Henry Ives Cobb's Chicago
Architecture, Institutions, and the Making of a Modern Metropolis
When championing the commercial buildings and homes that made the Windy City famous, one can't help but mention the brilliant names of their architects – Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright, among others. But few people are aware of Henry Ives Cobb (1859-1931), the man responsible for an extraordinarily rich chapter in the city's turn-of-the-century building boom, and fewer still realize Cobb's lasting importance as a designer of the private and public institutions that continue to enrich Chicago's exceptional architectural heritage.
Henry Ives Cobb's Chicago is the first book about this distinguished architect and the magnificent buildings he created, including the Newberry Library, the Chicago Historical Society, the Chicago Athletic Association, the Fisheries Building for the 1893 World's Fair, and the Chicago Federal Building. Cobb filled a huge institutional void with his inventive Romanesque and Gothic buildings – something that the other architect-giants, occupied largely with residential and commercial work, did not do. Edward W. Wolner argues that these constructions and the enterprises they housed – including the first buildings and master plan for the University of Chicago – signaled that the city had come of age, that its leaders were finally pursuing the highest ambitions in the realms of culture and intellect.
Assembling a cast of colorful characters from a free-wheeling age gone by, and including over 140 images of Cobb's most creative buildings, Henry Ives Cobb's Chicago is a rare achievement: a dynamic portrait of an architect whose institutional designs decisively changed the city's identity during its most critical phase of development.
Reviews
"In this richly documented and broadly contextualized study, Edward Wolner reasserts the centrality of a productive and influential Chicago architect. In so doing he not only establishes Henry Ives Cobb as a powerful force in this city's cultural life, he reconstructs, with intelligence and imagination, the city as a whole in what may have been its most heroic era" – Neil Harris, University of Chicago
"This is one of the best books on a single architect that I have ever read. Edward W. Wolner traces Henry Ives Cobb's career from his earliest training to his final years with carefully documented scholarship, originality, and exquisite architectural descriptions. Remarkably, when Wolner looks at the history of architecture thought the lens of Cobb's life, he sees connections other scholars have failed to notice, or finds new meanings in American building art. The book will appeal not only to those interested in architecture, American history, and urbanism, but to general interest readers alike. As I read it I asked myself often, 'How have we gotten along for so long without this book?'" – Sally A. Kitt-Chappell, DePaul University
"Edward Wolner has given new life to the historical study of an individual architect. His book is filed with information and insights, not only about a figure whose achievements have been for too long ignored, but also about the practice of architecture and the culture of Chicago. Engagingly written and beautifully illustrated, 'Henry Ives Cobb's Chicago' is a model monograph and essential reading for those interested in how the modern city was shaped" – Richard Longstreth, George Washington University
