Auditorium and Tower Building

Object NameWindow from the Auditorium and Tower Building, Chicago, Illinois

Makerprobably Louis Sullivan (American, 1856-1924)

Made FromGlass, lead, wood

Date1886-1889

TechniqueCut glass assembled with lead came

SizeFrame H: 87.3 cm, W: 141.8 cm; Window H: 64 cm, W: 121.2 cm

Accession Number93.4.16

Curatorial Area(s)

Modern

Interpretive Notes

Web Text

Louis H. Sullivan is acknowledged as one of the first American proponents of modernism in architectural design. The Chicago engineer Dankmar Adler was Sullivan’s business partner from 1883 to 1895. The Auditorium and Tower Building was built by the firm of Adler & Sullivan between 1886 and 1889. This Romanesque Revival-style building occupies a full city block, and it originally housed a civic opera house, hotel, and offices. Some interior details of the building were probably drawn by Frank Lloyd Wright, who joined the firm in 1887. This window formed the upper half of one of four interior sash windows. These interior windows were located in the hotel lobby, behind the front desk, and they opened onto a light well. The gold and brown palette of the “antique” and opalescent glass coordinated with the color scheme of the lobby’s painted plaster decorations. All of the building’s stained glass windows were designed by Sullivan and fabricated by Healy and Millet in Chicago. This window was probably removed during building renovations in the late 1960s.

Place Made

United States, IL, Chicago

Physical DescriptionOpalescent, transparent amber, pale yellow, colorless non-lead "Antique" glass, pressed opalescent tiles; cut glass assembled with lead came. Horizontal symmetrical window in "Hispano-Moorish" style design based on flat geometric pattern of right angles and circles; broad exterior border comprised of sectioned light amber around sides and top, narrower base edge; a narrow angular design of colorless glass sections is enclosed by border and decorates interior of panel against a pale yellow background; colorless band turns mainly at right angle to form patterning of squares and rectangles, it twists into six small circular loops that enclose circular opalescent "jewels", also four small square opalescent jewels with raised "x" surface are enclosed within parts of the pattern; linear patterning extends through base border so that design would be continuous with lower panel; back has four flat reinforcing bars; original wooden frame with molding on top and sides; unsigned.
Provenance

Provenance Remark

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