designslinger

Friday Snippets 9.3.10

designslinger — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 07:30:00 GMT

[North Market Hall, Criminal Court Building (1892) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

Frank's blocks. [LA Times]

Old Faithful. [NY Times]

Smog eaters. [Architect's Newspaper]

Handiwork. [Design Observer]

Underground art. [Art Newspaper]

Pots, figurines and sacred vessels. [Art Daily]

16.7 million frames of color. [Rhizome]

Infoscaping blades. [NY Times]

Monday is Labor Day. A national holiday providing many a worker with a three day
weekend of freedom from the workplace. We're joining in the celebration, so see you Tuesday.

Federally Funded

designslinger — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:35:00 GMT

[Chicago Federal Center (1959-1974) Mies van der Rohe; C.F. Murphy; Schmidt, Garden & Erikson; A. Epstein & Sons;
associates /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

It's 1955, and the U.S. economy is booming. After the Second World War, with Europe in
ruins, it was this country's turn in history's drivers seat. The American middle class became the largest economic engine the world had ever seen, and the federal government under President Dwight D.(Ike) Eisenhower, flush with cash, spent billions of dollars on the nation's infrastructure. Under Ike, we got our Interstate roadway system and a commitment by the federal government to modernize their institutional buildings around the country, which is how Chicago got its Federal Center, a group of buildings that were at the cutting-edge of contemporary design.

[Kluczynski Federal Building; Flamingo, Alexander Calder /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

Led by architect Mies van der Rohe's 1959 plan, an association of architects and
contractors built the three building federal complex over a period of years extending from 1962 to 1974. The Kluczynski Federal Office Building and the U.S Post Office Loop Station replaced the old Beaux Arts courthouse designed by Henry Ives Cobb in 1898. While many in Chicago's emerging preservation movement were against demolishing the old courthouse, federal employees were happy to see the antiquated building go. And in 1974 when Alexander Calder unveiled his Flamingo in Federal Plaza, the design was complete.

[U.S. Post Office, Loop Station (1973) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

The post office is one of my favs. Mies' wide-open, rectangular frame, freed of internal
structural support and its walls of glass, was one more momentous step toward exploding the confining walls of the architectural box. I find it a real charmer. And this 3 building group, along with its Calder stabile, are a testament government's embrace of, and monetary commitment to, excellence in design.

designslinger: Word of the Week

designslinger — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:31:00 GMT

[brownstone (1895, 1875) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

brownstone [BROUN-stohn] n. a reddish-brown sandstone, used extensively as a building
material, primarily in the eastern United States, from the middle of the 19th century to the early 20th century.

[brownstone (ca.1893, 1875) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

A dwelling faced with brownstone, often a rowhouse.

Last Row Standing

designslinger — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:30:00 GMT

[1029 N. Dearborn Parkway (1875) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

The streets of New York are lined with brownstones, in Chicago, well you can find the soft
sandstone material covering a building facade here and there.

[1023-29 N. Dearborn Parkway (1875) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

That's what appeals to me about this little group of 3 houses barely hanging on but
somehow surviving, their wonderfully reddish-brown exteriors with beautifully carved details. Built in 1875, and once part of a line of 10 row houses, 1023-29 N. Dearborn Parkway are bookended today by sleek, 21st century condo blocks. Although number 1029 at the north end of the trio has been maintained with care, our middle number 1025 sits abandoned and forlorn while 1023 has barely survived, with its elaborate Italianate cornice torn off.

[1025-23 N. Dearborn Parkway, May 3, 2010 /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

The story goes that in 1875, #1023 was the home of Henry Field, brother of the retailer
Marshall. A few years later Stuyvesant Peabody, whose parents owned a large mansion up the street, briefly occupied the home. Like many of these grand, old residences the large rooms were chopped-up into smaller spaces and the building became a rooming house for men. But in 1934 after the repeal of Prohibition, a nightclub, Le Boeuf sur le toit opened its doors on the lower floors of 1023. And by 1950, Le Boeuf was serving meals out on their sidewalk cafe while inside patrons were listening to the songs of the one-named chanteuse, Poppy.

