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Sears, Roebuck and Company Building, Scheme with Paraboloid Roof, Aerial Perspective View

A work made of graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper.

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  • A work made of graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper.

Date:

1961

Artist:

Richard Yoshijiro Mine
American, born Japan, 1894–1981

About this artwork

Japanese-born architect Richard Mine immigrated to the United States after World War I and completed a masters in architecture at the University of Illinois in 1921. Mine is best known for his gothic-inspired entry to the seminal 1922 competition for the design of the Chicago Tribune Tower, for which he received an honorable mention. He went on to work for a number of companies in the Chicago region such as such as General Motors, Kraft Foods, and the architecture firm Holabird, Root and Burgee. In this remarkable drawing of a design for a building for Sears, Roebuck and Company, Mine illustrates the great architectural interest in the 1950s and 60s for exploring the expressive qualities of concrete. Like similar shell structures by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, and Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, this building’s roof is created with intersecting hyperbolic paraboloid geometries, a high-tech design that suggests an underlying interest in biomorphic form and structure.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Architecture and Design

Artist

Richard Yoshijiro Mine (Architect)

Title

Sears, Roebuck and Company Building, Scheme with Paraboloid Roof, Aerial Perspective View

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

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.

1961

Medium

Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper

Dimensions

56 × 72.7 cm (22 1/16 × 28 5/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Richard Yoshijiro Mine

Reference Number

1989.94

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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