In 1927, John A. Holabird (1854-1923) and John W. Root, Jr. took over and remade one of Chicago’s oldest and most venerated architectural firms. Known previously as Holabird and Roche, the firm had been one of the pioneers of the Chicago Commercial Style of skyscrapers during the years between 1885 and 1910. Under the direction of the son of one of the firm’s founders and the son of Daniel Burnham’s partner, the renamed Holabird & Root successfully applied the design vocabulary they learned at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the early 1920s, the style later called Art Deco, to the skyscrapers they built in Chicago. Holabird & Root would be responsible for the most prominent Art Deco buildings in the city: the 333 North Michigan Avenue Building of 1928 (CL); the Chicago Motor Club of 1928; the Palmolive Building of 1929 (CL); and the Board of Trade Building of 1930 (CL, NR). The firm would help plan Chicago’s 1933 Century of Progress world’s fair, and John Holabird would be influential in recruiting Mies van der Rohe to direct the Illinois Institute of Technology School of Architecture.

More Information

Chicago Landmarks: Holabird & Roche/Root
http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/Architects/Holabird.html

Encyclopedia of Chicago: Holabird and Root
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2704.html

Grove Art Online (Restricted to Columbia Users)
http://emils.lib.colum.edu:2048/login?url=http://www.groveart.com