The fashionable and very successful restaurant/nightclub suffered extensive fire damage
during Poppy's heyday, and never returned. Today a hair salon occupies the built-out ground floor and, this is hard for me to write, the brownstone facade of 1023 has been painted over since taking these pics a few weeks ago. Yep, we were walking past our little group last Thursday and the brown of 1023 was gone, replaced by a coating of a greyish-taupe colored paint with a coat of green covering the few remaining carved-in-stone details. It made me so sad, I couldn't take a picture so that I could show you. I guess, as the saying goes, C'est la vie. :'(

Trials and Deliberations

designslinger — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:40:00 GMT

[Cook County Criminal Courts Building (1893) Otto H. Matz, architect /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

This very heavy looking, rusticated stone building decorated with Romanesque revival
details was once the home the Cook County Criminal Courts. Renovated in the mid-80s, the building is now known as Courthouse Place with offices and lawyers taking the place of judges, clerks and courtrooms.

[Courthouse Place, 54 W. Hubbard Street, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

Designed by architect Otto H. Matz in 1892, the building occupies a site of historical
significance in the history of Chicago and the nation. The building is familiar to a lot of people because of the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder trial which was held here in 1924. The building and its occupants also provided the fodder for two Chicago newspapermen Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, who wrote the 1928 Broadway hit, The Front Page. The play was based on the daily shenanigans the authors witnessed during their time as reporters in the Criminal Courts building.

[Romanesque details, Criminal Courts Building /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

Matz was actually a finalist in the design of the original Court Building which was built
on the site in 1873 after the Great Fire of 1871, but he lost the commission to the firm of Armstrong and Egan. Their building was considered to be unusable just 15 years later and when the County finally found the money to tear down the old courthouse in 1892, Matz's design was constructed and served the Cook County criminal courts until 1929.

But our history at the corner of Dearborn and Hubbard Street goes back a little farther.
Prior to 1871 the site was home to the city's North Market Hall. Built in 1854, the Hall was used for a variety of purposes but most notably as the meeting place of Chicago's anti-slavery movement. In October, 1853 Frederick Douglass addressed a crowd of over 600 people on the subject of slavery. And in 1856, a group of northside residents formed the North Chicago Anti-Slavery Committee Extension Club to fight the expansion of slavery into the country's non-slave territories and states and held their meetings here at Dearborn and Hubbard Streets, in the Market Hall.

Friday Snippets 8.27.10

designslinger — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 07:40:00 GMT

[Tuxedo (ca. 1890) /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

Views. [Architect's Newspaper]

Shoes. [Independent]

Eggs. [National Geographic]

Lights. [Wallpaper]

Openings. [Paper Mag]

Studios. [NY Magazine]

Moguls. [Culture Grrl]

Ready-to-wear. [ARTINFO]

Glass&Steel. [NY Times]

See you Monday!

Rathskeller on the Rialto

designslinger — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:23:00 GMT

[Old Heidelberg Inn (1934) Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, architects /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

In 1934 when the Eitel brothers opened their Old Heidelberg Restaurant on Randolph
Street, the avenue was known as Chicago's Rialto. Lined with theaters, restaurants and nightclubs the lights along Randolph were as bright as the flickering bulbs and neon of New York's Times Square.

The Eitels got into the food service business in 1893 at Chicago's World Columbian
Exposition and became the proprietors of a chain of eating establishments and the city's famed Bismarck Hotel. When Chicago hosted it's second world's fair in 1933, A Century of Progress, the Eitels opened the 3,500 seat Old Heidleberg Inn on the fair grounds. The venture was so successful that when the exposition ended they took possession of this Randolph Street property and asked the very prestigious architectural firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White to design a building with all the trappings of a traditional Bavarian lodge house.

[Argo Tea, July 1, 2010 /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

Today you can barely see the Old Heidelberg Inn since it's been enveloped in a towering
skyscraper. But in 1934 there was a free-standing building with a restaurant on the main floor wtih large murals depicting romanticized Bavarian scenes, a Rathskeller in the basement, a bakery, a dance floor and a carved figure of Gambrinus, the folklore monarch who is said to have created brewing, in the niche above the clock. I remember the building as the home of Ronny's Steak Palace, where we filmed a scene of Curly Sue in the then ticky-tacky looking dining room. Old Heidelberg is gone, so is Ronny's, Curly Sue is a distant memory, the Bavarian-styled building is just a facade, and the Rialto disappeared decades ago. But Randolph has made a comeback of a sorts. The neighboring Oriental Theatre is thriving with Broadway musicals, the Goodman Theatre is just down the street, the Joffrey Ballet is headquartered around the corner, and at the old Bismarck Hotel the shuttered Palace Theater has reopened as the Cadillac Palace. It's not quite the Rialto of the Old Heidleberg Inn era, but it's certainly a different street than it was in the Ronny's Steakhouse days.

designslinger: Word of the Week

designslinger — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:47:00 GMT

[sconce (1924) /Images & Artwork; designslinger]

sconce [skons] n. an electric lamp resembling a candlestick, or group of candlesticks,
which is designed and fabricated for mounting on a wall.

