#Floating foundation chicago skyscraper series
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John RootвЂ™s building, completed in 1892, was itself a variation on the Romanesque revival then current, with a grand archway entrance on State Street and arched windows at the 2nd and 16th floors. JohnsonвЂ™s enthusiasm for the Masonic is apparent in his firmвЂ™s design for 190 South LaSalle. His Masonic Temple was a much better building.вЂќ вЂњRoot wasnвЂ™t feeling very well when he did that one. вЂњWeвЂ™re very proud that our building will be better than the Rookery,вЂќ said Johnson. In December 1984, when he unveiled his plans for the 190 South LaSalle building, architect Philip Johnson, the 81-year-old dean of postmodernism, called attention to the structure kitty-corner from his own, a hallowed Chicago landmark, Burnham & RootвЂ™s Rookery. Nearly 50 years after its demolition, the Masonic Temple seems to have been reborn. But true giants die hard, as the new building at the northwest corner of LaSalle and Adams will attest. Brick by brick, it was demolished from the top down, relegated to ChicagoвЂ™s sizable scrap heap of architectural gems. And when the rube said he liked the building but not the direction it faced, they said for five dollars more theyвЂ™d turn it around.вЂќД«y 1939, however, the luster had worn off and the Masonic Temple was regarded as just another obsolescent and costly giant. вЂњWhatвЂ™s the charges against these men?вЂќ asked the judge, to which the arresting officer would reply, вЂњThey took money off a rube, your honor, told him they were selling him the Masonic Temple. Vaudeville comics told the storyвЂ“and Smith went so far as to claim it was an actual вЂњcolloquyвЂќ frequently overheard in ChicagoвЂ™s turn-of-the-century courtroomsвЂ“of a cop approaching the bench with several con men in tow. Everything about the building made the city burst with pride, and gave country visitors kinks in their necks.вЂќ In fact, the building achieved a notoriety generally reserved for the Brooklyn Bridge and other вЂњmarketableвЂќ real estate. It was, according to Henry Justin Smith, a managing editor for the old Chicago Daily News, вЂњa wonder of wonders. I had to try that out, and Uncle Henry took me to the Masonic Temple.вЂќДЇrom the mosaic floor of its marble lobby to gabled roofs and glass-domed gardens, the Masonic Temple at the northeast corner of State and Randolph stood 302 feet tall. Of his first day in Chicago he remembers that he especially wanted to visit вЂњthe tallest building in the world, from the top of which, according to an old Polonius in Lewistown, one could see Council Bluffs, Iowa. He publishes one remarkable book of poetry. Masters spends eight of them as a law partner of Clarence Darrow. Michigan Ave., he asks to be shown the sights. His enthusiasm for urban life, however, is unabated, and after breakfast at his uncleвЂ™s rooming house at 2128 S. His starched collar has wilted, and his white vest is covered in cinders. When he steps off the train, Masters is hungry and tired. He comes upon Chicago at dawn, and though he does not know it, the first thing he sees of the city is its red-light district. The train carries him northward, away from his home in Lewistown, and Masters sits awake by the window watching for the exact spot where prairie gives way to city. He is 22 and one year a member of the Illinois bar, but heвЂ™d rather be a poet than an attorney. On a warm evening in the summer of 1892, Edgar Lee Masters boards the night train for Chicago. вЂ“Louis Sullivan, from The Autobiography of an Idea was pushing its structures higher and higher, until the Masonic Temple by John Root had raised its head far into the air, and the word вЂњskyscraperвЂќ came into use. Thus the Land was stirring and quivering in impulses, wave upon wave.

#Floating foundation chicago skyscraper series

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