Chicago Art Deco Madness Walking Tour

• Visual arts/architecture/design
• Appeared in France before WW 1
• Shortened from Arts Décoratifs
• International Exhibition of Modern Decorative & Industrial Arts
• Held in Paris in 1925

• An art form
• Influenced the design of buildings
• Planes, Trains & Automobiles 
• Theaters, fashion & furniture
• And ocean liners!

• York Theatre – Elmhurst, IL
• Waterfall curves
• Vertical/horizontal lines
• Modern font

• S. S. Normandy Shipliner
• Circa 1932
• World’s largest for 5 years

• S.S. Normandy dining room
• Dancing female/male figures
• Stair-stepped chandelier/lighting

• Consistent modern language
• Integrated tech into daily life
• Started a design transformation
• Good design to the masses 
• Trickled down to everyday objects 
• Radios/Toasters/Vacuum cleaners!

• The Charleston    
• Flapper Dresses 
• Jazz 

• Spirit of a new era
• Rejection of classic design
• Brand new style emerged
• Celebrated modern life
• New Machine Age  

• Undisturbed for 3000 years! 
• Egyptian imagery became popular 
• Headpiece lines
• Geometric patterns

• Scarabs 
• Hieroglyphics 
• Pyramids

• Early 1920s zoning changes
• Overall building heights increased
• 264 ft (26 stories)
• Unoccupied towers to 400 ft
• 1923 zoning changed again
• Occupied towers to 400 ft
• Need for air and sunshine
• 1926 zoning changed again
• After 264 ft towers had to step back
• 50% of the lot’s frontage

• Holabird & Root circa 1930
• Oldest grain futures exchange
• Grain traded before harvesting
• Tall windows facing north
• Best light for inspections
• Steel window panels
• Different tones to trick the eye
• Emphasize the height

• Pyramid shaped roof 
• Originally free observation deck
• Telescopes & glass skylights
• Ceres – Greek Goddess of grain 
• 3 stories tall
• Her left hand – a sheaf of wheat
• Her right hand – grain trader bag 
• Her forms are overly-simplistic
• No face
• Garment made up of vertical lines
• Folds emphasize verticality

• Ceres panel
• Wall of the trading floor
• Observation deck

• Mesopotamian man – sheaf of wheat
• Native American – stalks of corn
• Deco-styled eagle 
• Symbolizes strength & freedom
• All details flattened

• Limestone banding with bulls
• Tongue-in-cheek reference to a bull market

• Octagonal trading pits
• Elegant lighting fixture mimics octagonal design
• Inspectors desks against the windows

• Changing of prices done all by hand
• These people wore suits

• Trading floor chaos
• Paper thrown
• Shouting
• Hand signals

• Colored uniforms indicated your role on the floor

• St. Michaels Church in Oldtown
• Built in 1869
• 290 feet
• Tallest building in the USA for 16 years!

• Original BOT building – 1885
• Note statues above main doorway

• Clock tower added same year
• 300 feet tall
• Out ranked St. Michaels by 10 ft!

• 5 1/2 ton granite statues
• Placed over the main entrance
• 1885 BOT Building
• Symbolize Agriculture & Industry
• Building demolished in 1929
• Considered lost forever
• Found in 2005 (75 years!)
• Discovered at Hidden Lake Forest Preserve
• Graciously returned to their origins
• Former estate of Arthur Cutten
• Prominent BOT speculator of the early 1900’s 

How the statues made the journey from LaSalle Street to the Cutten estate is a mystery!

• Bank Of America Building 
• (Marshall Field Office Bldg)
• Graham, Anderson & Probst – 1934
• Art Moderne Style (vs. Deco)
• 45-story skyscraper 
• Last building built before Great Depression
• First building in the city with AC
• Water fountains on each floor
• High Speed Elevators 
• Latest leveling devices

• Previously on the site
• First skyscraper in the world
• Home Insurance Building – 1885
• William LeBaron Jenney
• Invented the steel skyscraper

• Style: Art Moderne
• Plain version of Art Deco 
• Uses Only geometric shapes  
• No decorative motifs 
• Simple Deco font on signage
• 4-story base that covers the entire site 
• Polished black granite. 
• Windows framed with pol. aluminum  
• White Yule marble pilasters
• Zig zag patterns separate the bays

• Hexagonal flag poles
• no expenses spared

• Vitzthum & Burns – 1930
• 49 stories
• Chicago’s tallest building – 30 years
• Significant history
• René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle’s 17th-century camp  
• Themed exterior and interior details 
• Early explorers
• interaction with Native Americans
• Main motif:  stylized headdresses

The exterior carved limestone panels were executed by French sculptor Leon Hermant.

In 1928 Hermant was awarded the Legion d’honneur award by the French government for his limestone sculpture of Louis Pasteur in Grant Park. This award is the highest civil and military award of merit in France 

Since been moved to a Park near Cook County Hospital

Bas Relief Panels (protruding only slightly):

• Indian Chief
• William Clark (of Lewis & Clark)
• Jacques Marquette (Marquette & Joliet)
• Christopher Columbus
• Indian Chief
• Transportation and Atlas Panel. 

Transportation and Atlas Panel. 

Scales Of Justice Panel   (PIC)

Indian Chief 

Rene-Robert LaSalle

Louis Joliet

William Clark

Indian Chief

Hidden Y in iron work

Bronze elevator doors depicting full-figured female mythology figures named

• Prosperity 
• Abundance 

Symbolizes Success and Reputation

Not a shout-out to the history of the location, but to the building’s beginnings as a banking building. 