From Bauhaus to Rundhaus

designslinger — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:40:00 GMT

[Prentice Women's Hospital and Maternity Center (1975) Bertrand Goldberg, architect /Image & Artwork:
designslinger]

It's hard to imagine that the architect of this building went to Germany in the early 1930s
to study at the famed Bauhaus under the tutelage of Mies van der Rohe. Leaving Germany in 1934 after the rise of the Nazis, he went to school at Chicago's Armour Institute, soon be become the Illinois Institute of Technology where the Department of Architecture would become world renowned under the directorship of one Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. This same architect would serve as Mies' translator when the German-speaking designer met Frank Lloyd Wright in the late 30s. So how did a young man of the hard edged lines of a Miesian upbringing give birth to these round lobes? In 1955, architect Bertrand Goldberg, "received this terrible shock when I realized that Mies was not a man of his time."

[Prentice Women's Hospital & Institute of Psychiatry /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

Goldberg burst out of the Miesian mold with his cylindrical Marina City Towers in 1959 and
never looked back. I've often seen Goldberg described as a poet architect because of his thoughtfulness and pursuit of the plastic nature of architecture. The cloverleaf of Northwestern Memorial Hospital's Prentice Women's & Maternity Pavilion contained an interior floor plan which allowed for the elimination of traditional hospital corridors with patient rooms clustered around a central core. When the Institute of Psychiatry took over a floor in the building, doctors found that the design played a large role in the positive treatment and therapy of their patient population. Although Goldberg placed the round, concrete lobes on a somewhat Miesian box, he did not design the very Miesian-inspired tower to the right. That was built a year before the Prentice building, designed by the Chicago firm of C.F. Murphy & Associates.

[Northwestern Memorial Hospital/Northwestern University /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

Goldberg's design served its purpose for a time. The hospital was designed to handle
3,000 births per year and by the turn of the 21st century, Prentice was handling more than double that amount. Plus technology had advanced beyond anyone's wildest dreams in the 25 years since the building had been built, so Northwestern constructed on a new maternity and physciatric care facility nearby which opened in 2007. Goldberg's concrete structure now sits empty. The building is set to become the property of Northwestern University and will probably be torn down in the next few years to be replaced by a state-of-the-art research facility, though preservationists are urging the school to work Goldberg's cloverleaf into the plan.

Garden Artillery

designslinger — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 07:25:00 GMT

[C. Herman Plautz Residence (1877) /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

When C. Herman Plautz built his home in Chicago's Wicker Park area in 1877 he did not
place a cannon in his front yard. The large piece of military artillery arrived years later under different owners who had a new use for the house. It is one of the oldest homes in the neighborhood and one of the most ornate with all of its Second Empire detailing.

[Pulaski Post, No. 86, American Legion (1927) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

Plautz was one of a number of successful German-American businessmen who settled
near the small green triangle known as Wicker Park who built large homes to show-off their newly acquired wealth. He served as the City Clerk and City Treasurer, owned a drug manufacturing company for a while, was the president of Northwestern Brewery and Vice-President of Garden City Bank. By the 1920s the neighborhood had changed from a predominantly German and Scandinavian immigrant community into Chicago's largest Polish community. So in 1927 a group of Polish veterans purchased the Plautz residence to serve as the home of American Legion, Pulaski Post No. 86, appropriately named for Casimir Pulaski the Revolutionary War hero.

[Sommers Residence, Hoyne Avenue, Wicker Park, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

The cannon showed up in 1934, and believe it or not was requisitioned by the U.S. Military
for service during World War II. The Polish Post met in the 800 square foot living of the former Plautz place until 1972. By that time the members weren't getting any younger and the neighborhood was undergoing another huge change from Polish to Puerto Rican. So off went the Legionnaires, leaving their cannon behind. By the time Carol and Nick Sommers purchased the home in 1977, the once elegant mansion was a mess. Neglected and worn the Sommers gave the house the kind of love and care it deserved, and preserved Chicago's only artillery-decorated home.

