Looking Up: The People's Gas Building.

So is everyone looking up? Seriously, one of the hardest habits I had to break before really studying architecture was to actually look up. I know how it is, you’re staring at the ground looking for cash someone dropped, but trust me, you will gain more knowledge by actually just…looking up.

Okay, I want to piggyback on my last post about The Art Institute and its Beaux Arts design. Remember how I said Daniel Burnham designed the Columbian Exposition in the Beaux Arts style, and how some of the Chicago architects were pissed because Burnham was taking the easy way out? ‘Member?

Well Burnham was a business man; he was gregarious and outgoing and would happily change something on the design of his buildings if you wanted him to. He was a forward thinker, but when it came to his designs, he usually played it safe. While Louis Sullivan was designing a brand new kind of building (the skyscraper), Burnham was doing the same thing, but building these distinctively American buildings (seriously, the skyscraper is truly one of the only American art forms) in the same way he had built the worlds fair, Beaux Arts style.



Check out this building, the People’s Gas Building at the corner of Adams and Michigan. Designed in 1910, this is one of the later buildings in Burnham’s career, but look closely at his beautiful (and HUMONGOUS) skyscraper, and you will see a visual representation of Burnham’s fear. He built a skyscraper holding on for dear life to the Beaux Arts aesthetic.

We all know the People’s Gas building, probably passed by it a million times, it holds the worlds busiest Bennigans, and unfortunately, that’s about as far as most people’s knowledge goes. But next time you’re out, take a look at this amazing building and notice a few things.

First, Burnham manages to cling to his forever love, the Greek Column. In fact, he lines his buildings entrance with them, 26 feet high and 30 tons of ‘em. Also notice Burnham uses them again at the top or “cornice” of the building; he sure does love his columns. Burnham also adds some lovely animals, lions separate light globes above the columns which we know from our Art Institute lions is a very Beauxy step.

The People’s Gas Building is a really great building to watch Burnham’s style. He took the “newfangled” skyscraper and made it look as classic as possible. We end up with one of the most beautiful and opulent skyscrapers on the Michigan Avenue Cliff, but we know too, that the beauty came from what Burnham already knew how to build, not any kind of real innovation, that, he left to his partners. More on that next week.