Architecture at the Exposition
Palace of Fine Arts
The gigantic, gleaming white buildings of the Classical "Court of Honor" gave the Exposition the name "The White City." The spectacle was the brainchild of the controlling architect, Daniel Burnham. Another prominent Chicago architect, Louis Sullivan, had argued that the designs should reflect an American vernacular, but Burnham's vision of Roman columns and Renaissance domes prevailed.
Sullivan's Transportation Building, colorful and original, was relegated to a site away from the white Court of Honor. Despite international recognition -- the Transportation Building alone was awarded a medal by Paris's Union Centrale des Arts Decoratifs -- the American appetite for classical construction had been whetted, and cornices and colonnades began to appear on banks, clubs, and public buildings. The White City was celebrated throughout the country (it inspired Katherine Lee Bates to write, "Thine alabaster cities gleam," in her song America the Beautiful), and Sullivan's career never recovered.
The buildings' facades were constructed not of stone or cement (which would have taken too long and cost too much), but of "staff," a mixture of plaster and jute fiber, painted white. After the fair, fire demolished many of them, and workers dismantled the rest. Only the Palace of Fine Arts, its staff replaced with concrete, still stands, as Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
In this unit, students will have the opportunity to analyze architectural photographs from the fair, observe buildings in their towns for classical and modern influences, evaluate the question argued by Burnham and Sullivan, and create an architectural style of their own.
Lesson Plan
Sullivan's Transportation Building, colorful and original, was relegated to a site away from the white Court of Honor. Despite international recognition -- the Transportation Building alone was awarded a medal by Paris's Union Centrale des Arts Decoratifs -- the American appetite for classical construction had been whetted, and cornices and colonnades began to appear on banks, clubs, and public buildings. The White City was celebrated throughout the country (it inspired Katherine Lee Bates to write, "Thine alabaster cities gleam," in her song America the Beautiful), and Sullivan's career never recovered.
The buildings' facades were constructed not of stone or cement (which would have taken too long and cost too much), but of "staff," a mixture of plaster and jute fiber, painted white. After the fair, fire demolished many of them, and workers dismantled the rest. Only the Palace of Fine Arts, its staff replaced with concrete, still stands, as Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
In this unit, students will have the opportunity to analyze architectural photographs from the fair, observe buildings in their towns for classical and modern influences, evaluate the question argued by Burnham and Sullivan, and create an architectural style of their own.
Lesson Plan
- Have students analyze photos of Court-of-Honor buildings (Machinery Hall and/or the Agriculture Building) and compare them with the Transportation Building, using the Architecture Analysis Worksheet. How do the buildings differ? Which do they prefer?
- Read contemporary writings on the buildings. Do these opinions change their own thoughts? Is it better to honor the past or imagine the future?
- Read excerpt from the 1943 novel The Fountainhead. Stage a debate between the Dean and Roark, to answer Roark's question, "Why?"
- Discuss common building elements such as arches, columns, cornices, balustrades, porticoes, and domes (have students look up definitions if necessary). Ask students to observe the buildings in their town and list the elements they see. When do they think these structures were built? Why was this style chosen? Would they have designed them differently?
- Read the University of Virginia's entry on the City Beautiful Movement. Discuss to what extent students believe city planning can produce civic virtue.
- Give students an opportunity to design their own buildings for the Fair. Explain that the buildings exhibited many different technologies and ideas: Manufacturing, Mines, Fisheries, Horticulture, a Woman's Building. Encourage them to choose a collection or idea they would like to showcase and design a building for it. Will it have historic elements, or be something new? How does the purpose of the building influence its design? How will its design influence the people around it?