Friday Snippets 8.20.10

designslinger — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:50:00 GMT

[City of Chicago (1920) /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

Re-arched. [Architect's Newspaper]

Global warming visualized. [Canary Project]

Picasso draws big. [Art Daily]

Be a Work of Art - ist. [Bravo]

Body builder painting. [Hasted Hunt Kraeutler]

Going downtown. [Culture Monster]

Through English eyes. [Guardian]

Alien landscape. [Wired]

Musuem TV. [NY Times]

The dog days of August are almost at an end. See you Monday.

Wind Catching

designslinger — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 07:43:00 GMT

[Greenway Self Park (2010) HOK, architects /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

What is it? A bird, a plane, flexible hosing? No it's a self park garage and Chicago's first
green parking facility.

[Greenway Self Park, 60 W.Kinzie Street, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

Designed by the architectural firm HOK , who have an entire section of their website
devoted to sustainablity, the garage is a first of its kind. The building has a green roof system, 6 electric car charging stations, plus a bike room to park your foot-pedaled two-wheeler.

[Greenway Self Park, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

The structure has been decoratively sheathed in environmentally sensitive glass panels
which have been staggered to allow air to flow through the garage floors. The 6 turbines from Aerotecture are estimated to generate 10,000-15,000 KWh per year. By placing the turbines at the southwest corner of the building they are supposed to be able to gather Chicago's notoriously famous wind winter, spring, summer or fall, even when it's blowing at 2 or 3 mph. I've walked past the building several times when there has been a slight breeze in the air and the corkscrews were sitting as still as could be. Maybe they don't have to spin all the time to be functional, which is fine with me because they look like the contemporary sculptural component of the coolest looking parking garage I've ever seen.

See a different solution to the parking problem at: More Than A Garage.

designslinger: Word of the Week

designslinger — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:47:00 GMT

[Moderne Gothic Revival (1927); Traditional Gothic Revival (1914) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

Gothic Revival [GOTH-ik ri-VAHY-vuhl] n. a style of architecture popular bewteen the late
18th & early 20th centuries, primarily in Britian and North America, aimed at reviving the original spirit and forms of Gothic architecture.

[Gothic revival (1918 & 1914) /Images & Artowrk: designslinger]

Gothic Moderne

designslinger — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:40:00 GMT

[300 W. Adams Building (1927) Jens J. Jensen, architect /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

In 1926 when the plans were revealed for architect Jens J. Jensen's building at Adams
and Franklin Streets in downtown Chicago, the Tribune called the design "a modern adaptation of the Gothic." When you look at the glazed terra-cotta details today, you might think "Gothic Revival with a twist of Art Moderne."

[Franklin Adams Block (1927) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

In the late 20s Art Deco and its sibling Art Moderne were all the rage. At first Jensen was
asked to refurbish the old building standing on the site, a wholesale warehouse occupied by a prominent Chicago department store chain, Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. Carson's was moving into new quarters and by the time they vacated the building there was a demand for office space in this far western section of the Loop. So developer David Schetnitz demolished the 6-story warehouse and built a modern, 12-story office building wrapped in Jensen's contemporary, gleaming white, terra-cotta design.

[300 W. Adams /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

Not everything in the details was strictly Gothic, Moderne or Deco, but Jensen certainly
produced a building with eye-catching flourishes, and 300 W. Adams was one of the only buildings he designed in city's business district. And by the way, this Jens Jensen comes with a J., not to be confused with Jens Jensen the celebrated landscape architect. Another interesting tidbit of information - when George Armour built the original building in 1878, J.A. McLennan was the building contractor on the job. McLennan came to Chicago in 1869 and eventually used his architectural and construction skills to become one of the largest grain elevator builders in the country through his association with Armour, Dole & Co. When Schetnitz built his building in 1926, Hugh McLennan, who was a year old when his father built the Armour warehouse, was Schetnitz and Jensen's contractor.

