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53-637: The push for a new building was spearheaded by postmaster Washington Hesing with backing by civic leaders and Illinois's members of Congress. The explosion of Chicago's population, especially after the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, strained the earlier facility beyond capacity. When the Exposition began, the Post Office Department in Chicago employed 998 clerks and 935 carriers. By

106-412: A palazzo into a church. Three windows on each of three storeys (and the door) alternate regular and segmental pediments; there is no pediment at the top of the facade, just a large cornice, as was usual. In St Peter's Basilica there is a conventional pediment over the main entrance, but the complicated facade stretches beyond it to both sides and above, and though large in absolute terms it makes

159-418: A central entry on each facade flanked by eight bays of windows. The bays were separated by Corinthian pilasters with arches over the windows of the second floor. A cornice and balustrade topped the base on all four facades. Four Corinthian columns extending from the third to sixth floor supported a pediment on the face of each arm of the cross. The wings on the north-south axis held seven bays long while

212-675: A full time editorial manager of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung , working under both his own father as well as editor-in-chief Hermann Raster . Hesing unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for mayor in 1893 and 1895 . In 1897 , Hessing ran for mayor as an independent candidate . After his unsuccessful campaign in the regularly-scheduled mayoral election of 1893, Hessing was appointed postmaster of Chicago by President Grover Cleveland in 1893. His appointment had been secured by John Patrick Hopkins . Hopkins

265-585: A height of 297 ft (91 m) and was dedicated by President William McKinley on October 9, 1899, the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire . The areas for the post office were completed in 1904 and other agencies occupied their spaces in 1905. The Federal Building was constructed over a steel frame with exterior walls of brick sheathed with 500,000 sq ft (46,000 m) of gray granite from Mount Waldo , Maine. The roofs were covered vitrified tile over book tile while

318-501: A non-structural element over windows , doors , and aediculae , protecting windows and openings from rain, as well as being decorative. From the 5th century pediments also might appear on tombs and later non-architectural objects such as sarcophagi . In the Hellenistic period pediments became used for a wider range of buildings, and treated much more freely, especially outside Greece itself. Broken and open pediments are used in

371-430: A pediment at each end, but Roman temples, and subsequent revivals, often had only one, in both cases across the whole width of the main front or facade. The rear of the typical Roman temple was a blank wall, usually without columns, but often a full pediment above. This effectively divorced the pediment from the columns beneath it in the original temple front ensemble, and thereafter it was no longer considered necessary for

424-678: A pediment to be above columns. The most famous example of the Greek scheme is the Parthenon , with two tympanums filled with large groups of sculpted figures. An extreme but very influential example of the Roman style is the Pantheon, Rome , where a portico with pediment fronts a circular temple. In ancient Rome , the Renaissance , and later architectural revivals , small pediments are

477-595: A relatively small impression. Many later buildings used a temple front with pediment as a highlight of a much wider building. The St Peter's facade also has many small pedimented windows and aedicular niches, using a mixture of segmental, broken, and open pediments. Variations using multiple pediments became very popular in Baroque architecture , and the central vertical line of church facades often ascended through several pediments of different sizes and shapes, in Rome five at

530-586: A swan's neck, typically volutes ; this is mostly found in furniture rather than buildings. It was popular in American doorways from the 1760's onwards. Very often there is a vase-like ornament in the middle, between the volutes. Non-triangular variations of pediments are often found over doors, windows, niches, and porches. The pediment is found in classical Greek temples, Etruscan, Roman, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, and Beaux-Arts architecture. Greek temples, normally rectangular in plan, generally had

583-414: A two-story base with a raised basement. The building was capped by a dome at the crossing that held an additional eight floors of office space in its drum for a total of 16 floors. The gilt dome extended 100 ft (30 m) above the drum. Congress passed a bill in late 1894 that President Grover Cleveland signed on February 13, 1895, appropriating $ 4 million to demolish the existing structure on

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636-797: A way that is often described as "baroque". The large 2nd-century Market Gate of Miletus , now reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin , has a pediment that retreats in the centre, so appears both broken and open, a feature also seen at the Al-Khazneh (so-called "Treasury") tomb at Petra in modern Jordan . The broken pediments on each of the four sides of the Arch of Septimius Severus at Leptis Magna in Libya are very small elements, raking at an extremely steep angle, but not extending beyond

689-459: A wide and low triangular pediment (the side angles 12.5° to 16°) typically formed the top element of the portico of a Greek temple , a style continued in Roman temples . But large pediments were rare on other types of building before Renaissance architecture . For symmetric designs, it provides a center point and is often used to add grandness to entrances. The cornice continues round the top of

