Looking Up: The Triparte Division.

Okay , now is when this stuff starts to get really interesting.

Last week we talked about why Chicago was really the first to start building skyscrapers, and we’ve touched a little on why Burnham made Louis Sullivan so frackin’ mad. While Burnham relied on his go-to Grecian style, Sullivan wanted to build something...organic, something new, something no one had ever done before. (That last sentence, by the by, is a direct quote from Eddie and the Cruisers. I know Sullivan would approve).

Sullivan was very influenced by nature. He wanted to bring the beauty of nature back to the dark, black, dirty city of Chicago. He believed a building should grow much like a tree does. And like an acorn, he believed a building was going to be what it was before he even started. Confusing? A bit. But lets start with an example, the Carson Pirie Scott Building finished in 1898 (right).

Sullivan designed his buildings in three parts, officially called a “tripartite division”. Sullivan’s skyscrapers had a base (or roots) usually with big windows for retail stores, the shaft, or “trunk” of the building where the design remained the same, and the cornice, or the “flowering” on the top. The cornice is the top of the building, the part of the roof that usually overhangs the building.

Once Sullivan applied this type of design to his skyscrapers, other architects did the same thing. Most of Chicago’s historic skyscrapers (including Mr. Burnham’s, I mean come on, wha...he’s NOT going to do what everyone else is doing?) are designed in a tripartite division.

Check out this building, the aptly named Chicago Building at 7 W. Madison designed by Holabird and Roche in 1904 (left). You can clearly see the three divisions in the building. Also, the Chicago Building is one of the only buildings with the original cornice in tact.

Or lets go back to the Marquette building, also by Holabird and Roche….

Or lets even go back to the People’s Gas Building…even Burnham’s building has this tripartite division.
The tripartite division is one the hallmarks of the “Chicago School” of architecture. We’ll learn more attributes as we go on, but this one is essential.

Alas, I cannot even begin to explain the beauty of Carson’s in one entry, so we’ll come back to Carson’s next week to examine Sullivan’s philosophy of “Form Follows Function”.