Chicago's Famous Buildings

by Franz Schulze, Kevin Harrington

The latest edition of the original and best guide to Chicago architecture for tourists and residents.

 

One of the premier architectural cities of the United States—if not the world—Chicago boasts a breathtaking skyline, dozens of architectural monuments, and a historic legacy few other cities can equal. And it's still growing! Since its first appearance in 1965, Chicago's Famous Buildings has been the standard and bestselling guide to the city's architectural riches. Now thoroughly revised and updated, this fifth edition will remain the leading pocket guide to some of the world's greatest urban architecture.

Chicago's Famous Buildings , fifth edition, completely updated and revised by Franz Schulze and Kevin Harrington, covers more than a decade of extraordinary new architecture and takes a fresh look back at the city's classical legacy of Adler, Sullivan, Burnham, Root, Wright, and Mies van der Rohe. The authors have added many new descriptions and images of the most important projects in Chicago since the fourth edition, including the massive reconstruction of Grant Park around Frank Gehry's Music Pavilion, and they cover as well the current status of older buildings—some destroyed, others, such as Burnham's Reliance Building, marvelously restored and brought back to life. Chicago's Famous Buildings , fifth edition, also includes expanded sections on the city's future and the development of its diverse neighborhoods, presented with new maps to serve as an even more effective walking guide. A glossary of architectural terms, an extensive index, and more than sixty new photographs of both old and new buildings bring this guide completely up-to-date.

Authoritative, informative, and easier to use than ever before, this fifth edition of Chicago's Famous Buildings will serve tourists and residents alike as the leading architectural guide to the treasures of this marvelous city.

Genres: Architecture, Reference, Nonfiction, Travel, History, Cities, American

358 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1993

About the author

Franz Schulze was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Illinois, Pekin and Chicago, as his civil engineer father moved to follow employment in the 1930s. Perhaps his interest in art and architecture was stimulated by visiting with his father the 1933-34 Century of Progress Exhibition, Chicago, which he still remembers vividly. After Lane Technical High School in his Chicago neighborhood, Schulze attended Robert M. Hutchins' University of Chicago and graduated in 1945 with a two-year wartime Ph.B. and a strong if somewhat crammed grounding in the classics. He went on to the Art Institute of Chicago's School for his B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees, the latter the terminal degree for academics in studio art. After two years teaching at Purdue University, Schulze, according to his own account, mis-stated his age (as twenty-seven, not twenty-five) to apply for and become art professor and head of the Art Department at Lake Forest College in 1952 (to 1958), succeeding the College's first full-time art professor, Joseph P. Nash (for Nash, see the finding aid for his collection elsewhere in this series of such guides).

Schulze taught at Lake Forest full-time from 1952 through 1991, and is the Betty Jane Hollender Professor of Art, Emeritus. He was a popular teacher, garnering in 1968 the students' Great Teacher award. He organized major, museum-quality exhibitions of art on campus in the 1950s and 1960s that fostered excellent town-gown relations while building student connossieurship. He took emeritus status in 1991 to devote full-time to his work on his 1994-published biography of Philip Johnson. He continued to teach courses occasionally and now participates in some classes.

Notable among his former students are Richard D. Armstrong '71, director of New York's Guggenheim Museum; Peter Reed '77, Senior Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, of New York's Musuem of Modern Art; Kingston Heath '68, author and Professor of Historic Preservation at the U. of Oregon; and Stephen M. Salny '77, author of books on architect David Adler (Norton, 2001), interior designer Frances Elkins (Norton, 2005), and interior designer Michael Taylor (Norton, 2009).

Schulze is an artist, working on canvas and with charcoal, and has done many portraits, including some of significant Chicago architects, shown in Chicago in 2011. His portraits of his Lake Forest College friends and colleagues provide a valuable chronicle of the campus and town history of the past almost six decades, including College presidents. A show of his drawings took place February 18 through March 26, 2011, at the Printworks Gallery, Chicago.

The artist's work included also graphic design for College publications (Tusitala annual literary magazine), striking publicity for 1950s town-gown Fireside chats, and in the early 1960s a new seal to replace the one in use for over a century. This was the College's emblem through the decade and then again in the mid-1990s.

Schulze began writing art criticism for New York periodicals in 1958 and he has continued this work into the 2000s. He also served as art critic for the Chicago Daily News until it was absorbed into the Chicago Sun-Times in 1978, after which he wrote for that paper. He has written several books and has contributed chapters, introductions and forewords to many more. His own most notable books to date are Fantastic Images (1973), Mies van der Rohe: a Critical Biography (1985), and Philip Johnson: Life and Work (1994). He was the lead author for 30 Miles North, a History of Lake Forest College, Its Town and Its City of Chicago (2000), the institution's first separate;y-published historical volume, and lead co-editor of the well-received 5th ed. of Chicago's Famous Buildings (2003). His soon-to-be published Fall, 2012 titles are listed at the opening of this sketch.

Schulze did not have formal academic training especially in architectural history. He educated himself through his journalism and his teach

Reviews

[Valerie Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the 1993 edition, so it was super dated, but still interesting.

[Muzzlehatch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is essentially a tourist's guide to those buildings generally recognized as important in this architecturally magnificent city. There probably aren't any other American cities outside of New England with an architectural history so rich and important, which have been home to so many top figures in the field -- Sullivan, Wright, Mies and Jahn all lived and worked in the city by the lake at some point in their lives, and there is much to show for their efforts. The book is organized in geographical sections and includes some buildings in the suburbs as well -- it would have been criminal not to point out the B'hai Temple in Wilmette. I wish the overview at the beginning of the book were a bit deeper, and color photos would be nice in some cases, but really this is an excellent on-the-street guide. My copy is from '93, I don't know if there is an update.

[Craig Barney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book doesn't only talk about the famous skyline of chicago, but also the neighborhoods in chicago and famous houses. I am currently on page 250 of the book and I have read about the university of chicago, wrigley field, and the united center. I learned that O'Hare airport is one of the busiest in the world, and it keeps getting larger. Soldier field was built in 1924 and it was made to hold up to 100,000 people. I don't think that this part of the book is as interesting as the skyscrapers.

[R · Rating 2 out of 5]

I own this only because I bought it super cheap from my last job when they were trying to get rid of books. It is really out dated. This is a tourists only book. For Chicagoans there is nothing here that most of us don't know. There are so many Chicago architecture books out there, please go for them and stay away from this one.

[Yvonne O'Connor · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pictorial review of buildings by area of the city. It gives architect, date built, and interesting facts about each.

An interesting read, but the 1/2 page to one page treatment is not enough to make leafing-through the whole book worthwhile. Also, some of the buildings covered don't exist anymore.

[Du · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun, concise look at the architecture of Chicago. The facts are presented in an easy to read, almost conversational manner and then text flows well, with good pictures to document the building being discussed. It is a good all around resource about Chicago, Chicago's architectural history and the buildings themselves.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read an earlier edition.