Dark, raw power built Chicago into an authentic American city. From a world of shanty towns and smokestack factories, a handful of men ruthlessly built vast commercial and industrial enterprises that changed the way Americans shop, eat, and think. Adventurous, civic-minded, and newly rich, Chicago's grandees boldly hired the most progressive architects and savviest art and antiques dealers to design and furnish private houses that ultimately defined the city as a centre of American capitalism, culture, and architecture. Along Prairie Avenue, majestic Lake Shore Drive, and Astor Street, the Armours, McCormicks, Pullmans and Ryersons immortalised their place among Chicago's elite with lavish palaces designed by David Adler, Daniel Burnham, Howard Van Doren Shaw, and Frank Lloyd Wright in styles that ranged from detailed Beaux-Arts eclectic to International Modern."Great Houses of Chicago, 1871-1921" is the first authoritative study of Chicago's grand city houses. Thirty four in-depth profiles, illustrated with restored archival photographs and floor plans, portray a private world of Midwestern splendour.
This masterful volume includes biographical sketches of leading Chicago architects, a comprehensive bibliography, and a portfolio of forty additional, rarely-seen residences.