History

33 East Congress Building was built in 1925-26 by noted Chicago architect, Alfred S. Alschuler, who designed the 1927 Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The seven-story brick and terra cotta “Congress-Wabash Building” was commissioned by Ferdinand W. Peck, Jr., a real estate developer, and initially housed a bank, offices, and recreation rooms that included dozens of pool tables. A national billiards championship was held here in 1938. By the 1940s, the building was known by the name of its major tenant, the Congress Bank. In the 1980s it became the home of MacCormac College. Colombia College leased space in the building starting in 1997 and purchased the structure in 1999. It currently houses administrative offices, classroom space and the college’s radio station.

Design Philosophy

The Congress-Wabash Building was designed in a neoclassical style that continued the 19th century tradition of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the City Beautiful Movement. These associations are reinforced by its horizontal proportions, the articulation of its exterior with brick pilasters, its terra cotta classical detailing, and cornice. The style, quality of materials, and scale of the Congress-Wabash Building make it a minor contributor to the City Beautiful movement and the ideal of civic conscientiousness exemplified by the famous 1909 Plan of Chicago by architect Daniel Burnham.

Description

The former Congress Bank Building is a seven story reinforced concrete frame structure. On its principal facades, facing Congress Parkway and Wabash Street, it is faced with terra cotta in an off-white faux marble glaze on its first two floors, and yellow brick with terra cotta detailing on its third through seventh floors. It is crowned by a cornice that appears to be pressed metal. The other two elevations are faced with common brick.

Overall, it would be difficult to see the building as having a distinct style. The classical revival details on the façade are called “Italian Renaissance” in the only published reference to this building, an advertisement in the Chicago Central Business and Office Building Directory for 1929. This attribution owes its inspiration to the modest scale of the ornament, which is reminiscent of that found on Northern Italian buildings of the 1400s. Terra cotta trim is used for window sills on the upper floors, and the piers between every pair of windows have simplified classical capitals in terra cotta under a pressed metal cornice.

Campus Preservation Plan

• Volume IV: 33 East Congress Parkway [99 pages]
• View entire plan