Onyx stone diamonds set into the gold metal light up when the elevators arrive.

Wall Sconces  – Not just any bird  but the Native American Thunderbird 

Elevator cabs are all original with exotic birds-eye maple and other rare wood panels and detailing along with stair stepped upside down pyramid lighting fixtures.

First United Methodist Church of Chicago

Oldest congregation in the city- Established 1831 – Started in log cabin on Chicago River

Circa 1924

Holabird & Root

Neo-Gothic

568-foot tall skyscraper 

Tallest church building in the world. 

Elevators to the 19st floor

Pastor’s parsonage is next three floors in the spire

Climb 25-30 steps single file in a tiny stairway to get to the top

Seats 30 people

Deco/Mayan influences

Commonwealth Edison Substation

Also called God Of Lightning 

Sculpted by Sylvia Shaw Judson in 1931

Notice refrigerator in the center

Notice workers cottages at the bottom!!

Sixteen years after she died, Judson suddenly became nationally known after the publication in 1994 of the sensational Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, whose cover was a hauntingly beautiful photo of a sculpture in Savannah’s Bonaventure Cemetery.

The book stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for a record 216 weeks and crowds of tourists descended on Savannah hoping to glimpse the little cast-bronze girl whose weary arms seemed to be weighing good and evil. At that time Judson was virtually unknown, and she was dramatically rediscovered when the remarkable figure turned out to be one that she created in 1936 

Bird Girl👧 

Movie was about the murder of a male hustler (Young Jude Law) by well known antiques dealer, Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey) in May 1981 and the following four murder trials that lasted more than eight years.

Others in the movie:

John Cusack

The Lady Chablis (Chablis Deveau) – One of the first Transgender club performer’s in NYC

All of the scenes in the move were filmed at the Mercer-Williams House on Monterey Square in Savannah Georgia

Marshall Field Store

Architect Daniel Burnham

Circa 1902 – 1906

Third largest store in the world

Meet Me Under The Clock Legend

Legend: Marshall Field decided that this corner should have a clock after he discovered notes wedged in the corners of the store’s new glass plate windows that pinpointed times and places to meet friends, family members, and business associates. 

Field determined that a clock could serve as a rendezvous spot for shoppers and also make them mindful of the time. It didn’t take long for the Chicago Tribune to report that women in Chicago were telling others to “Meet me under the clock at Marshall Field’s!”

Deco-styled elevator doors 

Fluted stainless steel panels above the doors

Bronze Deco-themed plaques 

Carbide & Carbon Building 

Architect Burnham Brothers

Circa 1929

The lavish Carbide and Carbon Building,

The building’s showstopping exterior is composed of black marble & green-tinted terracotta 

The base is a gorgeous, reflective black granite – a very popular material used in the Art Deco era because of its sleekness and glamor.

The rumor is that it was designed to look like a champagne bottle 

Truth is the top was designed to look like one of the batteries that would have used the chemicals that Carbide and Carbon made!

Spire is coated in a thin layer of 24-carat gold. 

The gold-leaf is not an imitation – it’s real 24 karat gold – pounded out making it 1/5000 of an inch thick! 

Frozen Fountain Motif

Quirky Frozen Fountain motif presented in a geometric format

Frozen Fountains – almost cartoonish

Zig Zags

Chicago Motor Club

Architect Holabird and Root

Circa 1928 

Dubbed The Temple of Transport 

Slim 17-story tower 

Built at record-breaking speed – in just 234 days – including demolition of previous structure!

Almost lost it but in 2012 it became a Hampton Inn

Everything about the building screams money, power, and progress, especially the lobby.  

Exterior motifs:

Wave/sunburst patterns in the limestone base of the building at sidewalk level also weave their way around the fabulous entrance doors.

LOTS of zigzags, frozen fountains and sunburst patterns

Limestone Panels: 

Square and diamond panels – Pelicans and other birds

Round panels: 

Chickadees and Peacocks (metaphor for luxury car ownership)

Wonderful frozen fountains and rosettes

The Club Logo

Close up of one of the peacocks

More frozen fountains and rosettes

The lobby was once a bustling hub of activity, crammed with guests waiting at the counter for a TourBook  (later TripTik & Atlases) that would guide them on their journeys over the newly paved roads depicted in the mural.

Notice the original kinetic floor (looking like highway markings) and light fixtures made to look like floating clouds.

20 foot x 30 foot painted map of the United States by John Norton, a widely known Chicago muralist, done in the modern, cubist style

Land masses: flat planes of pale gray and tan

Bodies of water: cubist patterns in pale green and blue

Cities: deep-orange squares 

19 transcontinental highways: a network of light gray lines connecting the cities

Mountain ranges: blue chevrons 

National Parks: bolded blue squares around chevrons

Legend indicating different elements in the mural – done very much in the style of a legend on an architectural drawing!

Font is very modern, sans serif and cubistic in nature

From The Chicago Tribune: January 27, 1929

Look at the similarity in the font used between this article and the Tree Studios Building Directory

Architectural Photography Prints

Social Media Creator Services

Professional Interior Design Services

Walking Tours and Private Tours:

Art Deco / Oldtown / Wicker Park / Ravenswood Manor / Graceland Cemetery / Fine Arts Building

Doorways Of Chicago Coffee Table Book by Trope Publishing Launching in 2026 – Stay Tuned!

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I’m taking my tours abroad! Join me! My curated trip to Peru is launching: April 6-12, 2026. “Architecture, Ancestry & Ancient Doorways: Peru with Ronnie” tourhero.com. See you out on the world-wide trails!