Prudential (Guaranty) Building - Comparison With The Wainwright Building

Comparison With The Wainwright Building

Comparisons with the firm’s first major success in tall buildings, the Wainwright are instructive insofar as the refinements of the Guaranty are more evident. “Although this building is considered by critics to be the “twin” of the Wainwright Building, the elegance of the underlying steel-frame construction behind the red terra-cotta tiles is more apparent here than in the Wainwright.” (Frei 1992) Unlike its predecessor, the entirety of street facades on the Guaranty are shrouded with the same material- red terracotta. Gone are the heavy corner piers of the Wainwright and in their place a constant rhythm of equal bays echoing the steel frame underneath. The two do share many traits: Simplicity of form, richness of detail. Red color not chaste white of renaissance typical buildings characterizes both buildings. The site for the Guaranty building is smaller than the Wainwright, yet called for an equivalent number of offices, resulting in an additional three stories. (Twombly 1986) Both the Guaranty and the Wainwright occupy corner lots. "The Wainwright may indeed represent the single episode of most aesthetic consequence in the shift from the tall office building in masonry to its skeletal predecessor; yet not only does the masonry tradition persist in the Wainwright, ornament also assumes a traditional, even if exceptionally conspicuous, role in its design." It is an explainable transition piece. The Guaranty Building is a radical departure however from the masonry prototype. Ornament and "cladding" cover the surface of the Guaranty’s steel frame, a thin covering over a flexible skeleton. (de Wit 1986) Critical reception of the Guaranty Building was quite strong upon its opening. The critic Barr Ferree in 1895 opined: "though possibly the most richly decorated commercial building in America, the skill of the artist has produced a design of structural sobriety with great richness of effect.' This unity of structure and aesthetics 'has been attained' he diagnosed, 'by the long unbroken vertical lines of the superstructure.’ Montgomery Schuyler knew of 'no steel-framed building in which the metallic construction is more palpably felt through the envelope of baked clay.'" (Twombly 1986)

The Wainwright building may fairly be said to have revolutionized the emergent form of the skyscraper, with ramifications felt for the next hundred years. The Guaranty Building is a refinement and perfection of the form which the Wainwright found, and its transfiguration into a spirit of design.