742-678: Is typically not used for these; they are often called a "canopy". From the Renaissance onwards, some pediments no longer fitted the steeply pitched roofs and became freestanding, sometimes sloping in the opposite direction to the roof behind. When classical-style low triangular pediments returned in Italian Renaissance architecture , they were initially mostly used to top a relatively flat facade, with engaged elements rather than freestanding porticos supported by columns. Leon Battista Alberti used them in this way in his churches:

795-557: The Church of the Gesù ( Giacomo della Porta 1584) and six at Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi ( Martino Longhi the Younger , 1646), the top three folding into each other, using the same base line. This facade has been described as "a veritable symphony in repetitious pedimentry, bringing together a superimposed array of broken pediments, open pediments and arched pediments". The Gesù is

848-595: The Tempio Malatestiano (1450s, incomplete), Santa Maria Novella (to 1470), San Sebastiano in Mantua (unfinished by the 1470s), Sant'Andrea, Mantua (begun 1472), and Pienza Cathedral c.  1460 ), where the design was probably his. Here the cornice comes out and then retreats back, forming the top of pilasters with no capitals, a very unclassical note, which was to become much used. In most of these Alberti followed classical precedent by having

901-665: The broken pediment the raking cornice is left open at the apex. The open pediment is open along the base, with a gap in the cornice for part or all of the space under the pediment. All these forms were used in Hellenistic architecture, especially in Alexandria and the Middle East . The so-called "Treasury" or Al-Khazneh , a 1st-century rock-cut tomb in Petra , Jordan, is a famously extreme example, with not merely

954-457: The equilateral triangle , and the enclosing cornice has little emphasis; they are often merely gable ends with some ornament. In Gothic architecture pediments with a much more acute angle at the top were used, especially over doorways and windows, but while the rising sides of the cornice is elaborate, the horizontal bottom element was typically not very distinct. Often there is a pointed arch underneath, and no bottom element at all. "Pediment"

1007-412: The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition buildings, most of which were demolished. Under the dome was a large public space surrounded by the floors containing office space. The interior details were accented with terra cotta and scagliola . Doors were oak with brass hardware and "US" molded into doorknobs. Mahogany was used in courtrooms and other offices. Marble from Tennessee, Vermont, Maine and Italy

1060-618: The Chicago Federal Building. The four wings met under the dome to form an octagonal rotunda , inspired by Imperial Roman architecture , that was open to the ninth floor. The rotunda's 100 ft (30 m) diameter made it larger than that of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The federal building was also the tallest capitol-style building constructed in Chicago, with the exception of

1113-844: The Northern District of Illinois until 1964 and the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit until 1938. The Federal Weather Bureau maintained offices in the dome and took official measurements from July 1, 1905 until December 31, 1925, when the official weather station moved to the University of Chicago campus. The Federal Building site maintained supplemental observation equipment until 1970. In 1907, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis presided over an antitrust case against Standard Oil in which

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1166-695: The age of 22, he was appointed to the Chicago Board of Education . After his term on the board, he declined an offer from Mayor Joseph Medill to be nomination for a second term. While initially an active Republican , like his father, and a campaigner for President Grant , Hesing left the Republican Party and joined the Democratic Party in 1880. After completing his brief stint on the Chicago Board of Education, Hessing became

1219-457: The bottom. The giant curving volute or scroll used at the sides of the middle zone at Sant'Agostino was to be a very common feature over the next two centuries. As in Gothic architecture, this often reflected the shapes of the roofs behind, where the nave was higher than the side-aisles. Sant'Agostino also has a low, squashed down pediment at the top of the full-width section. This theme

1272-443: The capitals of the columns. Here the whole temple front is decoration applied to a very solid wall, but the lack of respect for the conventions of Greek trabeated architecture remains rather disconcerting. Conventional Roman pediments have a slightly steeper pitch than classical Greek ones, perhaps because they ended tiled roofs that received heavier rainfall. In Carolingian and Romanesque architecture pediments tended towards

1325-575: The city if he were elected mayor. Hessing left his position as postmaster in the Spring of 1897 to again campaign for the mayoralty. Hessing died in December 1897 of heart disease. Pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture , usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel ), or entablature if supported by columns . In ancient architecture,

1378-444: The company was fined $ 29 million for accepting freight rebates from the railroads. The verdict was later set aside but in 1920, Landis went on to become the first Commissioner of Baseball . A powerful bomb exploded on the building's north side September 4, 1918, killing four people and injuring 75 others, destroying the entrance doors and damaging windows of buildings across Adams Street. Two mail clerks and two patrons were killed in

1431-447: The device exploded. There was no damage to the building or its occupants. In 1931, the courtroom of Judge James Herbert Wilkerson was the location for the trial of gangster Al Capone . On October 24, 1931, Wilkerson sentenced Capone to a 10-year prison sentence and a fine of $ 50,000 for tax evasion . His conviction was upheld by the appellate court December 20, 1937. The District and Circuit courts and several agencies relocated to

