Speaking Event at the Union League Club

The talk is titled, “The Cultural Relevance of Private Club Architecture” and is happening Monday, March 18th, 6pm-7pm. Guest list is limited and you cannot wear jeans! If you would like to join us, please RSVP the names and email addresses of you and your guests and one contact phone number to info@chicagodetours.com to get access to this private club. (Don’t worry I won’t do anything with your info–we just need it all in case anything comes up. You know, blizzards happen around here.)

Some of the historical and architectural information I’ll present comes from my academic research. I took a class on Skyscrapers for my Masters program at the University of Chicago. During it, I went sleuthing around the Union League Club’s archives and had a lot of geeky historic fun. They have an incredible collection of materials relevant to both the club’s history and Chicago as a whole (p.s. if you want to visit the Archives, contact the very helpful Anita at amechler@ulcc.org). And of all things, the archivist and I explored the club basement and discovered some completely forgotten historic blueprints of the architecture, pictured above.

Architecture of the Union League Club

This skyscraper was built by the Union League Club in 1926 with Chicago architecture firm Jenney, Mundie & Jensen. You may be familiar with their iddy-biddy three-window-wide Lakeview Building on Michigan Avenue, across from the north end of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The map of the Union League Club from 1939 pictured here shows it’s architectural layout as a cross-section. Yes, those are my fingers. Here you can see that this was a mixed-use building. People think that mixed-use approaches to architecture are something new. But in cities, especially in the early 1900s, multiple services and varied spatial divisions were requirements. After all, how would you fill up all the space in a skyscraper. And by the way, do you see there’s even an ice cream room in this picture It’s long gone. Why would anyone in their right mind have gotten rid of the ice cream room I’ll have answers on some fun questions, as well as the nitty gritty of architectural history, at the discussion.

We’ll dig in to the background of this 22-story building. I’ll also cover how the architecture of the private club building differs from other examples of downtown architecture. The talk will be about 40 minutes long, and we’ll have time for Q & A. We’re sharing this with our Chicago Detours community because I say the more the merrier–just remember to RSVP if you’d like to join us for this Architectural Presentation, “The Cultural Relevance of Private Club Architecture.”

— Amanda Scotese, Chicago Detours Executive Director

A Look From the Gilded Age

From the outside, the architecture of private club buildings in Chicago is very different from the rest of downtown. Most extant private club buildings in Chicago were built in the early 1900’s. That was the heyday of the “Commercial Style,” aka the “Chicago School,” which we discuss on our downtown architecture tours.

The very term commercial style belies the purpose of this design. These buildings were built more cheaply than previous masonry structures because of their steel frames. They were taller, meaning that they could have more floors, meaning that they could make more money.

The architecture of private club buildings in Chicago did not exactly follow the Chicago School, though. They knew that the architecture had to communicate the more personal–and less  commercial–nature of what went on inside these buildings. For this reason, Chicago’s private clubs look unlike the historic office buildings of downtown that would have surrounded them about a century ago. We delve into their unique look on our Architecture of Money and Power Walking Tour of the Financial District.

The University Club

Take the University Club, for example. Originally the primary requirement for membership with this club was a degree from an Ivy League university (or somewhat equivalent college.) Early members particularly had degrees from the University of Michigan, and Northwestern, Yale and Harvard universities. All of these universities had Collegiate Gothic architecture, which was all the rage as new universities sought legitimacy via the historic architecture of Europe. Collegiate Gothic includes features like gargoyles, pointed-arch windows, steep gables, and stone. The architecture of the University Club thus communicates the identity of its members to outsiders and, for members, makes them feel at home with a familiar style of architecture.

Union League Club of Chicago

Let’s consider this angle of “home.” These private clubs, like the Standard Club or the Union League Club, were actually a home for many young men first moving to the city in the nineteen teens and twenties. Today these private clubs have hotel rooms, but initially they were actually dorm-style rooms. And also, the club was to be for members a sort of “home away from home,” a place where a man could shrug off some of the formalities of regular business life and relax over a cigar. And so the architecture of the Union League Club is more akin to a house than anything else. Thanks to a cool blog called Designer Slinger, we found that Mundie and Jensen, the architects for the Union League Club, actually modeled its exterior after a house built just a few years before on Astor Street.

