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Carbon and Carbide Building, Chicago, Illinois, Perspective Sketch

A detailed sketch in black of a building with a tall tower surrounded by shorter structures more loosely defined.

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  • A detailed sketch in black of a building with a tall tower surrounded by shorter structures more loosely defined.

Date:

1927–28

Artist:

Burnham Brothers (American, 1924-1929)
Daniel Hudson Burnham, Jr. (American, 1886-1961)
Hubert Burnham (American, 1882-1968)

About this artwork

Designed by the sons of Daniel H. Burnham, the leading commercial architect in Chicago, the Art Deco Carbide and Carbon Building represented a stylistic departure from office buildings in the Neoclassical style, which had dominated the city since the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The Burnham brothers clad the tower in polished granite and dark-green and gold terracotta, in keeping with the bold, often exotic materials used in Art Deco design in the 1920s and 1930s. This high decorative quality was intended to set the office building apart from its neighbors, to serve, in the words of the company, as a “distinctive and perpetual advertisement” for the building’s occupants. The low angle of this perspective sketch emphasizes the tower’s soaring height, as it looms over pedestrians and cars on Michigan Avenue.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Architecture and Design

Artist

Burnham Brothers, Architects (Architect)

Title

Carbon and Carbide Building, Chicago, Illinois, Perspective Sketch

Place

Michigan Avenue, 230 North (Building address)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1927–1928

Medium

Graphite on tracing paper

Dimensions

93.3 × 59.8 cm (36 3/4 × 23 9/16 in.)

Credit Line

Purchased with funds provided by the Friends of the Library and the Architecture Society (proceeds of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Burnham Library Benefit)

Reference Number

1987.336

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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