Description
When the magnificent Auditorium Building opened on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue in December 1889, it marked Chicago’s emergence both because the leading town of the Midwest and as a metropolis of international stature. On this lavishly illustrated book, Joseph M. Siry explores no longer simply the architectural history of the Auditorium Building but additionally the a very powerful role it played in Chicago’s social history. Covering the Auditorium from the early design stage to its opening, its later renovations, its links to culture and politics in Chicago, and its influence on later Adler and Sullivan works (together with the Schiller Building and the Chicago Stock Exchange Building), this volume recounts the attention-grabbing tale of a building that helped to outline a town and an era.