The Auditorium Building is an early skyscraper at the northwest corner of South Michigan Avenue and Ida B. Wells Drive in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Completed in 1889, it is one of the best-known designs of Adler & Sullivan, the partnership of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler. The building was designed as a multi-use complex, including offices, a theater, and a hotel. Frank Lloyd Wright, then a young apprentice, worked on some of the interior design.
The Auditorium Theatre is part of the Auditorium Building and is located at 50 East Ida B. Wells Drive. The theater was the first home of the Chicago Civic Opera and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Landmark and a Chicago Landmark. In addition, it is a historic district contributing property for the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. Since 1947, the Auditorium Building has been part of Roosevelt University.
Site The Auditorium Building is located at 430 South Michigan Avenue in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It occupies a land lot covering on the southern section of a city block between Wabash Avenue to the west, Ida B. Wells Drive (formerly Congress Parkway) to the south, and Michigan Avenue to the east. The building has a frontage of on Wabash, on Ida B. Wells, and on Michigan.
History
Development
Origin and purpose Before the Auditorium Building was constructed, Chicago businessman Ferdinand Peck had helped finance construction of the nearby Central Music Hall, which opened in 1879 and was designed by Dankmar Adler. Peck organized the Chicago Grand Opera Festival in 1885. With the success of the festival, he decided to build a grand opera house for Chicago. He incorporated the Chicago Auditorium Association in December 1886 to develop what he wanted to be the world's largest, grandest, most expensive theater that would rival such institutions as the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.
The building was to include an office block and a first class hotel. Peck persuaded many Chicago business tycoons to go on board with him, including Marshall Field, Edson Keith, Martin A. Ryerson, Charles L. Hutchinson and George Pullman. The association hired the renowned architectural firm of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan to design the building. At the time, a young Frank Lloyd Wright was employed at the firm as draftsman, and he may have contributed to the design."Some interior details were probably drawn by Frank Lloyd Wright, who started in Sullivan's office as a draftsman in 1887." Banister Fletcher. A History of Architecture. p. 1241.
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 eighteen-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.Roth, Leland M. A Concise History of American Architecture. p. 179-80
Construction and opening On October 5, 1887, President Grover Cleveland laid the cornerstone for the Auditorium Building. The 1888 Republican National Convention was held in a partially finished building where Benjamin Harrison was nominated as a presidential candidate. On December 9, 1889, the theater was completed; President Harrison dedicated the building and opera star Adelina Patti sang "Home Sweet Home".
Early years
1890s to 1910s The Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuted on October 16, 1891, and made its home in the Auditorium Theatre until it moved to Orchestra Hall in 1904. Opera singers at the theater in its early years included Enrico Caruso, Amelita Galli-Curci, Mary Garden, John McCormack, Nellie Melba, and Ellen Terry. Although the auditorium itself had inadequate backstage space, it was still able to host up to 38 operatic productions per year. The hotel accommodated foreign guests during the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and it continued to host several US presidents, along with several Republican Party candidates' presidential campaigns. Adler & Sullivan also opened their office on the building's top floors, taking four private rooms: one each for Adler, Sullivan, and their draftsmen Frank Lloyd Wright and Paul Mueller.
Although the building's completion made Adler & Sullivan famous, it did not make them a profit, as the 2.5% commission was barely enough to compensate for expenses. The building also proved unprofitable to its investors. The Auditorium Association, the building's developer, issued only one dividend to stockholders: a 1.5% dividend in 1893. By the 1890s, the theater's colorful walls had already been repainted, as they did not harmonize with the colors of female patrons' gowns.
1920s and 1930s As early as 1923, the building's owners planned to replace the Auditorium Building with a high-rise skyscraper. These plans were abandoned due to disputes with the site's landowners.
The building's resident opera company moved to the Civic Opera House in 1929, performing its final show, Romeo and Juliet, that January. One of the Auditorium Association's bond issues matured the next month, but the association was unable to pay the face value of $834,000 to bondholders. The Auditorium Theatre subsequently closed, and the Auditorium Association declared bankruptcy. The association's receiver attempted to convince the building's shareholders to move their shares in a common fund, but although most shareholders agreed to do so, this did not raise sufficient money for the organization. The four landowners—the Northwestern Mutual and the Willing, Sears, and Slater estates—solicited bids for the building's demolition in 1930 and 1931. The demolition attempts failed because the lowest demolition bid was submitted for $400,000, was more than the land valuation.