Both the house and club (pictured below, on the left) use limestone on the ground floor, and then brick above, but of course here we have a much larger scale. So much about the exterior of the Union League Club evokes a home more than a standard downtown building. With its colonial red brick and limestone facade is a hallmark the Georgian Revival Style. This was common to London townhouses from the 18th-19th century. Essentially, this private club building in Chicago is the mansion on Astor Street stretched vertically.

Also, while most skyscrapers downtown had historically utilized the “Chicago window” or windows with upper and lower sashes, on the Union League building we get muntins, the white grids that you most often find in residential architecture. Today the building stands in a stark, dramatic contrast to the buildings around it, including the Federal Center.

The Chicago Club

Then we can consider the architecture of the Chicago Club, one of the most exclusive of them all. Just glancing at the building you can tell that we are not supposed to see in. It’s thick stone walls create a barrier that expresses the barriers to its membership. The windows are elevated well above the sidewalk. This allows members to see out – but no one can see in. It always intrigues guests on the 1893 World’s Fair Tour.

The Chicago Club did not welcome me to tour the architecture of the building’s interior. But I did get to tour the University Club, the Standard Club, and the Union League Club of Chicago. You’ll just have to stay tuned for Part II for a peek at the architectural interiors.

— Executive Director, Amanda Scotese 

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Hidden Mies van der Rohe

There is also a lesser-known piece of Miesian design in Chicago. His elegant ‘floating’ staircase in the Arts Club building on Ontario Street. While I have studied Mies’ work in Chicago, I had never heard of this design for the Arts Club until I came upon a Blair Kamin article from 1993, which opens with this line: “The setting: The elegantly spare lecture hall of The Arts Club of Chicago, designed by the late Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.”

I’ll have to admit – I had no idea what “floating” meant exactly when I first read about it. This conjures images of the Jetson’s and hovering machines, however the staircase only defies gravity in a more figurative sense. Like many of Mies’ works, the strong aura of originality has faded. His designs have been replicated to no end. On first glance it may not be so striking. But this staircase, which lightly darts from wall to wall, creates a weightless sensation. Very different from the heavy sweeping staircases of the past. It unites not just a lower floor and an upper floor, but elegantly pulls integrates all sides of the space.

Arts Club of Chicago History

The Arts Club of Chicago, one of Chicago’s many upscale private clubs, was founded in 1916. Its founders were lovers of the contemporary and avant garde arts movements. In other words, the hip and powerful hung out there. Members have included architect Helmut Jahn and Chicago icon Studs Terkel. The Club showed art that galleries and the Art Institute were not exhibiting. Before the Museum of Modern Art of New York opened in 1929, the Club was the only exhibitor of European modern art in the country, and the first to show Pablo Picasso as well as many other prominent international artists. Wow.

The Arts Club has had several locations, including the Fine Arts Building and the Wrigley Building. The Arts Club, true to its modernist mission, commissioned Mies to design the interior space of a new building. 109 East Ontario, completed in 1951, has a gallery, restaurant, lounge, and the magnificent staircase.  This is the only time that Mies created an interior for a building not of his own design.

Demolition and Survival

The “elegantly spare” Arts Club building was razed in 1995. A high-rise condo development took its place.  The Arts Club’s new home, designed by architecture firm Vinci/Hamp, opened two years later. Several aspects of the new design pay homage to Mies. They used a similar color palette and materials, integrated furniture from the Mies interiors and, most prominently, preserved Mies’s staircase in the new building at 201 East Ontario. So head to Streeterville to find this hidden work by Mies in Chicago!

The Arts Club of Chicago today has an ever-growing permanent collection and it hosts three to four temporary exhibits per year. You can pop in to view the exhibits and the Mies’ staircase for free, Monday through Friday, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

– Wendy Bright, Tour Guide

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