The Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University: A History of Architectural Innovation and Cultural Significance

The Auditorium Theatre, a jewel within the Auditorium Building in Chicago, stands as a testament to architectural ingenuity and cultural ambition. Located at 50 East Ida B. Wells Drive, at the northwest corner of South Michigan Avenue and Ida B. Wells Drive in the Loop community area, the Auditorium Building is one of the best-known designs of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler. Completed in 1889, this structure has played a pivotal role in shaping Chicago's identity as a modern, confident, and culturally rich metropolis.

A Visionary Project

In 1885, Ferdinand Wythe Peck, a Chicago businessman and philanthropist, conceived an ambitious plan to construct a state-of-the-art performance venue. Peck incorporated the Chicago Auditorium Association in December 1886 to develop what he wanted to be the world's largest, grandest, most expensive theater that would rival such institutions as the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Peck persuaded many Chicago business tycoons to go on board with him, including Marshall Field, Edson Keith, Martin A. Ryerson, Charles L. Hutchinson and George Pullman. His vision was to make high culture accessible to the general public and bolster Chicago's reputation, which had been tarnished by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the Haymarket Square bombing in 1886. To realize this vision, Peck enlisted the renowned architectural firm of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan.

Architectural and Engineering Marvel

Adler and Sullivan designed a tall structure with load-bearing outer walls, and based the exterior appearance partly on the design of H.H. Richardson's Marshall Field Warehouse, another Chicago landmark. The Auditorium Building is a ten-story granite and limestone building with a seventeen-story tower. The Auditorium is a heavy, impressive structure externally, and was more striking in its day when buildings of its scale were less common. The architects faced the challenge of creating a multiple-use building that would house a large civic opera house, a hotel, and an office block. Fronting on Michigan Avenue, overlooking the lake, was the hotel (now Roosevelt University) while the offices were placed to the west on Wabash Avenue. The entrance to the auditorium is on the south side beneath the tall blocky eighteen-story tower. The rest of the building is a uniform ten stories, organized in the same way as Richardson's Marshall Field Wholesale Store. This innovative approach to mixed-use design ensured the economic viability of the theater.

One of the most innovative features of the building was its massive raft foundation, designed by Adler in conjunction with engineer Paul Mueller. The soil beneath the Auditorium consists of soft blue clay to a depth of over 100 feet, which made conventional foundations impossible. The resulting raft distributed the weight of the massive outer walls over a large area. However, the weight of the masonry outer walls in relation to the relatively lightweight interior deformed the raft during the course of a century, and today portions of the building have settled as much as 29 inches. This deflection is clearly visible in the theater lobby, where the mosaic floor takes on a distinct slope as it nears the outer walls. This settlement is not because of poor engineering but the fact the design was changed during construction. The original plan had the exterior covered in lightweight terra-cotta, but this was changed to stone after the foundations were under construction.

The Auditorium Theatre was equipped with the first central air conditioning system and the theater was the first to be entirely lit by incandescent light bulbs. In the center of the building was a 4,300 seat auditorium, originally intended primarily for production of Grand Opera. In keeping with Peck's democratic ideals, the auditorium was designed so that all seats would have good views and acoustics. Housed in the building around the central space were an 1890 addition of 136 offices and a 400-room hotel, whose purpose was to generate much of the revenue to support the opera. While the Auditorium Building was not intended as a commercial building, Peck wanted it to be self-sufficient. Revenue from the offices and hotel was meant to allow ticket prices to remain reasonable.

A Center for Culture and Civic Engagement

The Auditorium Theatre quickly became Chicago’s center for musical, cultural, and social activity as the first home of the Chicago Civic Opera and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The gala opening night performance on December 9, 1889, was a major social event bringing together politicians and national leaders. In attendance were President Benjamin Harrison, Vice President Levi Morton, Illinois Governor Joseph Wilson Fifer, Chicago Mayor DeWitt Clinton Cregier, the theatre's financial backers, and the city's elite. President Harrison (who had visited the Auditorium in 1888, when the theatre, still a construction site, housed 9000 Republican National Convention attendees) was evidently so impressed that he was rumored to have whispered to Vice President Levi P. The Auditorium Theatre played a critical role in Chicago being named host for 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

The Auditorium Building became a National Historic Landmark on May 15, 1975. It was also designated a Chicago City Landmark on September 15, 1976. The Auditorium Theatre is part of the Auditorium Building and is located at 50 East Ida B. Wells Drive. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 17, 1970. In addition, it is a historic district contributing property for the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District.

During its early years, the Auditorium stage played host to the leading entertainers of the era, including John Philip Sousa, Sarah Bernhardt, The Ziegfeld Follies, Anna Pavlova, and Helen Morgan, as well as political figures including Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Booker T. Washington. The building's prestigious reputation attracted prominent Chicagoans.

The Auditorium and the Suffrage Movement

When Chicago hosted the Republican National Convention in June 1916, it provided an opportunity for suffrage organizations to campaign directly to an assembly of the US leaders. Because the sitting President Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat and opposed the success of a national suffrage amendment, the opportunity to garner support from his opponents was valuable. As a result, both the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU) and the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) held conventions in Chicago coinciding with the Republican National Convention. CU convention headquarters were located at the Blackstone Theater, while various committee meetings and speakers were held at the Auditorium Building.

