Biographical Summary
John Augur Holabird was born in 1920 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of architect John A. Holabird and grandson of William Holabird, founder of the firm Holabird and Roche (later Holabird and Root). He studied architecture at Harvard University where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1942 and his master's degree in 1948. His studies were interrupted by military service in the United States Army Corps of Engineers from 1942 until 1945. After graduating in 1948 Holabird went to work in his family's architectural firm, Holabird and Root, but left after one year to teach at Francis W. Parker School in Chicago (1949-54) and then at Bennington College in Vermont (1954). He returned to Holabird and Root in 1955 and remained there until he retired in 1987. Holabird's architectural work included the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, the Ravinia Pavilion and Restaurant in Highland Park, Illinois, and the Intramural Physical Education building at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana. Holabird has served on many advisory boards, including the Ragdale Foundation and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. He has also been a trustee of the Ravinia Festival Association, the Francis W. Parker School, and the Illinois Institute of Technology. He was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 1974.

Interview Highlights
Holabird speaks about his family and early years; Saturdays at the Tavern Club; the office of Holabird and Root; at the Century of Progress International Exhibition; the Depression; studying architecture at Harvard University; his interest in stage design; teaching; Helmuth Bartsch; clients; cultural and civic activities; the Holabird and Root collection at the Chicago Historical Society.

Intramural Physical Education Building at University of Illinois; Champaign/Urbana, 1971. Photo courtesy of Holabird & Root.

Long Line Switching Building for Illinois Bell; Chicago, 1972. Photo courtesy of Holabird & Root.

Interview Excerpt:
"My grandfather William [Holabird] came to Chicago in 1877, six years after the fire, worked part-time for the quartermaster and then at night in the office of William LeBaron Jenney, who had more work than he could do. [Jenney] was really the first great architect in Chicago, and he had in his office, at one time or another, my grandfather and [Daniel] Burnham and [Martin] Roche, and I think [Louis] Sullivan worked for Jenney, too. He must have been a great teacher. There was enough work, so all these bright young men, as soon as they'd had a couple of years, started their own offices. Grandfather did in 1880. He and Ossian Simonds, who was a landscape man, they did houses on the South Side and in Evanston....The next year Martin Roche came from Jenney, and he and Grandfather were both architects. Ossian Simonds resigned and became a great landscape architect. They worked on Graceland Cemetery. Simonds did the landscape work, and Holabird & Roche did the main building there and some of the other stuff. Anyway, Grandfather was an engineer from West Point, and Roche was a tiny little Irish man. I don't know if [Roche] went to college or anything, but he drew like an angel and they made a good pair: Roche was the designer and Grandfather, who was a designer, too, was also a businessman." (p. 3)

Other Resources at The Art Institute of Chicago
Architectural drawings and travel sketches may be consulted by appointment in the Department of Architecture. Additional material related to the firm Holabird & Root is collected in the Ryerson & Burnham Archives. See the oral histories of colleagues Carter Manny, Paul McCurry, Ambrose Richardson, and A. James Speyer.

See also the oral histories of other second-generation architects in Chicago: Arthur Dubin, Sidney Epstein, Ernest A. Grunsfeld, Lawrence Perkins, and Bertram Weber.

Funding for this oral history was provided by Harold Schiff, of Schal Associates.

About the Chicago Architects Oral History Project

Department of Architecture • Ryerson & Burnham Archives

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Ryerson & Burnham Archives, Chicago Architects Oral History Project