Railway Exchange Building
- Architect
- D. H. Burnham & Company
- Style
- Chicago School
- City
- Chicago, IL
- Collection
- the chicago school
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The Railway Exchange Building, also known as the Santa Fe Building, is a 17-story office tower at 224 South Michigan Avenue, designed by Frederick P. Dinkelberg of D. H. Burnham & Company and opened in 1904 in the Chicago style. Daniel Burnham, the firm's principal and the building's main stockholder, required that the formal entrance be placed on Jackson Boulevard, then a more prestigious street than Michigan Avenue, and moved his own offices to the fourteenth floor.
the building
Rooftop signage. The building is topped by a large 'Motorola' sign, visible across Grant Park and from Lake Michigan, making it one of the most recognizable rooftops on the Michigan Avenue skyline.
Porthole windows and lightwell. The cornice is lined with round, porthole-like windows, and the building's center holds a lightwell that was covered over with a skylight in the 1980s.
the style
Dinkelberg designed the building in the Chicago School manner Burnham's firm helped define nationally, built around a clear structural grid rather than applied historical ornament.
More on Chicago Schoolthe architect
Frederick P. Dinkelberg designed the Railway Exchange Building while working for D. H. Burnham & Company; he was also the associate designer, under Daniel Burnham, of the Flatiron Building in New York City.
significance
The Railway Exchange Building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places within the Historic Michigan Boulevard District, and Burnham family ownership of the building continued for years after the firm made it its own headquarters in 1904.
nearby
- Symphony Center
- Chapin and Gore Building
- Art Institute of Chicago
- 333 South Wabash
- McClurg Building
- Chicago Club