Robert Seyfarth
Encyclopedia
Robert Seyfarth was an American architect based in Chicago, Illinois.
, Germany
, with the intention of opening a tavern (what would now be considered an inn) in Chicago
. Advised to locate outside of the city, he settled with his wife Louise in Blue Island, which a couple of years earlier had begun to experience an influx of immigration from what was then known as the German Confederation
.
William purchased a building that was standing at the south-west corner of Grove Street and Western Avenue and opened his business. The location was a good one - it was on what was then called the Wabash Road a day's journey from Chicago, which guaranteed the tavern a steady supply of prosepective customers for many years. At about the same time he purchased a stone quarry about a mile south-west of the settlement (where Robbins, Illinois
now stands) and operated it concurrently with the inn, although apparently without as much success. He served as clerk and later as assessor for the township of Worth
from 1854 until he died in 1860. William and Louise had five sons, including Edward, who was the father of the architect.
Edward Seyfarth was active in community affairs on many levels. Not only did he own and operate the local hardware store, but in 1890 he was one of the founders of the Calumet State Bank, and in 1874 was a charter member of the Blue Island Ancient Free and Accepted Masons
. He served as village treasurer from 1880–1886 and as village trustee from 1886–1889 and again from 1893-1895. Over the years other members of the family were also active in the community - they were involved in banking, the board of education, and the Current Topics Club (later the Blue Island Woman's Club), who was largely responsible for the founding of the Blue Island Public Library. C. A. Seyfarth was one of the founding members of the Blue Island Elks
in 1916. (The architect was himself apparently a person of catholic interests - he was an active member of the Poultry Fancier's Association during the time that Blue Island was the headquarters for the Northeastern Illinois Fancier's Association in the early years of the 20th Century.
From the time his grandparents arrived in 1848 to the time Robert Seyfarth left Blue Island in about 1910 for Highland Park, the village had grown from being a pioneering hamlet of about 200 persons to a prosperous industrial suburb with a population of nearly 11,000, which the noted publisher and historian Alfred T. Andreas had called "...a quiet, though one among the prettiest little suburban towns in the West". It was in this atmosphere that Seyfarth grew up, attended primary school, married his first wife Nell Martin (1878–1928), and built their first home.
Seyfarth began his architectural education at the Chicago Manual Training School, which was founded by the Commercial Club out of a concern for the quality of the education of skilled labor in the Chicago region. The school had opened its doors on January 4, 1884 with four teachers and seventy-four pupils and the support of the sixty members of the club who had "pledged themselves to found a manual training school, and guaranteed for its construction, equipment and support [with] the sum of one hundred thousand dollars". The club, which was founded in 1877, was a group of the city's most influential leaders that included Marshall Field
, George Pullman
, Edson Keith, Cyrus McCormick
and George Armour
. The club's successor, The Commercial Club of Chicago
would later sponsor Daniel Burnham
and Charles Bennett's Plan of Chicago (1909), which is widely regarded as one of the most important public planning documents ever created.
Chicago Manual Training School was a private secondary school and was designed to graduate its students three years from the time they entered. The student body, which was all male, was required to spend an hour each day in the drafting room and two hours a day in the shop, in addition to the time spent in classrooms studying the conventional high school curriculum. Although it was to take him in a totally different direction, Chicago Manual Training School, with its focus on the industrial arts, was a logical choice for the secondary education of the oldest son of a hardware dealer, especially in an age when primogeniture was considered important. Besides his classes in drawing Seyfarth studied mathematics, English, French, Latin, history, physics, chemistry, foundry and forgework, machine shopwork, woodwork, political economy and civil government. In 1891 the tuition averaged $100.00 per year "to those able to pay it". In 1903 the institution became part of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, operating out of CMTS (later Belfield) Hall
.
Despite the fact that it was 17 miles away, Seyfarth enjoyed the advantage of the school’s convenient location. The railway depot that marked the beginning of his trip was a two-block walk from his home at Grove Street and Western Avenue, with the end of the ride being at the Illinois Central’s Twelfth Street Station, which was located directly across the street from the school. The ride would have taken him directly over the Midway Plaisance
of the World's Columbian Exposition, where he would have a clear view to the west of the great Ferris Wheel
and to the east of the Beaux Arts majesty of the main body of the Fair. It is difficult to imagine that to a boy from small-town America in the early 1890s this would not have created an impression and provided him with enormous inspiration, as it did the architectural world at large for the next forty years. In her book A Poet's Life - Seventy Years in a Changing World, the writer, publisher and social critic Harriet Monroe
succinctly noted forty-five years after the closing of the Fair that “…like all great achievements of beauty, it has become an incalculably inspiring force which lasted into the next ‘age.’
of 1871 a large population of some of the country's best architectural talent had come to rebuild a modern city using the most advanced and progressive techniques of the day. Even so, the community was taxed trying to perform all of the work that was necessary to keep up with the task. Chicago was developing at a rate that astonished anyone who was paying attention to its growth, as the Chicago architect John Wellborn Root
recalled years later:
at MIT
in 1868 with nine students, and even by 1896, the year after Seyfarth's graduation, there were only nine schools in the county with a combined student body of 273.) Seyfarth joined during the time he worked for Maher, who over the years was an active member of the club as a speaker, writer, exhibitor and judge in its annual competitions. Seyfarth is known to have entered his work at two of these exhibitions - the first time in 1903 (before he became a member), when his submission was listed as a "Library", and again in 1905, where the subject of the entry was his own house in Blue Island. The preface to the catalogue of the 1905 exhibition was devoted to what the noted architect Elmer Grey
(1872–1963) called "Inventive and Indigeonous Architecture", a phrase which perfectly reflected Seyfarth's design for this particular house and may have been one of the reasons why images of it were included.
Because of his association with the Chicago Architectural Club, Seyfarth would have ample opportunity to become acquainted with the major players of Chicago's progressive architectural community, a large number of whom were active members. These were relationships that Maher would doubtless have encouraged. Notables among the list included Charles B. Atwood
, Daniel Burnham
, Dankmar Adler
, Louis Sullivan
, Howard Van Doren Shaw
, William LeBaron Jenney and Frank Lloyd Wright.
The club's headquarters for many years was located in the former mansion of the piano manufacturer William W. Kimball at 1801 Prairie Ave.
in Chicago. It ceased to operate as an active organization in 1940 and was dissolved in 1967, but exists again today after it was re-formed in 1979.
Robert Seyfarth graduated from the Chicago Manual Training School in 1895, and the annual catalogue of the school for that year shows his position upon graduation to be that of a "Draughtsman" for the Chicago architect August Fiedler. Fiedler was born in Germany and came to the United States in 1871, establishing himself first in New York City and then in Chicago as a much sought-after designer of high-end residential interiors, later becoming an architect. He designed the woodwork and some of the other decoration for the Samuel Nickerson House
(1879–1883) on Erie Street in Chicago (now the Driehaus Museum), and the interiors of the Hegeler Carus Mansion
(William W. Boyington
,1874–1876) in LaSalle, Illinois. In an 1881 letter to a colleague, one of Fiedler's contemporaries commented on the quality of Fiedler's design work for Nickerson by saying that "...it would be hard to comprehend it's beauty without seeing it". From 1893 to 1896 he was the chief architect for the Board of Education for the city of Chicago (being the first to assume the position upon the creation of the building department on January 18, 1893), for whom he designed and/or supervised the construction of fifty-eight school buildings, and he was responsible for the design of thirty-eight buildings (thirty-six in the German Village alone
) at the World's Columbian Exposition
. Seyfarth began his career as an architect at the age of 17 working for Fiedler during the time the latter was architect to the board of education, and records show his position at the time he was hired to be "messenger" (although, as noted above, his graduation notice suggested something more than that), for which he was compensated with a salary of $6.00 per week (about $152. in 2010). Fiedler operated out of offices in Adler and Sullivan's Schiller (later Garrick Theater) Building (1891, demolished 1961), and Seyfarth was almost certainly introduced to him through his uncle Henry Biroth, who owned a pharmacy in Chicago and acted as the local secretary to the Illinois Pharmaceutical Association, who occupied offices down the hall from Fiedler. How long the young Seyfarth worked for Fiedler is not known, but by 1900 he was working for George Washington Maher on the renovation of the interior of the Nickerson mansion for Lucius Fisher
. Here, according to the Historic American Buildings Survey
, he designed and carved the woodwork for the rare book room.