In 1932, ownership of the building itself reverted to its landowners, who created a syndicate, the Auditorium Building Corporation, to manage the structure. John Goodridge of the Willing estate led the syndicate. Northwestern Mutual declined to join, requiring the remaining landowners to seek the company's permission for any minor modification under its section of land. The owners hired Holabird & Root to conduct renovations. The firm repaired the tower's foundations and the theater's ceiling trusses, and it redecorated the hotel to accommodate visitors to the Century of Progress world's fair. The theater renovation cost $125,000 and involved the installation of new boxes and an entrance canopy, replacement of lighting, repainting, and removal of an art-glass skylight. The theater reopened in December 1932, but whatever success it had was short-lived. By the late 1930s, the building had a net annual income of only $35,000, while the property taxes alone were double that amount.
1940s: Closure and servicemen's center The Auditorium Building Corporation had accumulated $1.15 million in debt by 1940 and was severely delinquent on its property taxes, The corporation announced in May 1941 that the building would close the next month. The closure was directly caused by the cancellation of a utility agreement with the Congress Plaza Hotel's operators, which had formerly provided heat, power, and water to the Auditorium. The corporation was so penurious, it could not afford to pay for its own utility plant. In response, local civic groups convened to appoint a committee to advocate for city takeover of the building, and Mayor Edward Joseph Kelly chartered the Auditorium Music Foundation to convert it into a music center. After a 30-day extension of utility service, the Auditorium Building was shuttered entirely on July 31, 1941. All tenants moved away except for a few storefronts.
The Auditorium Music Foundation sought to raise $400,000 to convert the theater into a performance venue. The group wanted to reopen the theater by November 1941, but it had raised only $250,000 within a year. The Cook County government filed a foreclosure suit against the building in June 1942, intending to auction off the decorations and furnishings. The county had wanted to auction the entire building but was unable to do so, as Northwestern Mutual had paid the back taxes on its own site. The county government approved takeover of the building later that month; despite efforts to stave off a sale of the furnishings, the sale proceeded as scheduled. The city government obtained ownership of the other lots and took over the structure in July. The building became a World War II servicemen's center, occupying the first two stories. A bowling alley was added inside the theater, a lunch counter replaced the original bar, and the decorations were painted over. A temporary boiler plant was added to serve the center.
Roosevelt University ownership
Mid-1940s to 1960s Roosevelt University bought most of the building in August 1946 for $400,000 after agreeing to pay the back taxes, which totaled $1.3 million. The university moved in the next month, initially accommodating 1,200 students there. The Auditorium Theater Foundation repaid its creditors and dissolved that year, and the theater stood vacant for another two decades. Attorney Abraham Teitelbaum, who had bought about 10% of the property during World War II, initially refused to sell his parcel to the university, erecting chicken-wire fence between the two portions of the building. The split ownership created a legal situation where some parts of the building, such as the theater's curtain and the building's heating plant, straddled both sections and required each other's consent. Teitelbaum ultimately sold his land to the college in 1947 for $402,000.
In 1952, Congress Parkway was widened, bringing the curb to the southern edge of the building. To make room for a sidewalk, some ground-floor rooms and part of the theater lobby were removed and a sidewalk arcade created. During this period, as the building's stained-glass windows fell into disrepair, they were replaced with clear panes.
Roosevelt University trustees voted in 1958 to restore the Auditorium Theater. To oversee the Auditorium Theatre's restoration, the Auditorium Theater Council was formed in 1960. Roosevelt University retained ownership of the theater, on the basis that the theater comprised 40% of the interior area. Beatrice T. Spachner, a Roosevelt University trustee, became the leader of the council early that decade. She ultimately raised $2.25 million or $3 million for the purpose. Harry Weese was hired to restore the theater, having claimed to be able to refurbish it for a much lower price than local competitor Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill could. On October 31, 1967, the Auditorium Theatre reopened with a benefit concert where the New York City Ballet performed A Midsummer Night's Dream.
1970s to 1990s The Auditorium Theater Council was incorporated in 1981, though the Auditorium Theatre remained financially unsuccessful until later that decade, when it became profitable for the first time. This led to several long-running musicals being hosted there.