The Reliance -- Root at the base, Atwood on the tower, a Burnham triumph (JWB, 2008) |
In the last blog I ran through the reasons why The Reliance building, now the Burnham Hotel, was one of the great triumphs of the first generation of skyscrapers in Chicago. Today I want to mention the story of its rescue and ensuing transformation into a contemporary triumph of adaptive reuse.
On the corner of
Washington and State Street, across the street from the gaping wound that was
Block 37, the Reliance Building waited for its rebirth. The city bought the property in 1992
for 1.2 million dollars and appropriated another 6.4 million dollars toward the
restoration of the property’s exterior, in the hope that this would make the
building more attractive to a developer.
Somewhere in there probably was the goal of avoiding a large chunk of century-old
terra cotta falling on a passerby’s head.
The National Trust
for Historic Preservation provides the full scope of the two phases of the
restoration effort.
14,300 piece of terra cotta make up the facade of The Reliance (JWB, 2008) |
That first phase
involved replacing more than 2,000 pieces of terra cotta with exact
matches. Another thousand pieces
were removed from the building, cleaned and reinstalled. That sounds complicated enough, but
there are 140 different decorative motifs out of the 14,300 pieces of terra
cotta that make up the building’s skin.
New molds had to be made for 130 of them.
Because the original
windows and their frames were shot, everything had to be replaced. Care was taken to make sure that the
new glass came as close as possible to the appearance of the original polished
plate glass. The new aluminum
window frames were planned so as to be as unobtrusive as possible.
Also in this phase
the original cornice that had been removed in the 1940’s was recreated in
aluminum. The use of historic
drawings and photographs for the design ensured that the new cornice is true to
the original. The bottoms of the
second floor bays had also been removed in the early 1940’s. These were also reconstructed.
The restoration of
the exterior was orchestrated by Baldwin Development Co. and the McClier
Corporation, an architectural firm that was also responsible for the
restoration of the Rookery Building at 209 South LaSalle Street. T. Gunny Harboe led McClier’s
restoration plans. Atunovich
Associates was the architectural firm of record.
The second phase of
the building’s restoration was just as ambitious and required far more
architectural detective work.
There were a few fragments of the original storefront’s granite and
bronze trim, and these were used to create the base of the building as it
originally looked when John Root’s plan was brought to life.
The elevator lobby
required the identification and matching of the six different kinds of marble
that were used for the ceiling and walls.
Once again historic photographs, drawings, and a small piece of the original
mosaic floor led to an exact reconstruction of the original lobby.
Faithful recreation of the mosaics and hallways -- one of the impressive aspects of the project (Photo Courtesy of Hotel Burnham) |
The corridors of
the upper floors were restored to their original appearance. The marble, mahogany, and glass office
and corridor walls were restored, along with the ornamental staircase and the
terrazzo floors. The original
metal elevator grilles had been buried in the wall of the elevator shaft. These were reinstalled in front of a
new shaft wall.
The 122 hotel rooms
in the new boutique hotel were a real challenge. No two corridors were exactly the same, so the challenge was
to keep the original door locations in the position they occupied in the
original plan. Finally, where
Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. occupied the ground floor back in the 1890’s, a
new restaurant was created, the Atwood Café, the namesake of the man who
planned the bulk of the project.
In 1999 the
restored Reliance Building was reborn as the Hotel Burnham, the third Chicago
hotel managed by the Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, Inc., a San
Francisco company specializing in boutique hotels. Kimpton also manages the Allegro Hotel on Randolph Street,
the Hotel Monaco on Wacker Drive, and the Hotel Palomar on North State Street.
The Reliance as it appeared originally |
Walt Whitman once said that to have great poets you need a great audience. The same, I think, is true of buildings. To have them, more importantly, to keep them, requires a people willing to understand their worth, despite all of the practical concerns that unite to see those buildings torn down. The Reliance was lucky . . . it was brought to life in a great town, filled with many people who rejoiced at its rebirth, a great Windy City audience deserving of this magnificent terra cotta poem.
2 comments:
Hello there, You’ve done a great job. I will certainly digg it and personally suggest to my friends. I am sure they will be benefited from this site.
candy jar
Connecting the Windy City means intertwining its neighborhoods with vibrant streets and bustling public transit, creating a mosaic of diversity and vitality. From the iconic Loop to the serene shores of Lake Michigan, Chicago's connectivity is woven into its urban fabric, fostering a sense of community and shared experience. Whether through bustling avenues or serene parks, the heartbeat of Chicago pulses with the energy of its interconnected neighborhoods.
Storage Box
wooden trays for sale
Post a Comment