Concerned Methodists

designslinger — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 07:24:00 GMT

[Methodist Book Concern Publishing House Building (1916) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

I've always found this building interesting because of its tall, round brick columns. I mean
columns in marble, stone or wood, sure, but brick -not so much. Years ago before hightailing it to LA, I remembered a large sign at the corner for Crain Communications, which has now been replaced by one for Giordano's Pizza. I was pretty sure that Crain's didn't build the building and wondered who was behind its construction.

[Methodist Book Concern Publishing House Building, 740 N. Rush Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

So after hunting around for clues, some research and digging, it turns out that the
Methodist Church was responsible for having the building constructed. The church ran a publishing company, the Methodist Book Concern, (founded in 1789 and still the oldest operating publishing company in the country) and needed a new building to house their Chicago offices. In 1915 they chose the former site of 4th Presbyterian Church which was in the process of demolishing the old church building after having moved into a new home on Michigan Avenue.

[740 N. Rush Street Building /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

By the late 1930s this Rush Street location had become a hub of local church offices and
the headquarters of its worldwide publishing concern. But in 1962 the building was vacated when the organization moved into a new building they built in the Chicago suburb of Evanston.

Crain Communications, a very large media and publishing conglomerate, no longer calls
the place home either, but Giordano's fills the belly's of thousands of patrons with their Chicago-style stuffed pizzas on a daily basis from their ground floor restaurant. And, the exterior was recently swathed in scaffolding wrapped in plastic so I was lucky to get some snaps before these brick columns get a little tuck and clean.

See more brick, columns and all, at: Chicago Brick.

Friday Snippets 8.13.10

designslinger — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 07:34:00 GMT

[Pelouze (1916) /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

Monumental restoration. [BBC]

Bird house. [NY Times]

57m squared. [Inhabitat]

Architects Time. [Architizer]

In London. [ARTINFO]

Astana, Kazakhstan. [Guardian]

Independents. [Wallpaper]

Porn, modeling, fashion. [Paper Mag]

Lost & Found. [NY Times]

Hope Friday the 13th just passes by like any other day. See you Monday.

Curves, Slopes & Slants

designslinger — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 07:36:00 GMT

[First National Bank of Chicago Building (1969) C.F. Murphy & Associates, Perkins & Will, architects /Images &
Artwork: designslinger]

Anytime architects design a building they are given a series of requests and requirements
by the client along with building codes that must be adhered to. Depending on the designer, the lists are followed to the letter which often result in an uninspiring work, or used as a template around which a concept is formulated that can lead to a much more interesting, even ground breaking design. When C.F Murphy and Perkins & Will were asked by one of Chicago's largest banks to come-up with a new headquarters for the institution, their resolution to client and city code demands gave the city one of the most unique buildings on the skyline.

[Bank One /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

First National Bank of Chicago was just over 100 years old when they were ready to move
into their new world headquarters building. And they didn't move far. The new structure was built on the northern half of the same city block where the bank had occupied the southeastern corner for decades. First National needed a large banking hall on the first three floors of the new structure, offices for their growing international financial operations and enough square footage to rent to paying tenants to help pay for the whole thing. At 60 stories tall and a large footprint on the ground because of the banking floors, the city required the building to have set-backs, like stair steps, as the building climbed into the sky. Murphy and team came up with a ingenious solution, taper the tower upward from it's 200 foot wide base to 96 feet at the top. It made for a much more graceful resolution to the set-back issue and gave the city its only curved, sloping, slanting building.

[Chase Tower with the old First National Bank Building clock /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

When the new tower was ready and the banking offices relocated, the old building was
torn down and a plaza was created on the site. It contains one of Chicago's most recognized outdoor art pieces Marc Chagall's Four Seasons mosaic, which we'll feature in a future posting. The clock that once stood at the corner of the old bank was saved and placed on a granite pedestal several feet from where it once gave the time to the passersby. First National went through several mergers and name changes during the late 1990s and today is part of the Chase system so the building is now known as Chase Tower, at least as long as Chase stays in business.

designslinger: Word of the Week

designslinger — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 07:41:00 GMT

[diamondwork (ca. 1920) /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

diamondwork [DAHY-muhnd-wurk] n. masonry construction in which pieces are set so as
to form diamonds on the face of a wall.