Maher was an influential architect associated with the Prairie School
movement. According to H. Allen Brooks
, professor emeritus of fine arts at the University of Toronto
"His influence on the Midwest was profound and prolonged and, in its time, was certainly as great as was[ Frank Lloyd] Wright's. Compared with the conventional architecture of the day, his work showed considerable freedom and originality, and his interiors were notable for their open and flowing...space". Henry M. Hyde, in a 1913 article in the Chicago Tribune, recognized the work of Maher and of the other members of "the new American School of Architecture" by noting "They pay no attention to the conventions and rules of the classic types of architecture. They would express a new and democratic spirit." He went on to say "...there is no doubt that just now the Chicago insurgents and their work is attracting more attention and causing more comment than any other architectural development in America".
The beginning of Maher's life, however, wasn't quite so auspicious. He was born in Mill Creek, West Virginia
, and at about the age of five, due to the adverse economic conditions in Mill Creek at the time, his family moved to New Albany, Indiana
. There Maher attended primary school, but by the time he was in his early teens the family was on the move again, this time to Chicago. They went there to take advantage of the prosperity that had come to the city after the Great Fire of 1871, and in 1878 George was sent to apprentice with the Chicago architect Augustus Bauer (after 1881 the partnership of Augustus Bauer and Henry Hill) by his parents who, as was not unusual at the time, needed to augment the family income with the earnings that this type of employment would provide.
As history would show, this turn of events proved to be fortunate for Maher. Bauer had come to the United States in 1853 having been a part of the wave of German immigration that had brought Robert Seyfarth's grandfather to the United States, and he and his various partners, who also were of German extraction, played an important role in providing architectural services for the large German community in Chicago during the second half of the 19th century. In 1869 Bauer designed the first German school in Chicago at 1352 S. Union Street for Zion Lutheran Church, and in 1872-73 Bauer and Löebnitz designed Concert Hall, Chicago Turngemeinde (demolished) at Clark Street and Chicago Avenue. The output of the Bauer partnerships included many distinguished projects, including Old St. Patrick's Church at 700 W. Adams Street (1856, renovated and restored 1992-1999, which Chicago
magazine ranked among the 40 most important buildings in Chicago ), the Rosenberg Fountain in Grant Park
(dedicated October 16, 1893, restored 2004), and Tree Studios
at 601-623 N. State Street (1894–1913, with Parfitt Brothers, renovated 2004). Bauer is credited with the invention of the isolated footing foundation system, which allows for a longer span between vertical supports. This innovation among other things permits the broad expanses of glass that have become a standard feature of modern architecture. Maher was not Bauer's only notable protégé - at the beginning of the Civil War
and again at the end of it, Bauer employed Dankmar Adler
(1844–1900), who would later work with Louis Sullivan
on buildings that would come to be regarded as important contributions to the Chicago School
of architecture, notably the Chicago Stock Exchange Building (1893, demolished 1972) and the Auditorium Building (1889) (now the home of Roosevelt University
).
How long Maher worked for Bauer and his partners is not known, but by the 1880s he was working in the office of Joseph Lyman Silsbee
, who before he became an architect had been professor of architecture at the new College of Fine Arts at Syracuse University
. Silsbee was a talented architect who designed in the latest architectural fashion. He was noted for his Shingle Style buildings and “…was a master of the[ Queen Anne
] style, and in gaining the romantic effect admired by his clients he depended less upon [ its inherent] chaos than his contemporaries”. He came to Chicago in 1882 to act as an interior architect and as such was responsible for the opulent interiors of Potter and Bertha Palmer
's fantastic castle
at 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive (built 1881-1885, demolished 1950, Henry Ives Cobb
(1859–1931) and Charles Sumner Frost
(1856–1931) architects), and stayed to design several important projects for the city, including the Lincoln Park Conservatory
(1890–1895) and the West Virginia Building and the Moving Sidewalk for the World's Columbian Exposition (1893). While he worked for Silsbee, Maher worked alongside George Grant Elmslie
(1869–1952), Frank Lloyd Wright
(1867–1959) and Irving Gill
(1870–1936), who would each later become prominent architects, although with decidedly different architectural styles. In 1888 Maher established his own office with Charles Corwin, a relationship that lasted until about 1893. He briefly enjoyed a professional relationship with Northwestern University in Evanstion, Illinois, where in 1909 (during Seyfarth's tenure in his office) he designed Swift Hall and the first Patten Gymnasium (demolished 1940). These buildings were bold expressions of his unique design philosophy and were to have been integral parts of his master plan for the campus, which the board of trustees had commissioned through a competition in 1911 but failed to execute. This prompted one commentator in later years to lament "It's probably the most regrettable loss in Northwestern architectural history: the unique Prairie School campus that never was". Frank Lloyd Wright would have predicted the outcome. What follows is point 13 in his list of advice given "To the young man in architecture": "Enter no Architectural competition under any circumstances except as a novice. No competition ever gave to the world anything worth having in Architecture. The jury itself is a picked average. The first thing done by the jury is to go through all the designs and throw out the best and the worst ones so as an average, it can average upon an average. The net result of any competition is an average by the average of averages.".
Toward the end of his life, when he was chairman of the Municipal Arts and Town Planning Committee of the Illinois Chapter of the American Institute of Architects
, Maher became the driving force behind the restoration of the former Palace of Fine Arts, then a crumbling ruin which was the only major building that remained from the World's Columbian Exposition. Maher didn't live to see what he had begun come to fruition, but in 1940 the Museum of Science and Industry
opened in the newly restored building, a project which was funded largely with a $5 million gift from the philanthropist Julius Rosenwald
(1862–1932), who was president of Sears, Roebuck and Company
.
It is likely that Robert Seyfarth was introduced to Maher through family connections. Because Edward Seyfarth was an important local businessman, he would almost certainly have been familiar with the established architect's work that was being built in Blue Island.
(1925, John Mead Howells
and Raymond Hood
), where he had an office on the twenty-first floor until 1934 when the Depression
forced the move of his business to his home in the North Shore
community of Highland Park
. His was a small office - he did the design, drafting and supervision work himself, and for many years was assisted by Miss Eldridge, who typed specifications and generally kept the office running. After the office was moved to his home, he took as his assistant Edward Humrich (1901–1991), who himself became a noted architect after he left Seyfarth's employ shortly before the advent of World War II
. Humrich enjoyed a distinguished career designing and building houses in the Usonian style of Frank Lloyd Wright. He earned his architectural license in 1968. In a series of interviews with the Art Institute of Chicago
in 1986, he summed up Seyfarth's appeal: "He had an excellent sense of proportion and scale. His houses were all true to the North Shore..., and they're outstanding. He had a knack, kind of a freshness to it, and it was good."
A year or two after he went into independent practice, Robert Seyfarth built a gambrel
roofed Shingle Style house on Sheridan Road
in Highland Park, across the street from Frank Lloyd Wright's
Ward Willets
house (1901), and it marked a change in the direction of his design work - for the rest of his career his would design in an eclectic style combining Colonial Revival, Tudor
and Continental Provincial elements with strong geometric forms. During his career Seyfarth would design 73 houses in Highland Park alone, where his output began before the time of his arrival as a resident and lasted until shortly before his death. Here he elected to ignore the notion that in later years was famously offered to young architects by the Sage of Taliesin
"... go as far away as possible from home to build your first buildings. The physician can bury his mistakes—but the Architect can only advise his client to plant vines.".
