Hotel Burnham
A skyscraper designed years before the Mies van der Rohe and Second Chicago school that it evokes. What was an historic but forgotten architectural landmark is now listed on the US National Register of Historic Places.
In 1895, Daniel Burnham, John Root and Charles Atwood, visionary architects, revolutionised their world and downtown Chicago. Using a radical steel and glass design, they created the Reliance Building, ushering in a new era and setting the precedent for the modern skyscraper. During the late 1800s, a commercial architectural style surfaced in Chicago, later becoming known as "the Chicago style." Completed in 1895, the Reliance Building was not just a premier product of this school of architecture, it was the first direct predecessor to today's modern skyscrapers, and such a fundamental part of Chicago.
After years of neglect and disrepair, the century-old Reliance Building was reborn in October 1999 as Hotel Burnham after a $27.5 million refurbishment and renovation. The 14 floors of the building seem to defy gravity, thanks to an interior iron and steel frame construction and delicate glass and terra cotta façade. Renovation included meticulously reconstructing the mosaic floor, multi-coloured marble ceiling and walls, and ornamental metal elevator grills, stairways and archways to resemble the lobby as it once existed.
Hotel Burnham
A skyscraper designed years before the Mies van der Rohe and Second Chicago school that it evokes. What was an historic but forgotten architectural landmark is now listed on the US National Register of Historic Places.
In 1895, Daniel Burnham, John Root and Charles Atwood, visionary architects, revolutionised their world and downtown Chicago. Using a radical steel and glass design, they created the Reliance Building, ushering in a new era and setting the precedent for the modern skyscraper. During the late 1800s, a commercial architectural style surfaced in Chicago, later becoming known as "the Chicago style." Completed in 1895, the Reliance Building was not just a premier product of this school of architecture, it was the first direct predecessor to today's modern skyscrapers, and such a fundamental part of Chicago.
After years of neglect and disrepair, the century-old Reliance Building was reborn in October 1999 as Hotel Burnham after a $27.5 million refurbishment and renovation. The 14 floors of the building seem to defy gravity, thanks to an interior iron and steel frame construction and delicate glass and terra cotta façade. Renovation included meticulously reconstructing the mosaic floor, multi-coloured marble ceiling and walls, and ornamental metal elevator grills, stairways and archways to resemble the lobby as it once existed.