Supreme Reprieve
[Auditorium Building (1889) Adler & Sullivan, architects /Images & Artwork: designslinger ]
It stands proudly as one of brightest stars in Chicago's architectural firmament. For
scholars and laymen alike, the Auditorium Building represents the team of Adler & Sullivan at their best, and is heralded as a masterpiece.
[Auditorium Building, Michigan Avenue at Congress Parkway, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
Chicago had never seen anything like it. By the time the building was finished in 1889
with its 350 room hotel, commercial office space and one of the most beautifully decorated and detailed auditoriums ever constructed, the multi-million dollar investment was already on its way to becoming an anachronism. Unfortunately the massive structure was never the financial success that its shareholders had dreamed it would be, and from almost the day of its dedication the hotel portion of the ground breaking multi-use building was already considered obsolete. For one thing, it didn't include private baths which would be all the rage by the mid-1890s in an upscale hostelry, and because of the amount of space eaten-up by the theater, there weren't enough hotel rooms to help pay the mortgage and there weren't enough offices to rent to help float the note.
[Auditorium Building /Images & Artwork: designslinger ]
As early as 1910 the Chicago Auditorium Association, the consortium that owned the
structure, began exploring the idea the possibility of demolishing the theater to make room for more hotel rooms and even turned to Louis Sullivan for ideas. A concept arose in the late 1920s which called for the demolition of the entire building and replacing it with a new modern high-rise. But the Association didn't own the land on which their building sat, and with a lease that ran until 2085, (yes you read that correctly, the year 2085) the trusts and hereditary estates that owned the land had the right to say no to the demo.
Inevitably there were law suits a-flying and the case ended up before the U.S. Supreme
Court in 1931, who ruled in favor of the property owners, and the building got its first reprieve. The Association went bankrupt, the property owners took possession, and came up with their own plan to demolish the structure. But they soon found out that the building would cost more to demolish than the land was worth, and Sullivan's design got another reprieve.
[Auditorium Building/Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
The Auditorium Building and its acoustically perfect theater finally closed its doors for
good in 1941. Ironically not because of sad state of things but because of a loss of power, not political, but heat and electrical. In 1893 the original Association built another hotel across the street called the Annex, and in 1898 a state-of-the art power plant was constructed at the southern end of the Annex building. That power source was connected the the Auditorium via a tunnel and once the old boilers were removed the basement was freed-up for more storage, and potentially, space to lease for some much needed rental income. By 1941, the folks who owned the Annex did not own the Auditorium and cut-off the power supply because of long overdue bills. With no heat and electricity, the old building had no choice but to close-up shop.
In 1942 the City of Chicago took over and turned a portion of the hotel into a temporary
housing and service center for the military, and the theater into a bowling alley for the soldiers staying there. When the war ended it looked like things were really over for the Auditorium, but a very active and dedicated group of citizens worked hard at trying to preserve the theater and therefore the building. In 1946, the new, one-year-old Roosevelt College bought the building along with the leaseholds and for the first time in its history the building and property owner were the same. And so the building stands. The theater has been glisteningly renovated and restored, and the University continues to do restoration work as funds become available.
There's one more story to tell. It's about a street, a sidewalk and this building in the way.
But that's for tomorrow in Arcaded Away.
Posted by designslinger at 10/18/2010 1:58 AM 
Categories: Architecture, History, Preservation
Tags: Auditorium Building adaptive reuse multi use building Adler and Sullivan hotels theaters commercial architecture
Categories: Architecture, History, Preservation
Tags: Auditorium Building adaptive reuse multi use building Adler and Sullivan hotels theaters commercial architecture
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