Part 2 | Wright Unveils Plans For A Fabulous Mile-High Building
Part 2 | An Evening of Wright
THE PRESS CONFERENCE
The advertised venue for the unveiling of The Illinois, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mile-High Skyscraper could have held over 2,500 guests. It would have been a phenomenal spectacle unlike ever done before in the world of Architecture. Chicagos Orchestra Hall was one of only a few locations in the City capable of hosting the immense audience Wright envisioned for his grand event.
Further evaluation of other possible Chicago venues included the Auditorium Building and Aragon Ballroom, both designed by Wrights mentor Louis Sullivan. Either would’ve been an awkward selection for Wrights epoch making moment. The third option, the Civic Opera House, was Americas largest at the time, and may have been even too advantageous for Wrights ego.
Archives of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association
Nevertheless, Orchestra Hall is never mentioned again outside of the early documents. Images and records clearly report the evening taking place at the Sherman House Hotel Assembly Room and further analysis has revealed little other documentation connects Wrights ambitious plan of filling the Orchestra hall to any real world interest.
Whether ticket sales didn’t meet expectations, or for reasons otherwise unknown, the venue for the event was changed to a modest room in a considerably less impressive location.
The Illinois Press Conference. Sherman House Hotel Assembly Room. Oct. 16, 1956,
Regardless of place, the epoch making evening forged ahead. Staged with bold black panels along the main wall, the Assembly Room at Sherman House was furnished with custom Wrightian ottomans along with lengthy plywood tables.
Throughout the space notable projects were put on display as part of the Sixty Years of Living Architecture exhibition. The works showcased the vast and capable work of the accomplished architect while at the same time assembling a narrative culminating with the Wrights design for Broadacre City, and of course The Illinois, the Mile-High tower at the centre of Wrights grand plan.
Included in the exhibit was a scale model of The Price Tower, (Wrights only built skyscraper project aside from much smaller Johnson Research Tower in Wisconsin) prominently displayed along with detailed drawings of the towers vertical organization and accompanying book, The Story of the Tower, The Tree That Escaped the Crowded Forest (book link).
Other items on display included The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Model — itself a piece of modern art, and wood models of the Lloyd Lewis House, Affleck House, Herbert Johnson House, and Monona Terrace.
Oversized photographs of Fallingwater and Taliesin West were also prominently featured as well as hand renderings of the Guggenheim and Robert Llewellyn Wright House.
Price Tower Scale Model.
The body of work was impressive by any architects standards. Each structure a masterpiece. However the focus of the assembly room wasn’t concerned with those works, it was wholly concentrated on a single giant panel placed at the rear of the room.
Seating was placed in formation around the panel, stage lamps and microphones were positioned facing the imposing display, and curious attendees were gathering for the main show.
Frank Lloyd Wright speaks on The Mile-High Building.
On Tuesday October 16, 1956, the 89-year-old architect would spend the next few hours working through hand rendered illustrations, architectural drawings and design details of the Mile-High Building dubbed ‘The Illinois’.
Drawings and sketches, one of which, at 1/16 inch scale, was more than 25 feet tall and featured comprehensive annotations and curious depictions of the Great Pyramids and the Eiffel Tower.
Throughout the extensive presentation, Wright detailed everything from the structural logic of the building to the interior programming, its location on the shore of Lake Michigan to how people and vehicles would move to and through the building, and even how the elevators would function using atomic energy, all of this before guests were allowed to even ask a single question.
The "eighth wonder of the world" was to be erected of steel and glass, with floors extending outward from a central core like branches from a tree trunk. The architect insisted the structure was "practical and expedient."
A closer examination in the way the these drawings communicate Wrights concept, MOMA curator Barry Bergdoll helps us understand how Wright was ‘selling’ his building to his audience by revealing annotations included by Wright.
Intriguing in-scriptures embedded in the design include a list of people who Wright admired, together with other names whom would be essential to its construction. All these Wright deemed essential in ensuring the acceptance of his proposal to the curious, albeit cautious crowd.
By framing the proposal alongside other grand moments in architectural and structural history, Bergdoll suggests that Wright resolved himself, and his career having the Mile-High being the culmination of all previous advancements. At their core, the drawings are a timeline of the built vertical landscape, a “manifesto about architecture” states Bergdoll.
With an audience of government representatives, city agencies, news reporters, architects, students and curious public citizens — Wright was selling the future of architecture to the people of Chicago. He was bestowing his vision for humanity and the future of city planning for America, and if anybody could sell it, it was Frank Lloyd Wright.
Credits & Sources
The Wright Library. Sixty Years of Living Architecture: The Work of Frank Lloyd Wright (1951-1956). http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Books/sixty.htm#1956Insert
The Capital Times. Page 1. Tuesday October 16th, 1956.
Daily World. Page 26. September 21st, 1956.
MOMA. Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive. Jun 12–Oct 1, 2017 https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1660
Milestones and Memoranda on the Work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Vol. 32, No. 4 (Nov., 1956), pp. 361-368
Sixty years of living architecture : the work of Frank Lloyd Wright by Wright, Frank Lloyd, 1867-1959. https://archive.org/details/sixtyyear00wrig/mode/2up
Building Seagram. by Phyllis Lambert.