Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root
John Wellborn Root was born in Lumpkin, Georgia on January 10, 1850. After a brief life as both a successful architect and writer, he died in Chicago Illinois on January 15, 1891. Root first went to school in Atlanta, Georgia, then near Liverpool in England at Clare Mount School. He graduated in 1869 from New York University where he was educated as a civil engineer. At Renwick & Sands, an architectural firm in New York, Root was apprenticed for a year, then worked for another New York based architectural firm, John Butler Snook, who was then building the vast Grand Central Station for Cornelius Vanderbilt (Zanten, "Root" 137). Following the disastrous fire of 1871, Root moved to Chicago in January 1872 to become a potential partner and head draughtsman with Peter Bonnett Wight who had formed a partnership with William H. Drake and Asher Carter. Soon after, Daniel Burnham entered Wight's office. "It was in Mr. Wight's office," records Mr. Burnham, "that I first became acquainted with John Wellborn Root, with whom I at once formed an acquaintance which lasted until the end of his life" (Moore, 17). Burnham and Root set up Burnham and Root in 1873, with Root as the designer and Burnham the businessman
Burnham's reputable New England family moved to Chicago in 1854. His father's ambition for his son sent young Burnham for tutoring and to a preparatory school in Waltham, Massachusetts. He would fail the entrance examinations for both Harvard University and Yale University prior to returning to Chicago in 1867 where his father briefly got him a job in the office of William Le Baron Jenney, an engineer and architect. After two unrewarding years in the West trying his hand at silver speculation and gold prospecting, he worked for other Chicago based architects. In 1872 his father offered him to Peter Bonnett Wight of Carter, Drake & Wight (Zanten, "Burnham" 273). It was at Carter, Drake & Wight that Burnham met chief draughtsman Root. In 1873 they set up their own firm of Burnham and Root. Despite being so unlike in all their characteristics, the two men became firmly attached to one another (Moore, 17). The Monadnock Building is in much contrary to the Rookery Building. The Jackson Street profile, derived from the papyrus stem and bud, is close in spirit to that Egyptian type known as the bell-shaped papyrus column (Hoffmann, 276). Besides the Monadnock Building possessing a bell-shaped cornice, the shape is also frequent in the profile of the projecting bays. "In the approach to the Dearborn or Federal Street fronts, the pedestrian discovers the projecting bays in close file, effecting an analogy to a field of ranked papyrus stalks" (figure 8) (Hoffmann, 276). and organizer (Zanten, "Root" 137). Although Root was nearly four years younger than Burnham, he was better trained in his profession (Moore, 17). Starting as a widespread financial crisis, the economic depression of 1873 made it a tricky time to begin a practice, but advantageous connections, including Burnham's 1876 marriage to Margaret Sherman, the daughter of John B. Sherman, lead to a series of important domestic commissions for the firm, starting with a house for Sherman (Zanten, "Root" 137). "The alliance of Root & Burnham represented one of the first important confrontations of the older, more traditional, more fully rounded architectural craftsman with the newer architectural entrepreneur and business executive" (Hines, "Burnham of Chicago" 24). Burnham and Root were innovators in the design and construction of the skyscraper. After the Phoenix Building was demolished in 1959, the Rookery and Monadnock buildings became the only surviving Burnham and Root commercial buildings in Chicago (Slaton, 80). Both buildings are National Historic Landmarks. Like the majority of cutting edge artists in the late nineteenth century, Burnham and Root saw the artistic importance of Charles Darwin's important theories of natural evolution. Long before Frank Lloyd Wright would assert to have discovered "organic architecture," Root urged that architects "continually return to nature and nature's methods..." and stressed that "the greatest works of great artists must be studied with nature for a handbook" (Hines, "Burnham of Chicago" 26). Root believed that nature taught him, that "no reason is good, no answer worth giving that does not spring from the present question and is not inherently connected with it" (Hines, "Burnham of Chicago" 26). The Rookery Building was located at the most important corner in Chicago's financial district, on the southeast corner of La Salle and Adams streets. It needed to be visually pleasing to pedestrians and patron alike. To make the structure visually appealing, Root used inviting "relief work in the terra-cotta surfaces and the varying textures of the granite and brickwork" (figure 2) (Slaton, 83). The attractive ornaments extended from the parapets to the pedestrian's eye level. Originally lighted by bronze fixtures, terra-cotta panels carried the street names at the corners of the buildings (Slaton, 83). Burnham and Root's designs have been distinguished as an evolution of a distinct building type, culminating
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Approximate Word count = 4509
Approximate Pages = 18 (250 words per page double spaced)
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