John J. Glessner House
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Glessner, John J., House | |
|---|---|
| (U.S. National Historic Landmark) | |
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| Location: | Chicago, Illinois |
| Coordinates: | |
| Built/Founded: | 1885 |
| Architect: | Henry Hobson Richardson |
| Architectural style(s): | Other, Romanesque |
| Added to NRHP: | April 17, 1970 |
| Reference #: | 70000233 [1] |
| Governing body: | Private |
The John J. Glessner House is a family house located at 1800 S. Prairie Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. It was designed in 1885-1886 by architect Henry Hobson Richardson and built in 1886. It is a National Historic Landmark.
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[edit] John J. Glessner
John J. Glessner was a high-ranking executive with the International Harvester Company, leading U.S. manufacturer of farm machinery. Continued operation of the Homestead Act and settlement of the Great Plains in the 1870s and 1880s led to sharply increased demand for the products produced in the Harvester Company's Chicago factory.
During this period, Chicago's most prestigious residential street was the South Side's Prairie Avenue. Enjoying economic success, Glessner decided to build a home for his family on Prairie and 18th Streets. He chose one of the young nation's foremost architects, H.H. Richardson.
[edit] Henry Hobson Richardson
Eager to develop a style of architecture that would reflect what he saw as the musculature of the fast-growing United States, the late-19-century architect Henry Hobson Richardson developed what would be called the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The Richardsonian Romanesque style took elements of European Romanesque architecture from buildings constructed in the 11th and 12th centuries, and adapted them to American idioms.
For example, the heavy, rough-cut facing stones of Romanesque architecture were no longer necessary for engineering reasons. Architects and builders had discovered more efficient ways for walls to distribute and bear a building's weight. Richardson believed that what was no longer necessary for function could be made to serve a new purpose of form, by creating a new visual language of individual separation and privacy.
[edit] The Glessner House in operation
The massive privacy that the new Glessner House provided to its family starting in 1886 did not appeal to many of its neighbors. Sleeping-car CEO George Pullman, who lived across the street in a traditional French Renaissance-style chateau, said, "I do not know what I have ever done to have that thing staring me in the face every time I go out of my door."
Many wealthier Chicagoans, including but not limited to the people of Prairie Avenue, found that an even more efficient way of maximizing their status and privacy was to move away from the crowded South Side altogether. Chicago magnates such as Potter Palmer and his wife Bertha Palmer moved to Chicago's in the late 1880s and early 1890s, thus presaging the decline of Prairie Avenue as a status address.
[edit] The house today
After a long period of neglect caused by the overall deterioration of the surrounding neighborhood, the Glessner House was saved from demolition by popular outcry in the late 1960s. It was named a Chicago Landmark in October 1970 and was acquired by a nonprofit foundation, which has operated the house for visitation ever since. An admission fee is charged.
