Charles Atwood's Reliance Building

Burnham and his partner John Root were Chicago’s leading architects. Daniel Burnham had experience in designing buildings that had never been attempted. Despite the soil conditions, Burnham and Root built the very first skyscraper, The Montauk. Burnham had extraordinary managerial and organizational skills. Burnham and Root together were able to build their firm to be one of the best in Chicago. They continued to do many challenging projects such as the Rookery and the Monadnock. Daniel Burnham handled many difficult times before he made a positive name for himself. Burnham was also very good to all his employees, “He installed a gym. During lunch hour employees played handball. Burnham gave fencing lessons. Root played impromptu recitals on a rented piano,” (Larson 2003, 27). In 1885, a fire had destroyed the Grannis Block that was Burnham and Root’s flagship structure. In 1888, “a hotel they had designed in Kansas City collapsed during construction, injuring several men and killing one” (Larson 2003, 29). With all the verbal attacks on Burnham’s career over both of the incidences, he remained very calm, but he was still very heartbroken.

“Frank Lloyd Wright was a modern architect who developed an organic and distinctly American style. He designed numerous iconic buildings” (biography.com). Frank Lloyd Wright was instrumental in developing the “Prairie Style” of architecture. In 1893, when Frank Lloyd Wright founded his architectural practice in Oak Park, a village in Chicago, he had no idea that his Oak Park Studio

Geoffrey Wright, an El Paso architect, describes Henry Trost’s grand design of El Paso High School incorrectly as a “renaissance revival” in a 1991 article in the Austin American-Statesman. Although he was mistaken in this observation, he made another observation that was correct, which is that the eastern façade of El Paso High School’s six humongous columns, on top of it’s bases and adorned with acanthus leaves, is most definitely a design of the Classical Revival style. He also went on to state, “[T]he style adopted the best parts of Greek and Italian architecture centuries later.”

Another significant building of C. W. Dickey is the Alexander and Baldwin Building built in 1929. The Alexander and Baldwin Building is a four story building with steel frame with concrete casting, very much like its contemporary concrete-cast architecture in Chicago. However, what makes it Hawaiian is its overhanging Dickey Roof. In addition, this building is significant in its blend of Oriental ornament with Western design, reflecting upon the historical relevance of Hawaii.

Without a doubt, Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the greatest architects in American history and the greatest architect of the 20th century. Nature was his muse and his architectural structures embodied organic qualities. He took full advantage of the technological advances of the 20th century but redirecting the concept of space and employing new techniques; Wright was known for his modern and innovative designs. He believed that, “architecture was not just about buildings, it was about nourishing the lives of those sheltered within them”. Wright is not only one of the most well known architects in America but he is also thought of as one of the most influential architects in the world.

Frank Wright (1867-1959), is an American architect born on June 8th in Richland Center, Wisconsin (Biography.com n.d.). A modern design, he produced an organic and clear American style (Architectural Digest n.d.). Wright founded his own firm and developed the Prairie School- single-story homes with low, slanted roofs and extended rows on the windowpane, using the available materials from local business and clean and not painted wood (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica 2017). The Robie House (Figure 1) located in Chicago and Unity Temple placed in Oak Park (Biography.com n.d.). Wright was known mainly in Europe but not in the United States. In 1913, Wright designed his home on his maternal ancestors land in Spring Green, Wisconsin (Architectural Digest n.d.). This home was named Taliesin, sadly it got burnt down twice and he still remodeled it again (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica 2017). Wright wrote two books in 1932: “An Autobiography” and “The Disappearing City,” both are known as architectural literature (Biography.com n.d.). In addition, to publishing the two books, he

Influenced by his readings of ancient and modern architectural writings, Jefferson gleaned the best from both his readings and from his observations in Europe, creating his own personal style of architecture, a mix of Neoclassicism’s Roman temples, and Palladian villa. Partly, because of Jefferson’s influence, our federal buildings set an American precedent for the neoclassical style. Jefferson’s admiration for neoclassical style went so far as to design

A lot has happened in architecture since Louis Kahn death in 1974, some of it are really good, some are dreadful and we have different preferences about which is which. However, Kahn’s work look better than ever on its own terms. Better in its solidity and gravity. He was an architect of beautiful contradictions and one of the few to create architectural elements out of scale with the human figure. His buildings are very elegantly designed but are constructed of basic, often crude materials. Consisting of

style by Daniel Burnham. The reason why it was called Dime building was because it was built

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP David M. Childs, FAIA Design Partner T.J. Gottesdiener, FAIA Managing Partner Carl Galioto, FAIA Technical Partner Kenneth A. Lewis, RA Project Manager Jeffrey D. Holmes, AIA Senior Designer Reiner Bagnato, AIA Senior Technical Architect

The Fuller “Flatiron” building was designed by Chicago’s prominent architecture firm Daniel H. Burnham and Company ¬– lead by Daniel H. Burnham. Located in the 22nd and 23rd street of Broadway, Fifth Avenue, New York, the building was originally built to serve as offices for a major Chicago contracting firm, the George A. Fuller Company, hence its initial name. As the building finished construction in 1902, the detailed beaux-arts style skyscraper is immortalised through its unique relationship to its urban context then and now, and memorable photography by Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz – making the Fuller “Flatiron” building a famous landmark in the intersecting streets of New York City to this very day.

In 1887, Wright worked with Louis Sullivan in Chicago, a well-known architect of the time who also wanted to separate from European style, until 1893. After Wright had stopped working with Sullivan’s firm, he made what is considered his first masterpiece, his home in Oak Park, Illinois known as the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio. This structure was also his first work designed with his “Prairie” style. This style involved single-story homes with many horizontal lines, spacious living areas, and many casement windows. They were built with nearby materials and the wood used was not painted, expressing natural beauty. Wright later designed many more of his works in this styles, such as the Robie House and Unity Temple. In later years, he designed more well-known buildings, such as Taliesin, his home in Wisconsin, and Fallingwater, a building built on a waterfall in Pennsylvania. Later, he built public buildings, for instance, the Monona Terrace Civic Center, the SC Johnson Wax Administration, and the Guggenheim Museum. Wright also designed Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel in 1915, which he stated was “earthquake-proof” and, later, ended up being the only building involved in the 1923 Japanese earthquake to remain unscathed. Wright had also designed Usonian houses, which were the predecessors of today’s ranch-style homes. These homes had natural heating and cooling, and included carports, which were invented by Wright. All in all, Wright designed more than 1,100 structures. Frank Lloyd Wright died on April 9th, 1959, at age 91.

The second is the Yale's Art and Architecture Building, designed in 1958 by architect Paul Rudolph. This building was an exploration of scale and space, bringing the urban and site context to the forefront of the architect. Using light and dynamic texturing of the facades to deliver a building that may have been before its time.

Today technology allows us to construct structures that we would never have been able to make in the past. Some of the creations are impressive based on what they accomplish but others are masterpieces in themselves. Man’s capability to build such tall buildings, as the skyscrapers we are familiar with covering our cities today, is a major expression of the advancements we have made as a culture. The power necessary to build such tall structures inspired competition between architects to see who could build the tallest one. One skyscraper that has inspired many and served as a model, for high rise buildings that were created after, is the Chrysler Building. The Chrysler Building serves as an identifying mark to anyone that

When I read the book Seven Lamps of Architecture, John Ruskin opened my mind to the idea that a “building does not become architecture merely by the stability of what it erects”. Architecture is more than just a mere building. “Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.” (John Ruskin) Even though all architectures is buildings not all buildings are architectural.