Seyfarth is sometimes thought of as a "society architect"
(One such client, Willoughby G. Walling (1848-1916) of Winnetka, IL is known to have mingled with European
royalty
and with at least one President of the United States
in his capacity as the acting director general of the Department of Civilian Relief and as Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the American Red Cross
. His brother William English Walling
was recognized by W.E.B. DuBois as the founder of the NAACP
, and Willoughby himself "...became a major spokesman for the Chicago movement". Here he worked alongside the noted social reformer Jane Addams
and some of Chicago's wealthiest and most influential citizens, including Mrs. Cyrus McCormick
, Mrs. Emmons Blaine [whose father-in-law James G. Blaine
was variously a Senator, the Speaker of the House
and the Secretary of State
for James Garfield
and Chester A. Arthur
] and Julius Rosenwald..) A careful analysis of his work, however, will show that he served a broad-based clientele, and although he has a number of small houses to his credit the largest percentage of his work was done for what would be considered upper middle-class clients. Almost exclusively a residential architect with the majority of his work in the Chicago area, he also designed projects in Michigan
, Wisconsin
, Ohio
, Virginia
, Kentucky
and Alabama
. By the end of his career, he had designed over two hundred houses.
One of his more important works is the Samuel Holmes House designed in 1926 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places
. A shingle style house overlooking Lake Michigan
, its landscaping was designed by Jens Jensen
.
Robert Seyfarth continued to live and work in Highland Park until his death on March 1, 1950.
The Chicago History Museum Research Center has an archive consisting of drawings for 70 of Seyfarth's projects dating after 1932.
) and Herbert Croly
of the Architectural Record
("The Local Feeling in Western Country Houses", October, 1914, which discusses the Kozminski and McBride houses in Highland Park at 521 Sheridan Road and 2130 Linden, respectively) survive to give us some idea of how Seyfarth's work was received during the time he was practicing. (Croly would later go on to become the founding editor of The New Republic
magazine.) Additionally, photographs of houses he designed appeared in The Western Architect magazine a number of times in the 1920s. Also surviving are copies of advertisements from the Arkansas Soft Pine Bureau (see image, right), the California Redwood Association (again with the McBride House), the Pacific Lumber Company (featuring the Churchill house in Highland Park at 1375 Sheridan Road), The Creo-Dipt Company (see image, left), the White Pine Bureau, the American Face Brick Association and the Stewart Iron Works Company of Cincinnati (with a picture of the H. C. Dickinson house at 7150 S. Yale in Chicago). In 1908, his Prairie-style house for Dickinson was published in House Beautiful
magazine. In 1918, the Arkansas Soft Pine Bureau released a 32 page portfolio featuring houses built from Seyfarth's designs. Included were photographs, floor plans, bills of material, an estimate of the costs, and a brief description of important features. Entitled The Home You Longed For, the booklet was announced in Building Age Magazine under the heading "New Catalogs of Interest to the Trade". Although generally unavailable today, it must have enjoyed a wide circulation in its time. It was acquired the following year for the collection of the Carnegie Library
of Pittsburgh, and referred to that same year in an illustrated article that appeared in Printers' Ink Monthly entitled "The Loose-Leaf Portfolio - an Aid to Reader Interest", where it was described as "...a very attractive loose-leaf portfolio" and as a successful example of its type of publication.
In participating in this activity, Seyfarth was following the example of George Washington Maher, who was widely published during his career. Articles by Maher and about him appeared regularly in publications that included Western Architect, Inland Architect, Architectural Record and Arts and Decoration.
. The parking lot for the 6th District (Gresham) police station, built in 1997, occupies the spot where Dr. F.S, Tufts had built a store and offices (at 7754 S. Halsted St.) in 1909. At least one demolished house continues to live on, in a manner of speaking. Although it was a designated local landmark, the George Mahler house at 90 Ridge Road in Highland Park (1942) was demolished and replaced with a larger home, but it's virtual twin still stands at 12857 S. Maple Avenue in Blue Island, having been built for William Schrieber in 1950, the year of Robert Seyfarth's passing. Ada Louise Huxtable
, the Pulitzer Prize
-winning architectural critic for The New York Times
, made this classic observation about the phenomenon in a 1968 article she wrote about the demolition of Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel
(1923–1968) in Tokyo: "There is no art as impermenant as architecture. All that solid brick and stone mean nothing. Concrete is as evanescent as air. The monuments of our civilization stand, usually, on negotiable real estate; their value goes down as land value goes up...The logic and mathematics are immutable." Most demolitions of Seyfarth's buildings fall into this category - they're torn down with little fanfare to be replaced by larger homes.
There is one notable exception. The Hubbard/Brach house, which stood at 595 Sheridan Road in Winnetka, IL, was demolished in 2001 by a developer over the strong objections of local historians and the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois
.
The property had a hat trick in the arsenal for its defense that should have prevented it from being razed, but Winnetka had a weak landmark ordinance that required the owner's consent before a proposed landmark could be designated.
The house sat on a three acre lot overlooking Lake Michigan. It was built c.1854, and in 1871 had become the home of Gilbert Hubbard, a founding father of the town and the developer of a large section of it that today is called Hubbard Woods. The house was sold in 1924 to Edwin Brach (an heir to the Brach's
candy fortune), who with his family owned the house until 1999, when it was sold to George Garrick, who had become wealthy as an internet venture capitalist. At the time the Brach family bought it, the house underwent a significant renovation that was designed by Seyfarth, at which time it was extensively remodeled and increased in size to 11 rooms. All of this notwithstanding, Garrick felt the house had no architectural or historic value and his only apparent interest in the property was in the land on which it was located. Shortly after coming into possession of it he requested a demolition permit for the house so that the property could be sub-divided for two new houses. Without a strong preservation ordinance, the village was powerless to stop the demolition, and after fruitless attempts were made to come to some other accommodation the permit was granted and the house was demolished. In the end, Garrick never developed the parcel. The basement of the old house was filled in and the lot was allowed to return to its natural state. He later sold the property for a $500,000 loss and returned to California.
His adaptation of "old world standards" to suit modern taste was done in several ways. First of all, Seyfarth flooded his interiors with natural light. What made this possible in the principal rooms of the first floor were the floor-length windows, which here and elsewhere were frequently wider than what might be acceptable to Palladio
, but that were always in proportion to the building of which they were an element. On the upper floors where inverted dormers were used, sunlight is allowed to come directly into the room since the tunnel to the outdoors that is created by the ceiling of a convention dormer and half the area of the cheek walls is virtually eliminated (see image above - the angle of the sunlight as shown here is represented as it would be at the vernal and autumnal equinox
es in Chicago). Elsewhere, bays and banks of windows were frequently included to offer the same benefit.
Another device that was sometimes used quite dramatically by Maher (see image, upper left) that is a signature feature of Seyfarth's work is the embellishment of the front door as the main decorative feature of the house, usually to the exclusion of everything else on the building. This allowed for the buildings' geometry and finish materials to speak for its architectural style, and act as a counterpoint to what was seen, especially then, as the fussiness of the architecture of the previous three quarters of a century. Here he was practicing what Louis Sullivan had preached:
And as stylistically different as Seyfarth's work is from the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Seyfarth embraced Wright's feeling that
One feature of the current age, the ubiquitous attached garage (the successful inclusion of which apparently continues to confound architects today), was frequently incorporated into the design of the main house with such skill one observer noted that "...Norman peasants must have been driving automobiles since the Conquest."
(The first two as an assistant to George Maher
).
Background
Robert Seyfarth grew up as a member of a prominent local family. His grandfather William Seyfarth had come to the United States in 1848 from Schloss Tonndorf in what is now the state of ThuringiaThuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, with the intention of opening a tavern (what would now be considered an inn) in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Advised to locate outside of the city, he settled with his wife Louise in Blue Island, which a couple of years earlier had begun to experience an influx of immigration from what was then known as the German Confederation
German Confederation
The German Confederation was the loose association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries. It acted as a buffer between the powerful states of Austria and Prussia...
