Auditorium Building, Roosevelt University

The Auditorium Building is the result of collaboration between civic leaders who envisioned a building that might make opera and the arts accessible to all. This building helped to bring fine arts to the people of Chicago and establish the city as a center for “democratic” cultural amenities. In order to subsidize the cost of a theater, developer Ferdinand Wythe Peck pursued a novel idea at the time: mixing income-generating and artistic uses under one roof. This originally included a luxury hotel and offices. Peck commissioned Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan to design the building, which was the largest, tallest, heaviest, and priciest of its time when completed in 1889. Sullivan emphasized both massing and the rhythm of repetitive window patterns, using load-bearing stone walls on the perimeter of various textures and colors. Influenced by H.H. Richardson’s Marshall Field Wholesale Store, Sullivan included the use of monochromatic rusticated stone. The interior spaces, which today encompass Roosevelt University academic spaces and the theater, provided an outlet for Sullivan's experiments with organic ornamentation. The Auditorium Building was nearly demolished after falling into disrepair in the 1940s and 50s. Roosevelt University stepped in to acquire the building, and in 1967, Harry Weese meticulously restored it in its entirety.