Auditorium Building

Tower (tallest in Chicago when built; Sullivan's office was here), close side view of the tower shaft at right, depicting hw the tower is expressed on the south elevation; The Auditorium was built for a syndicate of businessmen to house a large civic opera house; to provide an economic base it was decided to wrap the auditorium with a hotel and office block. Hence Adler & Sullivan had to plan a complex multiple-use building. Fronting on Michigan Avenue, overlooking the lake, was the hotel (now Roosevelt University) while the offices were placed to the west on Wabash Avenue. The entrance to the auditorium is on the south side beneath the tall blocky seventeen-story tower. The rest of the building is a uniform ten stories, organized in the same way as Richardson's Marshall Field Wholesale Store. The interior embellishment, however, is wholly Sullivan's, and some of the details, because of their continuous curvilinear foliate motifs, are among the nearest equivalents to European Art Nouveau architecture. (p 179-180) Source: Roth, Leland M.; A Concise History of American Architecture, 1st ed., New York : Harper & Row, c1979 (0064300862 (pbk.) ) (accessed 12/1/2007