Archicenter

"Daniel Burnham's 1904 Santa Fe Building is home to the Chicago Architecture Foundation. The Santa Fe Railroad approached the renowned architecture firm of D.H. Burnham to build a new Railway Exchange Building. Burnham’s designs for the World’s Columbian Exposition, just 11 years earlier, popularized Classical architecture. The glazed white terra cotta of the Railway Exchange echoes the famed White City. Like many tall office buildings of the time, it’s vertically organized with a heavy base, a repeating shaft, and an ornate capital—like a column. Burnham, along with chief designer Frederick Dinkelberg, went to great lengths to bring light and air inside. The entire building wraps around a central light well, like a square doughnut, with a glass atrium capping the grand two-story lobby. The steel skeleton frame allows for larger windows, and the projecting bays increase the amount of light streaming inside, bringing great visual interest to the building’s facade."