Champlain Building

“The Champlain Building takes advantage of molded brick's ability to create ornamental coursing for an architectural effect. Just as molded pressed brick provided an innovative expression for the bearing walls of Burnham and Root's Monadnock Block (1891), so too does the Champlain Building represent a similar creative expression for the cladding of a metal frame.”

“This was originally topped by a series of heavier, stepped-out stringcourses which have been removed. A notable aspect of the Champlain Building design is that the top story treatment is not differentiated from that of the lower stories, a departure from works by other architectural firms of the period who typically designed tall commercial office buildings in a tripartite "base-shaft-capital" composition.”

“Bearing all the hallmarks of the Chicago school of architecture, the Champlain Building was designed by Holabird & Roche, the firm most acclaimed for their successful execution of numerous buildings in this commercial style and who, according to architectural historian Carl Condit, "most completely represented the purpose and achievement of the mainstream of the Chicago school." The Architectural Partnership: Holabird and Roche Few, if any, architectural firms have left as significant an imprint on a major American city as Holabird and Roche and its successor firm Holabird and Root have done on Chicago.”

“Roche, born in Cleveland, Ohio, had come to Chicago in 1857. His education was limited to elementary school and the school of the Chicago Art Institute which he left in 1867 to begin an apprenticeship to a cabinetmaker.”

“The Architecture of the Champlain Building The Champlain Building is a 13-story, steel-framed structure clad in light gray pressed brick and terra cotta with four bays on Wabash Avenue and nine bays on Monroe Street.”