On June 7, the same day as the opening session of the Republican National Convention, the CU hosted the Suffrage First luncheon in the South Parlor of the Auditorium Building. During this meeting, CU leaders proposed the adoption of the national Susan B. Anthony Amendment. This Amendment eventually became the 19th Amendment and stated that voting rights for US citizens could not be denied “on account of sex.” Committees at the convention also called for Democratic President Wilson as well as the Republican party to incorporate the amendment into their platforms. Later that afternoon, members of the CU and NAWSA assembled for a suffrage parade on Michigan Avenue.

Read also: A Legacy at UCLA

Just months after the CU convention at the Auditorium Building, the October 21, 1916 edition of The Suffragist chronicled President Wilson’s own speaking engagement at the Auditorium Theater. For two hours, members of the CU and its extended organization the National Woman’s Party (NWP) gathered outside the building with banners and suffrage literature that detailed Wilson’s resistance to the advancement of women’s voting rights. While the president spoke, members of the National Woman’s Party burst into the event bearing suffrage flags. Some of the Democratic male attendees jeered, formed a mob, and launched an organized violent attack. These men destroyed suffrage literature and standards. According to The Suffragist, they threw suffragists to the ground and even dragged one woman across the street.

Challenges and Transformations

Peck's hope that the revenue from the hotel and offices would subsidize the cost of presenting performances ultimately proved unsustainable, particularly as more modern hotels (featuring private bathrooms) came about. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra moved to Orchestra Hall in 1904, and the Grand Opera relocated to the Civic Opera House in 1929. The Auditorium Theatre closed during the Great Depression.

In 1941, it was taken over by the city of Chicago to be used as a World War II servicemen's center. The stage and front rows of the theatre were converted to a bowling alley and much of the ornate stenciling, plasterwork, and art glass was covered over.

Roosevelt University's Acquisition and Restoration

In 1946, Roosevelt University bought the Auditorium Building. By 1946, Roosevelt University moved into the Auditorium Building, but the theater was not restored to its former splendor. Instead, the theater stood vacant for another two decades. The purchase of The Auditorium Building was not an easy transaction for Roosevelt University’s President, Edward J. Sparling. The building was divided into segments owned by different people, and one of those owners was Al Capone’s attorney, Abraham Teitelbaum.

In 1952, Congress Parkway was widened, bringing the curb to the southern edge of the building. Roosevelt University trustees voted in 1958 to restore the Auditorium Theater. In the early 1960s, Beatrice T. Spachner, with the approval of Roosevelt University, created the Auditorium Theatre Council and undertook a campaign to restore and reopen the theatre, raising nearly $3 million to renovate the structure.

Read also: Shaping Lives Through Theatre

Under the direction of architect Harry Weese, the theater was beautifully restored and reopened in 1967. After re-opening night, The Auditorium’s reputation of being the center for the performing arts was revived.

Architectural Innovations and Design Elements

The Auditorium Theatre featured many technological advancements for its time, including the display of 3,500 bare carbon filament light bulbs (only publicly seen for the first time in 1879), unrivaled acoustics, air conditioning (which called for the delivery of 15 tons of ice daily), 26 hydraulic lifts that could easily raise and lower sections of the stage, and an expansive 95-foot loft above the stage for flown scenic elements.

Sullivan's vision for the theatre was to create a space that was democratic, where the best seats were not reserved for the wealthiest patrons, so the box seats were relocated to the sides, with an expansive main floor and generous balconies offering optimal sightlines to the general public. Ornamentation did not glorify a noble figure or mimic baroque palaces, but rather featured the artful interpretations of natural elements including flowers and vines, and bucolic murals.

The Auditorium Theatre also exemplifies an architectural technique called "compression and expansion". Each patron was required to move through the small, dark entrance way into the theatre. Each patron who arrived for a performance was led through the small, dark entranceway into the theater. The entrance was “compressed” by low ceilings such that when patrons emerged, the impact of “expanding” into the towering six-story auditorium, with its grand gilded arches and glittering ceiling, would be all the more dramatic.

Adler’s acoustic design is legendary. The room’s gently sloped floor, horseshoe shape, and precisely angled surfaces create a natural resonance that feels almost otherworldly. His goal was simple but revolutionary: make every seat in the house a good seat.

A Lasting Legacy

Today, the Auditorium Theatre continues to maintain and restore the Adler & Sullivan building. Recent innovations include the introduction of the theatre's first public elevator as well as the Katten/Landau Studio housed in the Roosevelt University Wabash Building. Typically, more than 200 performances and events, ranging from dance and theater to music, educational programs, and more, attract over a quarter of a million people every year. The venue presents a wide array of international, national and Chicago-based dance and music programming. Dance companies who have performed at the theater include Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Bolshoi Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre.

The Auditorium Theatre Chicago stands as one of the city’s greatest architectural achievements, a place where innovation, civic ambition, and artistic expression came together in ways that still feel ahead of their time. The Auditorium Theatre Chicago is considered one of the most influential buildings in Chicago architecture history.

Landmarks

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 17, 1970.
Declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975
Designated a Chicago Landmark on September 15, 1976

tags: #auditorium #theatre #of #roosevelt #university #history