.
William purchased a building that was standing at the south-west corner of Grove Street and Western Avenue and opened his business. The location was a good one - it was on what was then called the Wabash Road a day's journey from Chicago, which guaranteed the tavern a steady supply of prosepective customers for many years. At about the same time he purchased a stone quarry about a mile south-west of the settlement (where Robbins, Illinois
Robbins, Illinois
Robbins is a village in Cook County, Illinois. The population was 6,635 at the 2000 census. Irene H. Brodie is the current mayor of the city.-Demographics:...
now stands) and operated it concurrently with the inn, although apparently without as much success. He served as clerk and later as assessor for the township of Worth
Worth Township, Cook County, Illinois
Worth Township is one of thirty townships in Cook County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2000 census, its population was 152,239. It was founded in 1849, when the county voted to subdivide itself into townships.-Geography:...
from 1854 until he died in 1860. William and Louise had five sons, including Edward, who was the father of the architect.
Edward Seyfarth was active in community affairs on many levels. Not only did he own and operate the local hardware store, but in 1890 he was one of the founders of the Calumet State Bank, and in 1874 was a charter member of the Blue Island Ancient Free and Accepted Masons
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
. He served as village treasurer from 1880–1886 and as village trustee from 1886–1889 and again from 1893-1895. Over the years other members of the family were also active in the community - they were involved in banking, the board of education, and the Current Topics Club (later the Blue Island Woman's Club), who was largely responsible for the founding of the Blue Island Public Library. C. A. Seyfarth was one of the founding members of the Blue Island Elks
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is an American fraternal order and social club founded in 1868...
in 1916. (The architect was himself apparently a person of catholic interests - he was an active member of the Poultry Fancier's Association during the time that Blue Island was the headquarters for the Northeastern Illinois Fancier's Association in the early years of the 20th Century.
From the time his grandparents arrived in 1848 to the time Robert Seyfarth left Blue Island in about 1910 for Highland Park, the village had grown from being a pioneering hamlet of about 200 persons to a prosperous industrial suburb with a population of nearly 11,000, which the noted publisher and historian Alfred T. Andreas had called "...a quiet, though one among the prettiest little suburban towns in the West". It was in this atmosphere that Seyfarth grew up, attended primary school, married his first wife Nell Martin (1878–1928), and built their first home.
Chicago Manual Training School
Seyfarth began his architectural education at the Chicago Manual Training School, which was founded by the Commercial Club out of a concern for the quality of the education of skilled labor in the Chicago region. The school had opened its doors on January 4, 1884 with four teachers and seventy-four pupils and the support of the sixty members of the club who had "pledged themselves to found a manual training school, and guaranteed for its construction, equipment and support [with] the sum of one hundred thousand dollars". The club, which was founded in 1877, was a group of the city's most influential leaders that included Marshall Field
Marshall Field
Marshall Field was founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores.-Life and career:...
, George Pullman
George Pullman
George Mortimer Pullman was an American inventor and industrialist. He is known as the inventor of the Pullman sleeping car, and for violently suppressing striking workers in the company town he created, Pullman .-Background:Born in Brocton, New York, his family moved to Albion,...
, Edson Keith, Cyrus McCormick
Cyrus McCormick
Cyrus Hall McCormick, Sr. was an American inventor and founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which became part of International Harvester Company in 1902.He and many members of the McCormick family became prominent Chicagoans....
and George Armour
Armour and Company
Armour & Company was an American slaughterhouse and meatpacking company founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1867 by the Armour brothers, led by Philip Danforth Armour. By 1880, the company was Chicago's most important business and helped make the city and its Union Stock Yards the center of the...
. The club's successor, The Commercial Club of Chicago
Commercial Club of Chicago
The Commercial Club of Chicago is an anti-labor club resulted from the 1907 merger of two predecessor Chicago clubs: the Merchants Club and the Commercial Club . Its most active members included George Pullman, Marshall Field, Cyrus McCormick, George Armour, Frederic Delano, Sewell Avery, Rufus...
would later sponsor Daniel Burnham
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC...
and Charles Bennett's Plan of Chicago (1909), which is widely regarded as one of the most important public planning documents ever created.
Chicago Manual Training School was a private secondary school and was designed to graduate its students three years from the time they entered. The student body, which was all male, was required to spend an hour each day in the drafting room and two hours a day in the shop, in addition to the time spent in classrooms studying the conventional high school curriculum. Although it was to take him in a totally different direction, Chicago Manual Training School, with its focus on the industrial arts, was a logical choice for the secondary education of the oldest son of a hardware dealer, especially in an age when primogeniture was considered important. Besides his classes in drawing Seyfarth studied mathematics, English, French, Latin, history, physics, chemistry, foundry and forgework, machine shopwork, woodwork, political economy and civil government. In 1891 the tuition averaged $100.00 per year "to those able to pay it". In 1903 the institution became part of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, operating out of CMTS (later Belfield) Hall
.
Despite the fact that it was 17 miles away, Seyfarth enjoyed the advantage of the school’s convenient location. The railway depot that marked the beginning of his trip was a two-block walk from his home at Grove Street and Western Avenue, with the end of the ride being at the Illinois Central’s Twelfth Street Station, which was located directly across the street from the school. The ride would have taken him directly over the Midway Plaisance
Midway Plaisance
The Midway Plaisance, also known locally as the Midway, is a park on the South Side of the city of Chicago, Illinois. It is one mile long by 220 yards wide and extends along 59th and 60th streets, joining Washington Park at its east end and Jackson Park at its west end. It divides the Hyde Park...
of the World's Columbian Exposition, where he would have a clear view to the west of the great Ferris Wheel
Ferris Wheel
The original Ferris Wheel, sometimes also referred to as the Chicago Wheel, was the centerpiece of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois....
and to the east of the Beaux Arts majesty of the main body of the Fair. It is difficult to imagine that to a boy from small-town America in the early 1890s this would not have created an impression and provided him with enormous inspiration, as it did the architectural world at large for the next forty years. In her book A Poet's Life - Seventy Years in a Changing World, the writer, publisher and social critic Harriet Monroe
Harriet Monroe
Harriet Monroe was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, poet and patron of the arts. She is best known as the founding publisher and long-time editor of Poetry Magazine, which made its debut in 1912. As a supporter of the poets Ezra Pound, H. D., T. S...
succinctly noted forty-five years after the closing of the Fair that “…like all great achievements of beauty, it has become an incalculably inspiring force which lasted into the next ‘age.’
The Chicago Architectural Club
The education of an architect in the early years of the 20th century was quite different than it is today, and the ambitious prospective architect could take many avenues to acquire it. In April 1905, for example, Seyfarth attended his first meeting as a member of the Chicago Architectural Club, which had been founded in 1885 as the Chicago Architectural Sketch Club by James H. Carpenter, a prominent Chicago draftsman, with the support of the magazine Inland Architect, whose first issue had been published in February 1883. The club was formed in Chicago during a period when architecture there was in its ascendancy - after the Great FireGreat Chicago Fire
The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from Sunday, October 8, to early Tuesday, October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying about in Chicago, Illinois. Though the fire was one of the largest U.S...
of 1871 a large population of some of the country's best architectural talent had come to rebuild a modern city using the most advanced and progressive techniques of the day. Even so, the community was taxed trying to perform all of the work that was necessary to keep up with the task. Chicago was developing at a rate that astonished anyone who was paying attention to its growth, as the Chicago architect John Wellborn Root
John Wellborn Root
John Wellborn Root was an American architect who worked out of Chicago with Daniel Burnham. He was one of the founders of the Chicago School style...