1484-492: The dome was covered with gilt glass tiles. The plan called for the post office to occupy the basement and two lower floors. The sixth, seventh and eighth floors of one wing held the courts, judges, clerks and US Marshal . The floors in the dome were reserved for the Civil Service Commission , Railway Mail Service and weather bureau with other agencies occupying the remaining space. The base consisted of

1537-477: The entablature for the columns below. There are two faces to each pediment, both carved, with one lying parallel to the wall of the monument, and the other at right angles to that. The Arch of Augustus in Rimini , Italy (27 BC), an early imperial monument, suggests that at this stage provincial Roman architects were not well practiced in the classical vocabulary; the base of the pediment ends close to, but not over,

1590-506: The entire site and measured 321 ft (98 m) by 361 ft (110 m). On April 30, 1898, work for the superstructure was awarded to John Pierce, a New York contractor, who submitted a bid of $ 1,897,000. The building took seven years to construct because government policy at the time was to appropriate only enough funds for each contract as it was awarded. There was no general contractor , and over 100 separate contracts were awarded during construction. The completed building reached

1643-508: The explosion, which was immediately blamed upon the radical Industrial Workers of the World , which had recently been involved in a mass trial at the location. On September 7, 1918, police arrested a suspect with close ties to the IWW organization. Walt Disney worked at the post office in the building from July until September 1918. Authorities discovered another bomb on October 31, 1921, before

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1696-513: The home church of the Jesuit order , who favoured this style, which was first seen in many cities around Europe in a new main Jesuit church. Pediments became extremely common on the main facades of English country houses , and many across northern Europe; these might be placed over a porch with columns, or simply decorations to an essentially flat facade. In England, if there was any sculpture within

1749-522: The new Dirksen Federal Building across Dearborn Street, and the building was demolished in 1965. The 45-floor Kluczynski Federal Building and Loop Postal Station, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , were built in its place. The plaza between the three structures is the setting for Alexander Calder 's sculpture Flamingo . 41°52′45″N 87°37′45″W  /  41.879191°N 87.629085°W  / 41.879191; -87.629085 Washington Hesing Washington Hesing (1849–1897)

1802-471: The past in new designs. Part manifesto, part architectural scrapbook accumulated over the previous decade, the book represented the vision for a new generation of architects and designers who had grown up with Modernism but who felt increasingly constrained by its perceived rigidities. Multiple Postmodern architects and designers put simplified reinterpretations of the pediment found in Classical decoration at

1855-418: The pediment occupy the whole width of the facade, or at least that part that projects outwards. Santa Maria Novella and Sant'Agostino, Rome (1483, by Giacomo di Pietrasanta , perhaps designed by Alberti) were early examples of what was to become a very common scheme, where the pediment at the top of the facade was much less wide, forming a third zone above a middle zone that transitioned the width from that of

1908-414: The pediment, as well as below it; the rising sides are often called the "raking cornice". The tympanum is the triangular area within the pediment, which is often decorated with a pedimental sculpture which may be freestanding or a relief sculpture. The tympanum may hold an inscription, or in modern times, a clock face. The main variant shapes are the "segmental", "curved", or "arch" pediment, where

1961-460: The pediment, but the whole entablature , very "broken" and retreating into the cliff face. Broken pediments where the gap is extremely wide in this way are often called "half-pediments". They were adopted in Mannerist architecture , and applied to furniture designed by Thomas Chippendale . Another variant is the swan's neck pediment , a broken pediment with two S-shaped profiles resembling

2014-589: The post office. Demolition began on the old building in June 1896 after the post office relocated to a temporary building on the site now occupied by the 333 North Michigan Avenue Building. Foundation work began in August 1897 and was completed in September 1898 at a cost of $ 208,000. The foundation was supported by wooden piles driven 72 feet (22 m) below street level. The basement and first two floors covered

2067-481: The sides. Large pediments with columns, often called the "temple front", became widely used for important public buildings such as stock exchanges , reserve banks , law courts, legislatures, and museums, where an impression of solidity, reliability, and respectability was desired. Postmodernism , a movement that questioned Modernism (the status quo after WW2), promoted the inclusion of elements of historic styles in new designs. An early text questioning Modernism

2120-408: The site and erect a new one. The 1880 building was considered dangerous, and it was inadequate to house all the federal agencies in the city whose offices consequently were spread among several buildings. On January 20, 1896, Congress approved an additional $ 25,000 to employ a special architect. The Chicago Federal Building was the first government structure constructed with the purpose of housing