[diamondwork (ca. 1920) /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

Weights and Measures

designslinger — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 07:44:00 GMT

[Pelouze Building (1916) Alfred S. Alschuler, architect; Pelouze Scale and Manufacturing Company Building (1908)
Hill & Woltersdorf, architects /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

In 1916 when William Nelson Pelouze asked architect Alfred Alschuler to design a new
building to house the offices and workrooms of the Pelouze Scale and Manufacturing Company, the area was about to undergo a dramatic change. If you were to wander through the streets of this Streeterville neighborhood today, you might be surprised to learn that this high-rent residential area was once home to a number of industrial buildings and the workers who filled them.

[Pelouze Scale and Manufacturing Company Building (1908) Hill & Woltersdorf, architects /Image & Artwork:
designslinger]

William Pelouze came to the city in 1882 when he was 16 years old and by 1894 had
several patents under his belt and the beginnings of his scale company. In 1908 when the firm moved into this building on Ohio Street at Franklin, the area was sandy, grassy and kind of removed from the mansions lining Pine Street, a couple of blocks to the west. That same year, Pelouze teamed up with other like-minded entrepreneurs and created the St. Clair Manufacturing and Warehouse District Improvement Association. Alschuler's design would sit next door to the red brick manufacturing building and would become one of the last industrial properties built in the district still standing.

[Pelouze Building (1916) Alfred S. Alschuler, architect /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

By the time the new Pelouze building was finished, change was just around the corner.
Literally. In 1920, during the administration of one of Chicago's infamous mayors William "Big Bill" Thompson (who also happened to be Pelouze's brother-in-law), the city opened the Michigan Avenue Bridge and the transformation of nearby residential Pine Street into what we now know as Michigan Avenue, began. Slowly, the former manufacturing area to the east of Boul Mich became more and more residential and the former factory buildings were filled with white-collar workers or converted into residential lofts. And although there are still scales made under the Pelouze name, the company is now just a part of the giant corporate brand known as Newell Rubbermaid. But the building remains, reminding us of another time and era.

Cafeteria Style

designslinger — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 07:53:00 GMT

[John R. Thompson Company Commissary Building (1912) Alfred S. Alschuler, architect /Image & Artwork:
designslinger]

Before there were McDonalds, Burger Kings, Kentucky Fried Chickens, Applebees and
Olive Gardens, there were lunchroom and cafeteria chains that served freshly prepared "fast food" in cities across the country in the buffet/commissary style. When John R. Thompson of Thompson Restaurants built this building in 1912, Thompson's was one of the largest lunchroom commissary chains in the country.

[Thompson Building (1983 renovation) Metz, Train & Youngren, architects /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

Thompson opened his first restaurant in the 1890s in the city he had recently moved to
called Chicago. By 1912 there were 68 Thompson restaurants in Chicago, New York and other large metro areas as well as a chain of grocery stores. The food was inexpensive, basic and consisted primarily of hot and cold meats, sandwiches and side dishes. The operation was known for their "table seat" chairs that were kind of like the school desk/chairs you may have sat in in high school or college where the chair arm does double-duty as a desktop. Ring a bell? By the time Thompson died in 1927 he'd created quite a little dining empire. The company had 113 restaurants in 45 cities and he left an estate valued at over $6,000,000. The Ray Kroc of his era.

[Commissary Building/350 N. Clark Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

I remember the building being called the Commissary Building and in doing research for
this post I found out why. When the Thompson was constructed it not only housed the company's corporate offices but also one of the organization's large commissary restaurants on the ground floor. By the time I became acquainted with architect Alfred Alschuler's white terra-cotta clad building in the late 70s, there was no commissary and the place looked a little worse for wear. In 1983 the architectural firm of Metz, Train & Youngren was brought in to oversee a restoration and rehab of the 70-year-old structure.

The chain encountered unwanted publicity in the early 50s when their Washington, D.C.
location became the focus of the restaurant's discriminatory service practices. Mary Church Terrell was refused service because she was black and her case wound its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court which found that the racially motivated act was unconstitutional.

It wasn't the first time the Thompson named was mired in controversy. In 1921 John R.
placed an ad in national newspapers stating, "I will pay $1,000. to anyone who will give one good reason why the revolver manufacturing industry should be allowed to exist in America and enjoy the facilities of the mails. Sincerely, John R. Thompson" It didn't seem to have any impact on his business. He never paid the thousand bucks and it still says Thompson at the top of the tower.