recalled years later:
"The conditions attending the development of architecture in the West have been, in almost every respect, without precedent. At no time in the history of the world has a community covering such vast and yet homogeneous territory developed with such amazing rapidity, and under conditions of civilization so far advanced. Few times in history have ever presented so impressive a sight as this resistless wave of progress, its farthermost verge crushing down primeval obstacles in nature and desperate resistance from the inhabitants; its deeper and calmer waters teeming with life and full of promise more significant than has ever yet been known."The club was an effort to help develop the talents of the city’s many draftsmen so that they could become qualified architects themselves, at a time when a formal education for architects was generally unavailable and not required. (The first architectural school in the United States was founded by architect William Robert Ware
William Robert Ware
William Robert Ware , born in Cambridge, Massachusetts into a family of the Unitarian clergy, was an American architect, author, and founder of two important American architectural schools....
at MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
in 1868 with nine students, and even by 1896, the year after Seyfarth's graduation, there were only nine schools in the county with a combined student body of 273.) Seyfarth joined during the time he worked for Maher, who over the years was an active member of the club as a speaker, writer, exhibitor and judge in its annual competitions. Seyfarth is known to have entered his work at two of these exhibitions - the first time in 1903 (before he became a member), when his submission was listed as a "Library", and again in 1905, where the subject of the entry was his own house in Blue Island. The preface to the catalogue of the 1905 exhibition was devoted to what the noted architect Elmer Grey
Elmer Grey
Elmer Grey, FAIA was an American architect and artist based in Pasadena, California. Grey designed many noted landmarks in Southern California, including the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Huntington Art Gallery, the Pasadena Playhouse and Wattles Mansion...
(1872–1963) called "Inventive and Indigeonous Architecture", a phrase which perfectly reflected Seyfarth's design for this particular house and may have been one of the reasons why images of it were included.
Because of his association with the Chicago Architectural Club, Seyfarth would have ample opportunity to become acquainted with the major players of Chicago's progressive architectural community, a large number of whom were active members. These were relationships that Maher would doubtless have encouraged. Notables among the list included Charles B. Atwood
Charles B. Atwood
Charles B. Atwood was an architect who designed several buildings and a large number of secondary structures for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He also designed a number of notable buildings in the city of Chicago....
, Daniel Burnham
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC...
, Dankmar Adler
Dankmar Adler
Dankmar Adler was a celebrated German-born American architect.-Early years:...
, Louis Sullivan
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
, Howard Van Doren Shaw
Howard Van Doren Shaw
Howard Van Doren Shaw was an American architect. He became one of the best-known architects of his generation in the Chicago area.-Early life and career:...
, William LeBaron Jenney and Frank Lloyd Wright.
The club's headquarters for many years was located in the former mansion of the piano manufacturer William W. Kimball at 1801 Prairie Ave.
Prairie Avenue
Prairie Avenue is a north–south thoroughfare on the South Side of Chicago, which historically extended from 16th Street in the Near South Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States, to the city's southern limits and beyond. The street has a rich history from its origins...
in Chicago. It ceased to operate as an active organization in 1940 and was dissolved in 1967, but exists again today after it was re-formed in 1979.
Influences and early career
Robert Seyfarth graduated from the Chicago Manual Training School in 1895, and the annual catalogue of the school for that year shows his position upon graduation to be that of a "Draughtsman" for the Chicago architect August Fiedler. Fiedler was born in Germany and came to the United States in 1871, establishing himself first in New York City and then in Chicago as a much sought-after designer of high-end residential interiors, later becoming an architect. He designed the woodwork and some of the other decoration for the Samuel Nickerson House
Nickerson House
The Samuel Nickerson House, located at 40 East Erie Street in the Near North Side neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, is a Chicago Landmark. The house, built in 1883, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places....
(1879–1883) on Erie Street in Chicago (now the Driehaus Museum), and the interiors of the Hegeler Carus Mansion
Hegeler Carus Mansion
The Hegeler Carus Mansion, located at 1307 Seventh Street in La Salle, Illinois is one of the midwest's great Second Empire structures.Built in 1876 by Edward C. Hegeler, partner in nearby Matthiessen Hegeler Zinc Company, the mansion was designed by Chicago architect William W. Boyington...
(William W. Boyington
William W. Boyington
William W. Boyington was an architect who designed several notable structures in and around Chicago, Illinois. Originally from Massachusetts, W.W. Boyington studied engineering and architecture in the State of New York...
,1874–1876) in LaSalle, Illinois. In an 1881 letter to a colleague, one of Fiedler's contemporaries commented on the quality of Fiedler's design work for Nickerson by saying that "...it would be hard to comprehend it's beauty without seeing it". From 1893 to 1896 he was the chief architect for the Board of Education for the city of Chicago (being the first to assume the position upon the creation of the building department on January 18, 1893), for whom he designed and/or supervised the construction of fifty-eight school buildings, and he was responsible for the design of thirty-eight buildings (thirty-six in the German Village alone
) at the World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
. Seyfarth began his career as an architect at the age of 17 working for Fiedler during the time the latter was architect to the board of education, and records show his position at the time he was hired to be "messenger" (although, as noted above, his graduation notice suggested something more than that), for which he was compensated with a salary of $6.00 per week (about $152. in 2010). Fiedler operated out of offices in Adler and Sullivan's Schiller (later Garrick Theater) Building (1891, demolished 1961), and Seyfarth was almost certainly introduced to him through his uncle Henry Biroth, who owned a pharmacy in Chicago and acted as the local secretary to the Illinois Pharmaceutical Association, who occupied offices down the hall from Fiedler. How long the young Seyfarth worked for Fiedler is not known, but by 1900 he was working for George Washington Maher on the renovation of the interior of the Nickerson mansion for Lucius Fisher
Fisher Building (Chicago)
The Fisher Building is 20-story, neo-Gothic landmark building located at 343 South Dearborn Street in the Chicago Loop community area of Chicago. Commissioned by paper magnate Lucius Fisher, the original building was completed in 1896 by D.H. Burnham & Company with an addition latter added in...
. Here, according to the Historic American Buildings Survey
Historic American Buildings Survey
The Historic American Buildings Survey , Historic American Engineering Record , and Historic American Landscapes Survey are programs of the National Park Service established for the purpose of documenting historic places. Records consists of measured drawings, archival photographs, and written...
, he designed and carved the woodwork for the rare book room.
Maher was an influential architect associated with the Prairie School
Prairie School
Prairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States.The works of the Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands,...
movement. According to H. Allen Brooks
H. Allen Brooks
H. Allen Brooks was an architectural historian and longtime professor at the University of Toronto...
, professor emeritus of fine arts at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
"His influence on the Midwest was profound and prolonged and, in its time, was certainly as great as was
The beginning of Maher's life, however, wasn't quite so auspicious. He was born in Mill Creek, West Virginia
Mill Creek, West Virginia
Mill Creek is a town in Randolph County, West Virginia, United States, along the Tygart Valley River. The population was 662 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Mill Creek is located at ....
, and at about the age of five, due to the adverse economic conditions in Mill Creek at the time, his family moved to New Albany, Indiana
New Albany, Indiana
New Albany is a city in Floyd County, Indiana, United States, situated along the Ohio River opposite Louisville, Kentucky. In 1900, 20,628 people lived in New Albany; in 1910, 20,629; in 1920, 22,992; and in 1940, 25,414. The population was 36,372 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat of...
. There Maher attended primary school, but by the time he was in his early teens the family was on the move again, this time to Chicago. They went there to take advantage of the prosperity that had come to the city after the Great Fire of 1871, and in 1878 George was sent to apprentice with the Chicago architect Augustus Bauer (after 1881 the partnership of Augustus Bauer and Henry Hill) by his parents who, as was not unusual at the time, needed to augment the family income with the earnings that this type of employment would provide.
