Looking Up: One Last Look at Carson Pirie Scott.

So we’re going to do one more post on Carson’s and then we’re going to move on. This column was supposed to be a building a week – I realize this – it’s just that this building in particular is such a beautiful example of everything that was going on in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s; the tripartite divisions, the wish to have a “local” look to our buildings, the idea of a tall building actually realizing its verticality. All of this is due to Mr. Sullivan.

So just a few final things … the building actually had an addition put on in 1905. And frighteningly enough, Burnham was the man chosen to do the addition. I can’t imagine what Louis must have thought about this addition being put on to his building. We know he was quite passionate about what he built and possessive as well, and we have an inkling about his feelings towards Burnham, which were not favorable.

You can see on the building where the addition is. Burnham kept with the uniform look of the building but he did not exactly keep to the details outlined by Sullivan. If you’re standing on the State Street side of the building, look at the inside of the windows on the northern half of the building. You’ll see there that Sullivan added some decoration on the inside of window frame. Now look to the south and you will see that Burnham did not keep up with this detail. I don’t know why, but maybe it’s because Burnham either 1. Didn’t care about detail or 2. Just wanted to frost the hides or architecture buffs to come.

There’s one more thing about Carson’s that is so cool, and unfortunately now will be hard to see, but hopefully not for long.

If you walk into the lobby of Carson’s, not all the way inside the actual store, but just inside the doors (see if you can peek in when you’re walking by next) and notice the inside. It’s all deep colored brown with two huge columns that look like trees with flowers on the top. The cast iron from the outside of the building kind of hangs over the windows, and on a nice sunny day the sun shines through it and makes it seem like you’re standing a sun dappled forest. It’s just more of Sullivan trying to bring a nature aesthetic to our busy urban lives.

The inside of the store is not much to see, more columns with lots of flowering on top, but for Sullivan, the beauty was intended for the outside of his building, the inside was to be used for actual retailing.

Next week we’ll see how Burnham did his department store.

And then, I promise, we will move on from Burnham and Sullivan, but it’s important to see where these two men stood in relation to each other, to see how buildings progressed past them.