Synopses & Reviews
The City of Big Shoulders has always been our most quintessentially American—and world-class—architectural metropolis. In the wake of the Great Fire of 1871, a great building boom—still the largest in the history of the nation—introduced the first modern skyscrapers to the Chicago skyline and began what would become a legacy of diverse, influential, and iconoclastic contributions to the citys built environment. Though this trend continued well into the twentieth century, sour city finances and unnecessary acts of demolishment left many previous cultural attractions abandoned and then destroyed.
Lost Chicago explores the architectural and cultural history of this great American city, a city whose architectural heritage was recklessly squandered during the second half of the twentieth century. David Garrard Lowes crisp, lively prose and over 270 rare photographs and prints, illuminate the decades when Gustavus Swift and Philip D. Armour ruled the greatest stockyards in the world; when industrialists and entrepreneurs such as Cyrus McCormick, Potter Palmer, George Pullman, and Marshall Field made Prairie Avenue and State Street the rivals of New York Citys Fifth Avenue; and when Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, and Frank Lloyd Wright were designing buildings of incomparable excellence. Here are the mansions and grand hotels, the office buildings that met technical perfection (including the first skyscraper), and the stores, trains, movie palaces, parks, and racetracks that thrilled residents and tourists alike before falling victim to the wrecking ball of progress.
“Lost Chicago is more than just another coffee table gift, more than merely a history of the citys architecture; it is a history of the whole city as a cultural creation.”—New York Times Book Review
Review
"Lowe's book excels on its visual ground: page after page of gilded hotels, lovely parks, grand mansions and smashing restaurants, all vanished. . . . But there is more here than simple nostalgia, reinforced by mouth-watering photographs. There is also the real story of Chicago architecture, very different from the one we have been fed in textbooks and college survey courses."—Newsweek New York Times Book Review
Review
“
Lost Chicago is more than just another coffee table gift, more than merely a history of the citys architecture; it is a history of the whole city as a cultural creation.”
Mark Smith
Review
“
Lost Chicago is more than just another coffee table gift, more than merely a history of the citys architecture; it is a history of the whole city as a cultural creation.”
New York Times Book Review -- Mary Ann Newman - The Catalan Center at New York University
Synopsis
The City of Big Shoulders has always been our most quintessentially American--and world-class--architectural metropolis. In the wake of the Great Fire of 1871, a great building boom--still the largest in the history of the nation--introduced the first modern skyscrapers to the Chicago skyline and began what would become a legacy of diverse, influential, and iconoclastic contributions to the city's built environment. Though this trend continued well into the twentieth century, sour city finances and unnecessary acts of demolishment left many previous cultural attractions abandoned and then destroyed.
Lost Chicago explores the architectural and cultural history of this great American city, a city whose architectural heritage was recklessly squandered during the second half of the twentieth century. David Garrard Lowe's crisp, lively prose and over 270 rare photographs and prints, illuminate the decades when Gustavus Swift and Philip D. Armour ruled the greatest stockyards in the world; when industrialists and entrepreneurs such as Cyrus McCormick, Potter Palmer, George Pullman, and Marshall Field made Prairie Avenue and State Street the rivals of New York City's Fifth Avenue; and when Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, and Frank Lloyd Wright were designing buildings of incomparable excellence. Here are the mansions and grand hotels, the office buildings that met technical perfection (including the first skyscraper), and the stores, trains, movie palaces, parks, and racetracks that thrilled residents and tourists alike before falling victim to the wrecking ball of progress.
"Lost Chicago is more than just another coffee table gift, more than merely a history of the city's architecture; it is a history of the whole city as a cultural creation."--New York Times Book Review
About the Author
David Garrard Lowe is a lecturer, cultural historian, and the president of the Beaux Arts Alliance in New York City. He is the author of Stanford Whites New York, Beaux Arts New York, Art Deco New York, and Chicago Interiors.
Table of Contents
Preface to the 2010 Edition
Preface to the first edition
I The Island
Building for a City
II Time of the Temple
Residences
Great Houses
Small Houses
Apartments
III The Rails Reach Out
The Age of the Iron Horse
The Stations
The Trains
The Kingdom of Pullman
IV Queen of the Lakes
The Living City
Bunting and Arches
Places of Worship
Pleasures of Parks
Streets for People
V The Great Fire
A City in Ruins
VI A Phoenix Rising
Grand Hotels
VII An Architecture for a Democracy
American Metropolis
Monuments of Commerce
The Auditorium
The Stock Exchange
Skyscrapers
VIII Dreams of Empire
The Fairs
The Columbian Exposition 1893
A Century of Progress 1933
IX Where is Athens Now?
Places of Entertainment
Theaters
Dining and Dancing
Movie PalacesX Bad Times, Good Times