As history would show, this turn of events proved to be fortunate for Maher. Bauer had come to the United States in 1853 having been a part of the wave of German immigration that had brought Robert Seyfarth's grandfather to the United States, and he and his various partners, who also were of German extraction, played an important role in providing architectural services for the large German community in Chicago during the second half of the 19th century. In 1869 Bauer designed the first German school in Chicago at 1352 S. Union Street for Zion Lutheran Church, and in 1872-73 Bauer and Löebnitz designed Concert Hall, Chicago Turngemeinde (demolished) at Clark Street and Chicago Avenue. The output of the Bauer partnerships included many distinguished projects, including Old St. Patrick's Church at 700 W. Adams Street (1856, renovated and restored 1992-1999, which Chicago
Chicago (magazine)
Chicago is a monthly magazine published by the Tribune Company. It concentrates on lifestyle and human interest stories, and on reviewing restaurants, travel, fashion, and theatre from or nearby Chicago. Its circulation in 2004 was 165,000, larger than People in its market...
magazine ranked among the 40 most important buildings in Chicago ), the Rosenberg Fountain in Grant Park
Grant Park (Chicago)
Grant Park, with between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, offers many different attractions in its large open space. The park is generally flat. It is also crossed by large boulevards and even a bed of sunken railroad tracks...
(dedicated October 16, 1893, restored 2004), and Tree Studios
Tree Studio Building and Annexes
The Tree Studio Building and Annexes was an artist colony established in Chicago, Illinois in 1894 by Judge Lambert Tree and his wife, Anne Tree....
at 601-623 N. State Street (1894–1913, with Parfitt Brothers, renovated 2004). Bauer is credited with the invention of the isolated footing foundation system, which allows for a longer span between vertical supports. This innovation among other things permits the broad expanses of glass that have become a standard feature of modern architecture. Maher was not Bauer's only notable protégé - at the beginning of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
and again at the end of it, Bauer employed Dankmar Adler
Dankmar Adler
Dankmar Adler was a celebrated German-born American architect.-Early years:...
(1844–1900), who would later work with Louis Sullivan
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
on buildings that would come to be regarded as important contributions to the Chicago School
Chicago school (architecture)
Chicago's architecture is famous throughout the world and one style is referred to as the Chicago School. The style is also known as Commercial style. In the history of architecture, the Chicago School was a school of architects active in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century...
of architecture, notably the Chicago Stock Exchange Building (1893, demolished 1972) and the Auditorium Building (1889) (now the home of Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University is a coeducational, private university with campuses in Chicago, Illinois and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university's curriculum is based on...
).
How long Maher worked for Bauer and his partners is not known, but by the 1880s he was working in the office of Joseph Lyman Silsbee
Joseph Lyman Silsbee
Joseph Lyman Silsbee was a significant American architect during the 19th and 20th centuries. He was well known for his facility of drawing and gift for designing buildings in a variety of styles.his most prominent works ran through Syracuse, Buffalo and Chicago He was influential as mentor to a...
, who before he became an architect had been professor of architecture at the new College of Fine Arts at Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
. Silsbee was a talented architect who designed in the latest architectural fashion. He was noted for his Shingle Style buildings and “…was a master of the
Queen Anne
"Queen Anne" generally refers to Anne, Queen of Great Britain , Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1702, and of Great Britain from 1707.Queen Anne may also refer to:-Uses relating to Queen Anne of Great Britain:...
Potter Palmer
Potter Palmer was an American businessman who was responsible for much of the development of State Street in Chicago.-Retailing career:...
's fantastic castle
Palmer Mansion
The Palmer Mansion, constructed 1882–1885 at 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive, was once the largest private residence in Chicago, Illinois, located in the Near North Side neighborhood and facing Lake Michigan. It was designed by architects Henry Ives Cobb and Charles Sumner Frost of the firm Cobb and Frost...
at 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive (built 1881-1885, demolished 1950, Henry Ives Cobb
Henry Ives Cobb
Henry Ives Cobb , born in Brookline, Massachusetts to Albert Adams and Mary Russell Candler Cobb, was a Chicago-based architect in the last decades of the 19th century, known for his designs in the Romanesque and Victorian Gothic styles...
(1859–1931) and Charles Sumner Frost
Charles Sumner Frost
Charles Sumner Frost was an American architect.Born in Lewiston, Maine, Frost was first a draftsman in Boston, and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While working in Boston he worked for the firm of Peabody and Stearns. He moved to Chicago in 1 882. There he began a...
(1856–1931) architects), and stayed to design several important projects for the city, including the Lincoln Park Conservatory
Lincoln Park Conservatory
The Lincoln Park Conservatory is a conservatory and botanical garden in Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois. The conservatory is situated at 2391 North Stockton Drive just south of Fullerton Avenue, west of Lake Shore Drive, and part of the Lincoln Park, Chicago community area. Positioned near the...
(1890–1895) and the West Virginia Building and the Moving Sidewalk for the World's Columbian Exposition (1893). While he worked for Silsbee, Maher worked alongside George Grant Elmslie
George Grant Elmslie
George Grant Elmslie was an American, though born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Prairie School architect whose work is mostly found in the Midwestern United States...
(1869–1952), Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
(1867–1959) and Irving Gill
Irving Gill
Irving John Gill , American architect, is considered a pioneer of the modern movement in architecture. He designed several buildings considered examples of San Diego's best architecture.-Biography:...
(1870–1936), who would each later become prominent architects, although with decidedly different architectural styles. In 1888 Maher established his own office with Charles Corwin, a relationship that lasted until about 1893. He briefly enjoyed a professional relationship with Northwestern University in Evanstion, Illinois, where in 1909 (during Seyfarth's tenure in his office) he designed Swift Hall and the first Patten Gymnasium (demolished 1940). These buildings were bold expressions of his unique design philosophy and were to have been integral parts of his master plan for the campus, which the board of trustees had commissioned through a competition in 1911 but failed to execute. This prompted one commentator in later years to lament "It's probably the most regrettable loss in Northwestern architectural history: the unique Prairie School campus that never was". Frank Lloyd Wright would have predicted the outcome. What follows is point 13 in his list of advice given "To the young man in architecture": "Enter no Architectural competition under any circumstances except as a novice. No competition ever gave to the world anything worth having in Architecture. The jury itself is a picked average. The first thing done by the jury is to go through all the designs and throw out the best and the worst ones so as an average, it can average upon an average. The net result of any competition is an average by the average of averages.".
Toward the end of his life, when he was chairman of the Municipal Arts and Town Planning Committee of the Illinois Chapter of the American Institute of Architects
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...
, Maher became the driving force behind the restoration of the former Palace of Fine Arts, then a crumbling ruin which was the only major building that remained from the World's Columbian Exposition. Maher didn't live to see what he had begun come to fruition, but in 1940 the Museum of Science and Industry
Museum of Science and Industry
MOSI may refer to:* MoSi — molybdenum silicide, an important material in the semiconductor industry* MOSI - Master Out Slave In, a signal on the Serial Peripheral Interface Bus* MOSI protocol, an extension of the basic MSI cache coherency protocol...
opened in the newly restored building, a project which was funded largely with a $5 million gift from the philanthropist Julius Rosenwald
Julius Rosenwald
Julius Rosenwald was a U.S. clothier, manufacturer, business executive, and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for the Rosenwald Fund which donated millions to support the education of African American children in the rural South, as well...
(1862–1932), who was president of Sears, Roebuck and Company
Sears, Roebuck and Company
Sears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century...
.
It is likely that Robert Seyfarth was introduced to Maher through family connections. Because Edward Seyfarth was an important local businessman, he would almost certainly have been familiar with the established architect's work that was being built in Blue Island.
Independent practice
While still working in Maher's office, Seyfarth started to design houses on his own, and his early works show the influences of Maher and other Prairie School architects. An early 20th century directory of Blue Island, published during the time he was still working for Maher, included a listing for "Robert Seyfarth, Architect", showing the Seyfarth building (demolished 1992) as his address. Seyfarth's earliest known independently attributed work comes at this time - it is a "Neat Little Bungalow House" that was published with plans, bills of material and estimate of costs in the May, 1905 edition of The National Builder magazine. In about 1909 he opened his own architectural practice. In the early years the office was located in the Corn Exchange Bank Building (1908, Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, demolished 1985) at 134 S. LaSalle Street, which was a short walk from the Chicago Stock Exchange Building. He later moved into the newly completed Tribune TowerTribune Tower
The Tribune Tower is a neo-Gothic building located at 435 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Tribune and Tribune Company. WGN Radio also broadcasts from the building, with ground-level studios overlooking nearby Pioneer Court and Michigan Avenue. CNN's...