2173-432: The sixteenth floor with a large eagle perched atop the corbels. The windows of the ninth through twelfth floors were set into three arches supported by more Corinthian columns. Between the eagles were three circular windows with elaborately carved frames, and above, another circular window pierced the midpoint of each face of the dome. After construction was complete, more than $ 2,000,000 remained for interior decoration of

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2226-426: The straight line triangle of the cornice is replaced by a curve making a segment of a circle, the broken pediment where the cornice has a gap at the apex, and the open pediment , with a gap in the cornice along the base. Both triangular and segmental pediments can have "broken" and "open" forms. Pediments are found in ancient Greek architecture as early as 580 BC, in the archaic Temple of Artemis, Corfu , which

2279-594: The temple front for churches, but in the Baroque, and especially outside Italy, this distinction was abandoned. The first use of pediments over windows in the Renaissance was on the Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni in Florence, completed in 1523 by Baccio d'Agnolo . Vasari says the innovation caused ridicule initially, but later came to be admired and widely adopted. Baccio was accused of turning

2332-476: The time Congress approved funding for a new building, the post office had expanded to 1,319 clerks and 1,096 carriers. Other agencies housed in the building complained of poor planning and shoddy construction which resulted in crumbling plaster, broken plumbing and flooding. The new building was designed in the Beaux-Arts style by architect Henry Ives Cobb . The floorplan was a six-story Greek cross atop

2385-509: The top of their creations. As with other elements and ornaments taken from styles of the pre-Modern past, they were in most cases highly simplified. Especially when it comes to office architecture, Postmodernism was only skin deep; the underlying structure was usually very similar, if not identical, to that of Modernist buildings. In 1984 Philip Johnson designed what is now called 550 Madison Avenue in New York City (formerly known as

2438-496: The tympanum, it was often restricted to a coat of arms . Neoclassical architecture returned to "purer" classical models mostly using conventional triangular pediments, often over a portico with columns. Large schemes of pedimental sculpture were used where the budget allowed. In 19th-century styles freer treatments returned, and large segmental pediments were especially popular in eclectic styles such as Beaux-Arts architecture , often overwhelmed by sculpture within, above, and to

2491-431: The wings on the east-west axis held five bays as the building was situated on a rectangular lot. The bays each held two windows grouped vertically and were separated by Corinthian pilasters . The eighth floor was housed in shed dormers extending from the gabled roof. The dome was octagonal with a buttress at each corner of the drum. The buttresses were topped by corbels supporting a large double cornice encircling

2544-578: Was a candidate at the time in the 1893 Chicago mayoral special election , which was held due to the death in office by assassination of Mayor Carter Harrison Sr. , who had been the winner of the regularly-scheduled mayoral election held earlier that year. Hopkins pointed to his ability to secure Hessing this appointment as a demonstration of his own sway with the Cleveland administration. In his successful special election campaign, Hopkins touted his connections with Cleveland as something that would benefit

2597-444: Was an American newspaper editor and political figure primarily known for his ownership of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung and his term as postmaster of Chicago during the second term of President Grover Cleveland . Hesing was the son of newspaper publisher and former Sheriff of Cook County , Anton C. Hesing . He graduated from Yale University and later studied at the University of Berlin in his father's native Germany . At

2650-529: Was by architect Robert Venturi , Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966), in which he recommended a revival of the 'presence of the past' in architectural design. He tried to include in his own buildings qualities that he described as 'inclusion, inconsistency, compromise, accommodation, adaptation, superadjacency, equivalence, multiple focus, juxtaposition, or good and bad space.' Venturi encouraged 'quotation', which means reusing elements of

2703-607: Was developed by Andrea Palladio in the next century. The main facade of his San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice (begun 1566) has "two interpenetrating temple fronts", a wider one being overlaid with a narrower and higher one, respectively following the roof lines of the aisles and nave. Several of Palladio's villas also introduced the pediment to country house architecture, which was to be become extremely common in English Palladian architecture . In cities, Palladio reserved

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2756-492: Was probably one of the first. Pediments return in Renaissance architecture and are then much used in later styles such as Baroque , Neoclassical , and Beaux-Arts architecture , which favoured the segmental variant. A variant is the "segmental" or "arch" pediment, where the normal angular slopes of the cornice are replaced by one in the form of a segment of a circle, in the manner of a depressed arch. Both traditional and segmental pediments have "broken" and "open" forms. In

2809-515: Was used in corridor floors, wainscoting and stairways. Floors in the rotunda were marble accented with mosaic tile while railings and elevator grilles throughout the building were wrought iron. Ceilings were framed by egg-and-dart mouldings. The four courtrooms on the sixth floor contained a series of murals depicting historical moments in the development of law. The Building housed the United States District Court for

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