artinstituteofchicagooldchicagoillinois

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Lost American Architecture, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

The Studebaker/Fine Arts building is the taller one on the left, in the background. The main building in this photo was the original Art Institute of Chicago, long since replaced by the Chicago Club.

Irina Hynes thanks for helping us correct our identification! I'm passing it along to the cataloger who originally worked on these images.

This is great! It shows the Studebaker factory/showroom building (built in 1885) before it added some stories and became the Fine Arts Building (in 1898). (The floors behind the arched windows were the showrooms for Studebaker horse-drawn carriages, and the smaller windows above were for the assembly of the carriages.) You can also see that Adler & Sullivan's Auditorium Building had not gone up yet, to the left.

Viewers interested in the modern-day history of this building may be interested in the following illustrated post: "The Fine Arts Gets a Face-Lift" on the website Celia Her City. I appreciate Cornell's making this magnificent photograph available online. Susan Barsy, PhD

Irina Hynes Susan Barsy Thank you for your contributions!