Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1977 - 9

THE FIRST CHICAGO GRAND OPERA FESTIVAL:
ADLER AND SULLIVAN BEFORE THE AUDITORIUM
UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE

YVONNE SHAFER
The great success of the Auditorium Theatre designed
by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler has been widely
recognized. In terms of sightlines, acoustics, and comfort
the theatre was considered outstanding when it opened
in 1888, and in the 20th century it has maintained its
reputation despite changes in architectural taste and advances in acoustics and theatre technology. One of the
reasons Adler and Sullivan were so successful with this
theatre was that they had worked out the practical and
aesthetic details in an earlier theatre which was a temporary building. Although described as a "Mammoth
Opera House," it was designed and built for only two
weeks' use for the First Chicago Grand Opera Festival.
In designing it Adler and Sullivan developed their philosophy of theatre design, and had the opportunity to
experiment with the seating arrangement, the acoustics,
heating, lighting, and other aspects which were so successful in the Auditorium.
The philosophy Adler and Sullivan shared related to
the pride in American democracy which is apparent in
speeches and literature of the period. In a paper he was
invited to read to the Twenty-first Annual Convention
of the American Institute of Arch itects in 1887, Adler
stressed the idea of American architecture, and said he
would confine his remarks to "the peculiarities of an
American theatre and opera house containing upward of
4,000 seats and capable of serving also as a concert or
convention hall.'d The paper outlined plans for a large
theatre (which could also be used for national political
conventions) providing good sightlines, acoustics, and
comfort for the inexpensive seats as well as the expensive ones - that is a theatre designed for a democracy.
Adler's paper reveals an idealism about American architecture along with a very practical outlook concerning
questions of heating and cooling, ease of "ingress and
egress," safety, and requ irements for stagi ng plays, operas,
and conventions. In the temporary theatre Adler and
Sullivan built in 1885 we see a philosophical approach
and a concern for the practical and commercial realities
incorporated within a design containing both beauty and
utility.
Louis Sullivan has long been noted for the beauty and
practicality of his designs for banks, churches, office
buildings, and theatres, as well as his strong idealogy. His
biographer Albert Bush-Brown wrote,
Only the heroic scale measures Louis Sullivan. The
titan ic task he set himself was to shape h is society
through architecture, as the Parthenon did for
Athens, the Cathedral for Paris. He was the first
prophet to build for the American condition. 2
Sullivan described his approach in The Autobiography of
an Idea in which he said that his vision was,
to make an architecture that fitted its functions a realistic architecture based on utilitarian needsUSITT

that all' practical demands of util ity should be paramount as a basis of planning and design; that no
architectural dictum, or tradition, or superstition,
or habit, should stand in the way ... This meant
that in his courageous mind he would put to the test
a formula he had evolved, through long contemplation of living things, namely that form follows
function. 3
Plans to put this philosophy into practice in a large
opera house were announced in The Inland Architect
and Builder in 1885.
The Exposition Building is again being prepared by
architects Adler and Sullivan; this time for the
Mapleson opera season, which will begin about
April 1, and will be one of the largest and most
important events of the kind this country has ever
seen. The north half of the bu ilding will be constructed so that the acoustic properties will be as
perfect as possible. In this respect success is assured,
as the auditorium fitted by these architects in this
building for the national conventions, a year ago,
were [sic) very successful, and the arrangements
will now be upon a much more perfect scale. 4
Here and elsewhere, note is taken that Adler and
Sullivan had previously prepared the building for two
national conventions and several May shows, but this
design was much more ambitious. The building was the
Interstate Exposition Building (Figure 1). According
to Stories and Sketches of Chicago published in 1880,
it was thought to be "the largest building in the world
without interior roof supports, its ... dimensions being
1,000 by 225 feet:'s It was built in 1873 in 96 days at
a cost of $400,000. The structure was located on the lakefront, just a few blocks from the site on which the Auditorium Theatre would be built later. It was used for
various activities including industrial exhibitions and
conventions. It was claimed that as many as 50,000
people were present for some of the events held in it. 6
The building was razed in 1892, and the Art Institute
was bu ilt on the site.
For the opera season Adler and Sullivan made few
changes to the building's exterior, but the interior was
changed extensively. An existing dining room was transformed into a salon and promenade, and the opera house
was designed to give the impression of a permanent
structu reo
The entire auditorium will be inclosed and this,
as well as the immense space devoted to dressing
rooms, etc., behind the stage will be heated. It is
estimated that 2,000,000 feet of lumber will be
consumed in this construction.?
A later article in Inland Architect confirmed these plans:
All the appointments of a first-class opera house are
arranged for by the architects, and though of a

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

FALL,1977

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