(1925, John Mead Howells
John Mead Howells
John Mead Howells was an American architect. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts as the son of author William Dean Howells, he studied architecture at Harvard and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he met his future partners, I. N. Phelps Stokes and Raymond Hood...
and Raymond Hood
Raymond Hood
Raymond Mathewson Hood was an early-mid twentieth century architect who worked in the Art Deco style. He was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, educated at Brown University, MIT, and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. At the latter institution he met John Mead Howells, with whom Hood later partnered...
), where he had an office on the twenty-first floor until 1934 when the Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
forced the move of his business to his home in the North Shore
North Shore (Chicago)
The North Shore is a term that refers to the generally affluent suburbs north of Chicago, Illinois bordering the shore of Lake Michigan.- History :Europeans settled the area sparsely after an 1833 treaty with local Native Americans...
community of Highland Park
Highland Park, Illinois
Highland Park is a suburban municipality in Lake County, Illinois, United States, about north of downtown Chicago. As of 2009, the population is 33,492. Highland Park is one of several municipalities located on the North Shore of the Chicago Metropolitan Area.-Overview:Highland Park was founded...
. His was a small office - he did the design, drafting and supervision work himself, and for many years was assisted by Miss Eldridge, who typed specifications and generally kept the office running. After the office was moved to his home, he took as his assistant Edward Humrich (1901–1991), who himself became a noted architect after he left Seyfarth's employ shortly before the advent of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Humrich enjoyed a distinguished career designing and building houses in the Usonian style of Frank Lloyd Wright. He earned his architectural license in 1968. In a series of interviews with the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
in 1986, he summed up Seyfarth's appeal: "He had an excellent sense of proportion and scale. His houses were all true to the North Shore..., and they're outstanding. He had a knack, kind of a freshness to it, and it was good."
A year or two after he went into independent practice, Robert Seyfarth built a gambrel
Gambrel
A gambrel is a usually-symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, while the lower slope is steep. This design provides the advantages of a sloped roof while maximizing headroom on the building's upper level...
roofed Shingle Style house on Sheridan Road
Sheridan Road
Sheridan Road is a major north-south thoroughfare that leads from Diversey Parkway in Chicago, Illinois, north to the Illinois-Wisconsin border and beyond to Racine. Throughout most of its run, it is the easternmost north-south through street, closest to Lake Michigan...
in Highland Park, across the street from Frank Lloyd Wright's
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
Ward Willets
Willits House
The Ward W. Willits House is a building designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Designed in 1901, the Willits house is considered the first of the great Prairie houses. Built in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois, the house presents a symmetrical facade to the street. The plan is a...
house (1901), and it marked a change in the direction of his design work - for the rest of his career his would design in an eclectic style combining Colonial Revival, Tudor
Tudor style architecture
The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...
and Continental Provincial elements with strong geometric forms. During his career Seyfarth would design 73 houses in Highland Park alone, where his output began before the time of his arrival as a resident and lasted until shortly before his death. Here he elected to ignore the notion that in later years was famously offered to young architects by the Sage of Taliesin
Taliesin
Taliesin was an early British poet of the post-Roman period whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin...
"... go as far away as possible from home to build your first buildings. The physician can bury his mistakes—but the Architect can only advise his client to plant vines.".
Seyfarth is sometimes thought of as a "society architect"
(One such client, Willoughby G. Walling (1848-1916) of Winnetka, IL is known to have mingled with European
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
royalty
Royal House
A royal house or royal dynasty consists of at least one, but usually more monarchs who are related to one another, as well as their non-reigning descendants and spouses. Monarchs of the same realm who are not related to one another are usually deemed to belong to different houses, and each house is...
and with at least one President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
in his capacity as the acting director general of the Department of Civilian Relief and as Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the American Red Cross
American Red Cross
The American Red Cross , also known as the American National Red Cross, is a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States. It is the designated U.S...
. His brother William English Walling
William English Walling
William English Walling was an American labor reformer and socialist born in Louisville, Kentucky. He was the grandson of William Hayden English, the Democratic candidate for vice president in 1880, and was born into wealth. He was educated at the University of Chicago and at Harvard Law School...
was recognized by W.E.B. DuBois as the founder of the NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
, and Willoughby himself "...became a major spokesman for the Chicago movement". Here he worked alongside the noted social reformer Jane Addams
Jane Addams
Jane Addams was a pioneer settlement worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace...
and some of Chicago's wealthiest and most influential citizens, including Mrs. Cyrus McCormick
Cyrus McCormick
Cyrus Hall McCormick, Sr. was an American inventor and founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which became part of International Harvester Company in 1902.He and many members of the McCormick family became prominent Chicagoans....
, Mrs. Emmons Blaine [whose father-in-law James G. Blaine
James G. Blaine
James Gillespie Blaine was a U.S. Representative, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, U.S. Senator from Maine, two-time Secretary of State...
was variously a Senator, the Speaker of the House
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, or Speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives...
and the Secretary of State
Secretary of State
Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....
for James Garfield
James Garfield
James Abram Garfield served as the 20th President of the United States, after completing nine consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Garfield's accomplishments as President included a controversial resurgence of Presidential authority above Senatorial courtesy in executive...
and Chester A. Arthur
Chester A. Arthur
Chester Alan Arthur was the 21st President of the United States . Becoming President after the assassination of President James A. Garfield, Arthur struggled to overcome suspicions of his beginnings as a politician from the New York City Republican machine, succeeding at that task by embracing...
] and Julius Rosenwald..) A careful analysis of his work, however, will show that he served a broad-based clientele, and although he has a number of small houses to his credit the largest percentage of his work was done for what would be considered upper middle-class clients. Almost exclusively a residential architect with the majority of his work in the Chicago area, he also designed projects in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
and Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
. By the end of his career, he had designed over two hundred houses.
One of his more important works is the Samuel Holmes House designed in 1926 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. A shingle style house overlooking Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
, its landscaping was designed by Jens Jensen
Jens Jensen (landscape architect)
Jens Jensen was a Danish-American landscape architect.-Early life:Jens Jensen was born near Dybbøl in Slesvig, Denmark, in 1860, to a wealthy farming family. For the first nineteen years of his life he lived on his family's farm, which cultivated his love for the natural environment...
.
Robert Seyfarth continued to live and work in Highland Park until his death on March 1, 1950.
The Chicago History Museum Research Center has an archive consisting of drawings for 70 of Seyfarth's projects dating after 1932.
Marketing
During his career, Seyfarth's work appeared in magazines and journals and in the advertisements of various architectural supply firms. The extent to which this was done is not known, but articles by Eleanor Jewett (1892–1968), art critic for the Chicago Tribune ("Cape Cod Architecture seen in B.L.T.'s Home" (c. March, 1921) discussing the Taylor house at 92 Dell Place in Glencoe, IllinoisGlencoe, Illinois
Glencoe is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the village population was 8,723. Glencoe is located on suburban Chicago's North Shore. Glencoe is located within the New Trier High School District. Glencoe is regarded as one of the most affluent suburbs on...
) and Herbert Croly
Herbert Croly
Herbert David Croly was an intellectual leader of the Progressive Movement as an editor, and political philosopher and a co-founder of the magazine The New Republic in early twentieth-century America...
of the Architectural Record
Architectural Record
Architectural Record is an American monthly magazine dedicated to architecture and interior design, published by McGraw-Hill Construction in New York City. It is over 110 years old...
