Architecture
The building was commissioned in 1885 by legendary merchant Marshall Field. H.H. Richardson is renowned for his designs in the Romanesque revival style, to which he has given the name Richardsonian Romanesque. The Marshall Field Store demonstrates his ability to adapt this style to a modern commercial premises. The building is supported by an interior framing of wood and iron, and is clad in a rusticated exterior of stonework giving the appearance of an Italian Romanesque palazzo. The exterior design, in which the windows are contained by massive Romanesque arches, gives the impression of having four levels, but in fact there are seven floors and a sunken basement. The large arches allow for thinner structural members between them and greater window space than if the windows were set into the solid masonry.
Marshall Field and Company closed the building in 1930 after the opening of the Merchandise Mart, then the world's largest building, which consolidated all company wholesale business under a single roof. The wholesale store was torn down shortly thereafter.
Read more about this topic: Marshall Field's Wholesale Store
Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.”
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—Roy Lichtenstein (b. 1923)