Marquette Building
- Architect
- Holabird and Roche
- Year
- 1895
- Style
- Chicago School
- City
- Chicago, IL
- Collection
- the chicago school
The Marquette Building went up in 1895 at 140 South Dearborn Street, built by the George A. Fuller Company to designs by Holabird & Roche. Its steel frame let architects treat the terra-cotta exterior as a skin rather than a load-bearing wall, and it is counted among the finest surviving examples of the Chicago School that pioneered the skyscraper. The building pairs cutting-edge structure with an ornate lobby, and remains owned today by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
the building
Terra-cotta skin. The Marquette Building was originally clad in a reddish terra cotta that decades of Loop soot had blackened before restoration returned it closer to its original color, a material the Chicago School favored because the steel frame beneath carried the real structural load.
The ornate lobby. Interior finishes match the ambition of the frame: the lobby's ornate detailing has been singled out for praise alongside the building's structural engineering, pairing cutting-edge steel construction with decorative interior craft.
the style
The Marquette Building is considered one of the best examples of Chicago School architecture, the movement defined by exposing the logic of the steel frame on the exterior rather than disguising it, letting the terra-cotta cladding read as a light curtain rather than a load-bearing wall.
More on Chicago Schoolthe architect
Holabird & Roche were among the defining firms of the Chicago School, and the Marquette Building, built for the George A. Fuller Company, stands as one of their key early steel-frame skyscrapers, contributing to the firm's reputation for pioneering the commercial tall-building type in Chicago.
significance
The Marquette Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 17, 1973, designated a Chicago Landmark on June 9, 1975, and named a National Historic Landmark on January 7, 1976. Its preservation has been a major focus of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, and the MacArthur Foundation, its current owner, completed an extensive multi-year restoration.
nearby
- Chicago Federal Building
- Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse
- Field Building
- Kluczynski Federal Building
- Century Building
- Inland Steel Building