Advertisement, 1903 Courtesy, Studebaker National Museum

History

623 S. Wabash Avenue was built in 1895 by Solon S. Beman, architect of the industrial town of Pullman, one of the nineteenth century’s largest, most complex, and globally famous planned industrial communities for the Pullman Palace Car Company. The ten-story 623 S. Wabash building was originally built for the Studebaker Brothers Carriage Company of Fort Wayne, Indiana as its Chicago regional office and warehouse facility. It was later owned by the Brunswick Company, makers of wood furnishings and built-in furniture for libraries, universities and a variety of public commercial and governmental facilities. By the late 19th century Brunswick became specialists in designing such entertainment furnishings as bars, billiards tables, and bowling alleys for drinking establishments nationwide. Subsequent owners are unknown. The building was acquired by Columbia in 1983 and now houses classrooms, academic offices, a computerized newsroom, sciences laboratories, art studios, stage and costume design workshops and two public gallery spaces.

Design Philosophy

Solon S. Beman was, like his teacher, Richard Upjohn, an architect who studied historic architectural styles to better solve the design problems of his time. Unlike his mentor, however, he was interested in and made use of the newest available technologies when he deemed them essential to the solution of the design problem at hand. An architect who worked in a broad range of building types, Beman’s residences and churches are thoroughly demonstrative of historic revival styles, particularly the Gothic and Classical. In his industrial work, however, the style of the building is applied to a practical solution that makes for a tall building with many floors, each having an open floor plan filled with maximum natural light.

The problems to be solved in developing tall commercial buildings were enormous; there was a need for many stories of space, yet historic masonry load bearing structures of great height required thick walls, particularly at their base. This was not satisfactory, in part due to the expense of the materials, and due to the fact that, for building owners, the ground floor retail space represented the most valuable rent per square foot. If a significant percentage of this valuable space were lost to the thickness of the walls, the building would not be nearly as profitable, and the purpose for erecting it would be lost. An additional problem was height; the more stairs a tenant had to climb, the less could be charged in rent. And, especially in Chicago during the years after the Great Fire, the problem of fireproofing a tall building needed to be solved.

Beman followed the lead of another prominent Chicago architect, William LeBaron Jenney, and made his own contributions to the development of the skyscraper, as did Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, and Daniel Burnham and John Root. They found the solution in hanging the entire building from a metal structural skeleton, allowing it to carry all of the weight of the building, isolating it and bringing it to the foundation through the vertical supports. This relieved the walls of any load-bearing function, effectively turning them into screens which kept the weather out, and allowing them to be open in an unprecedented way. Because the frame allowed for thinner, more open walls, the problems presented by thick masonry walls were solved, and buildings became more brilliantly illuminated, more spacious, and therefore more profitable for their owners and their retail tenants. This development is demonstrated very effectively by the façade of the 623 South Wabash Building, where the windows occupy nearly the entire opening of every bay.

The problem of fireproofing was solved by cladding the structural supports in terra cotta, and the floors could be made of the same material to help keep any fire from spreading quickly from floor to floor. Lastly, the problem of height was solved by elevators, which went through a dramatic period of technical advance during the 1880s, particularly with the introduction of electric elevators in 1887. With the exertion of stair-climbing eliminated, not only were tall buildings practical, but the potential rate of income from higher floors was greatly increased.

The former Second Studebaker/Brunswick Building is a Chicago Commercial Style building, characterized by the clear expression of its structural frame, by the lack of thick masonry in imitation of load-bearing walls, particularly at its base, and by windows of historically unprecedented size. Its original use, as an office, final assembly, and display building for the carriages and wagons of the Studebaker Brothers Company of South Bend, Indiana, demanded the open floor plans and large windows only the skyscraper could offer. The use of Gothic Revival terra cotta ornament was seen at the time as appropriate to a modern high-rise building; in the eyes of these designers, the affinities of modern buildings with the Gothic were obvious in that they shared great height, both had predominantly a vertical emphasis in massing and detailing, and both had structural systems that allowed for enormous windows.

Description

The 623 South Wabash Building is a ten story metal frame structure standing in the middle of a block facing Wabash Avenue. It is seven bays wide, having six bays of equal size divided axially by the smaller bay at the center that stands above the entrance. It is currently faced with black granite on its first two floors and above and around its entrance, with red terra cotta that has been painted gray on its third through ninth floors, and with similarly painted brick on its tenth floor and parapet. Its side and rear walls are common brick.

The former Second Studebaker/Brunswick Building is a Chicago Commercial Style building, characterized by the clear expression of its structural frame, by the lack of thick masonry in imitation of load-bearing walls, particularly at its base, and by windows of historically unprecedented size that almost completely fill the openings of the structural bays. Carl Condit celebrated the openness of the façade as a prime example of the aesthetic transformation of design through the use of a metal structural frame: “The Chicago windows and the delicately articulated wall provide the fullest exploitation of steel framing that the Chicago School could show at the time” (Condit, Carl. The Chicago School of Architecture, p. 145.)

The terra cotta cladding on the façade is limited to the vertical piers, and carries Gothic Revival style details. These designs reach their culmination by forming foliate ornaments above and around the ninth floor windows. The spandrels above the third through eighth floors are cast iron and also carry details that are meant to evoke the Gothic style. Unfortunately, the terra cotta and iron Gothic Revival details on the façade are badly damaged in many places. Lost material has been replaced with brick and concrete, and the entire façade has been painted to disguise the loss of the original materials and unify the look of the replacement materials.

Campus Preservation Plan

• Volume X: 623 South Wabash Avenue [90 pages]
• View entire plan