Mutually Insured
When you look at these pictures of the former Mutual Insurance Building, imagine the top
four stories removed and you'd know what the structure actually looked like when it was built in 1921.
Originally designed by the architectural duo of Fugard & Knapp, the additional four floors
came from the pencil of Leo Steif in 1926 when the Lumbermen's Mutual Casualty Company took up tenancy. Eventually the insurance firm occupied the entire building which grew into the Kemper Insurance Group, headed by Mutual's president James S. Kemper, and became the national headquarters of the growing insurance conglomerate.
The exquisite terra cotta details designed by Fugard, and continued up the facade by Steif,
have survived - surprisingly - virtually intact. Given that Kemper left the property in 1971 when they donated the building to the Chicago Ecumenical Institute, the exterior has held up fairly well during the past few decades. It currently houses the offices of the ICA-USA, an offshoot of the Institute, and a slew of non-profit, social service agencies. Kemper was gobbled up by a company called Unitrin in 2003.
And despite all the changes in and around the building, it still shines at the corner of
Lawrence and Sheridan.
Posted by designslinger at 2/8/2010 1:11 AM 
Categories: Architecture, Preservation, History, Decorative Arts
Tags: terra-cotta Mutual Insurance Building Kemper Insurance Group Fugard and Knapp Sheridan Road Chicago
Categories: Architecture, Preservation, History, Decorative Arts
Tags: terra-cotta Mutual Insurance Building Kemper Insurance Group Fugard and Knapp Sheridan Road Chicago
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