Fisher Building
- Architect
- D.H. Burnham & Co. 1907:side add. Peter Weber
- Year
- 1896
- Style
- Chicago School
- City
- Chicago, IL
- Collection
- the chicago school
The Fisher Building is a 20-story, 275-foot neo-Gothic skyscraper that paper magnate Lucius Fisher commissioned from D.H. Burnham & Company, completed in 1896 and designed by Charles B. Atwood. A 1907 addition by Peter J. Weber, a former Burnham employee, raised it from 18 to 20 stories. At completion it was one of only two Chicago buildings 18 stories or taller, and today it's the oldest 18-story building in the city still standing — its onetime rival, the Masonic Temple, was demolished in 1939.
the building
Fish-themed terra cotta. The facade is carved with terra-cotta fish, crabs, eagles, dragons, and other mythical creatures — an ornamental pun on the name of the building's owner, Lucius Fisher, worked into the cladding of an otherwise straightforward steel-frame office tower.
An addition that outgrew its start. Peter J. Weber, who had previously worked for the Burnham firm, designed the 1907 northern addition that pushed the building from 18 to 20 stories, extending a structure already unusual for its height at the time it was built.
the style
The Fisher Building's neo-Gothic detailing — most visible in its aquatic and mythical terra-cotta ornament — dresses a steel-frame Chicago School skyscraper in historicist costume, a common strategy of the era for softening the raw novelty of the tall office building.
More on Chicago Schoolthe architect
D.H. Burnham & Company, with Charles B. Atwood as the original designer, was one of the most prolific and influential firms in turn-of-the-century Chicago architecture. Peter J. Weber, a former Burnham employee, later designed the building's 1907 addition independently.
significance
The Fisher Building is a Chicago Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It's the oldest 18-story building in Chicago that hasn't been demolished, having outlasted its taller contemporary, the Masonic Temple, which came down in 1939.
nearby
- Old Colony Building
- Monadnock Building
- Harold Washington Library
- Manhattan Building
- Metropolitan Correctional Center Chicago building
- Kluczynski Federal Building