition to the lin- fireproof material with the exterior waIls degree of detail. The style was also ap- coln Building, among the credits of the clad in mottled brown brick with brown parently favored by HR. Temple, as, in English Brothers are the Auditorium terra cotta trim. The facades are flat with addition to the Lincoln Building, Temple Building, LincoJ,nHall, the Ceramics the exception of a light well on the east. (then with Spencer and Temple) designed Building, the Administration Building, The full entablature is nearly flat or level, the Inma~ Hotel and the Masonic Temple the Wesley Foundation, the Stadium, the with the exception of shields which in Urbana.