("The Local Feeling in Western Country Houses", October, 1914, which discusses the Kozminski and McBride houses in Highland Park at 521 Sheridan Road and 2130 Linden, respectively) survive to give us some idea of how Seyfarth's work was received during the time he was practicing. (Croly would later go on to become the founding editor of The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
magazine.) Additionally, photographs of houses he designed appeared in The Western Architect magazine a number of times in the 1920s. Also surviving are copies of advertisements from the Arkansas Soft Pine Bureau (see image, right), the California Redwood Association (again with the McBride House), the Pacific Lumber Company (featuring the Churchill house in Highland Park at 1375 Sheridan Road), The Creo-Dipt Company (see image, left), the White Pine Bureau, the American Face Brick Association and the Stewart Iron Works Company of Cincinnati (with a picture of the H. C. Dickinson house at 7150 S. Yale in Chicago). In 1908, his Prairie-style house for Dickinson was published in House Beautiful
House Beautiful
House Beautiful is an interior decorating magazine that focuses on decorating and the domestic arts. First published in 1896, it is currently published by the Hearst Corporation, who purchased it in 1934...
magazine. In 1918, the Arkansas Soft Pine Bureau released a 32 page portfolio featuring houses built from Seyfarth's designs. Included were photographs, floor plans, bills of material, an estimate of the costs, and a brief description of important features. Entitled The Home You Longed For, the booklet was announced in Building Age Magazine under the heading "New Catalogs of Interest to the Trade". Although generally unavailable today, it must have enjoyed a wide circulation in its time. It was acquired the following year for the collection of the Carnegie Library
Carnegie library
A Carnegie library is a library built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929, including some belonging to public and university library systems...
of Pittsburgh, and referred to that same year in an illustrated article that appeared in Printers' Ink Monthly entitled "The Loose-Leaf Portfolio - an Aid to Reader Interest", where it was described as "...a very attractive loose-leaf portfolio" and as a successful example of its type of publication.
In participating in this activity, Seyfarth was following the example of George Washington Maher, who was widely published during his career. Articles by Maher and about him appeared regularly in publications that included Western Architect, Inland Architect, Architectural Record and Arts and Decoration.
Demolition and controversy
Not all of Seyfarth's buildings have survived. One house at 67th and Yale was demolished in the late 1960s to make way for the construction of Kennedy-King CollegeKennedy-King College
Kennedy-King College is a two-year community college in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is part of the City Colleges of Chicago, a system of two-year education that has existed in Chicago, Illinois since Crane Technical College began to accept adult students in 1911...
. The parking lot for the 6th District (Gresham) police station, built in 1997, occupies the spot where Dr. F.S, Tufts had built a store and offices (at 7754 S. Halsted St.) in 1909. At least one demolished house continues to live on, in a manner of speaking. Although it was a designated local landmark, the George Mahler house at 90 Ridge Road in Highland Park (1942) was demolished and replaced with a larger home, but it's virtual twin still stands at 12857 S. Maple Avenue in Blue Island, having been built for William Schrieber in 1950, the year of Robert Seyfarth's passing. Ada Louise Huxtable
Ada Louise Huxtable
Ada Louise Huxtable is an architecture critic and writer on architecture. In 1970 she was awarded the first ever Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for "distinguished criticism during 1969."...
, the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning architectural critic for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, made this classic observation about the phenomenon in a 1968 article she wrote about the demolition of Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel
Imperial Hotel, Tokyo
The Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan, was created in the late 1880s at the request of the Japanese aristocracy to cater to the increasing number of western visitors to Japan. The hotel site is located just south of the Imperial Palace grounds, next to the previous location of the Palace moat...
(1923–1968) in Tokyo: "There is no art as impermenant as architecture. All that solid brick and stone mean nothing. Concrete is as evanescent as air. The monuments of our civilization stand, usually, on negotiable real estate; their value goes down as land value goes up...The logic and mathematics are immutable." Most demolitions of Seyfarth's buildings fall into this category - they're torn down with little fanfare to be replaced by larger homes.
There is one notable exception. The Hubbard/Brach house, which stood at 595 Sheridan Road in Winnetka, IL, was demolished in 2001 by a developer over the strong objections of local historians and the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois
Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois
The Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois -- also known as Landmarks Illinois -- is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1971 to prevent the demolition of the Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan designed Chicago Stock Exchange Building...
.
The property had a hat trick in the arsenal for its defense that should have prevented it from being razed, but Winnetka had a weak landmark ordinance that required the owner's consent before a proposed landmark could be designated.
The house sat on a three acre lot overlooking Lake Michigan. It was built c.1854, and in 1871 had become the home of Gilbert Hubbard, a founding father of the town and the developer of a large section of it that today is called Hubbard Woods. The house was sold in 1924 to Edwin Brach (an heir to the Brach's
Brach's
Brach's Confections is a candy and sweets company which produces and invented many modern icons of the sugary world; it is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. In November 2007, Brach's Confections was sold to Farley's & Sathers Candy Company and the corporate office moved to Round Lake,...
candy fortune), who with his family owned the house until 1999, when it was sold to George Garrick, who had become wealthy as an internet venture capitalist. At the time the Brach family bought it, the house underwent a significant renovation that was designed by Seyfarth, at which time it was extensively remodeled and increased in size to 11 rooms. All of this notwithstanding, Garrick felt the house had no architectural or historic value and his only apparent interest in the property was in the land on which it was located. Shortly after coming into possession of it he requested a demolition permit for the house so that the property could be sub-divided for two new houses. Without a strong preservation ordinance, the village was powerless to stop the demolition, and after fruitless attempts were made to come to some other accommodation the permit was granted and the house was demolished. In the end, Garrick never developed the parcel. The basement of the old house was filled in and the lot was allowed to return to its natural state. He later sold the property for a $500,000 loss and returned to California.
Salient features
Although considered a revivalist architect, Seyfarth's designs were not pedantic copies of existing work or even typical examples of the revival architecture that was popular at the time. Despite the fact that his design aesthetic was more traditional than that of his previous employer, Seyfarth had absorbed many of Maher's (and the Prairie School's) ideas and incorporated them into his own architectural philosophy. His buildings provided their owners with architecture that offered the most up-to-date conveniences and floorplans that were considered modern - but that was carefully imbued with the warmth and character of earlier times. From his introduction to The Home You Longed For - "These few old world standards, rightly employed, have become completely molded to fit our present conditions...With such a rich inheritance handed down to us, why should not all our homes be...examples of these splendid former types which were fashioned on sound principles beyond reason for change of design and possessing an artistic grace from which future generations may gather lasting inspiration - made to live in and adorned to please - such should be the enduring qualities of the typical American home of today."His adaptation of "old world standards" to suit modern taste was done in several ways. First of all, Seyfarth flooded his interiors with natural light. What made this possible in the principal rooms of the first floor were the floor-length windows, which here and elsewhere were frequently wider than what might be acceptable to Palladio
Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio was an architect active in the Republic of Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential individual in the history of Western architecture...
, but that were always in proportion to the building of which they were an element. On the upper floors where inverted dormers were used, sunlight is allowed to come directly into the room since the tunnel to the outdoors that is created by the ceiling of a convention dormer and half the area of the cheek walls is virtually eliminated (see image above - the angle of the sunlight as shown here is represented as it would be at the vernal and autumnal equinox
Equinox
An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator...
es in Chicago). Elsewhere, bays and banks of windows were frequently included to offer the same benefit.
Another device that was sometimes used quite dramatically by Maher (see image, upper left) that is a signature feature of Seyfarth's work is the embellishment of the front door as the main decorative feature of the house, usually to the exclusion of everything else on the building. This allowed for the buildings' geometry and finish materials to speak for its architectural style, and act as a counterpoint to what was seen, especially then, as the fussiness of the architecture of the previous three quarters of a century. Here he was practicing what Louis Sullivan had preached:
"...I take it as self-evident that a building, quite devoid of ornament, may convey a noble and dignified sentiment by virtue of mass and proportion. It is not evident to me that ornament can intrinsically heighten these elemental qualities. Why, then, should we use ornament? Is not a noble and simple dignity sufficient?...I should say that it would be greatly for our esthetic good if we should refrain entirely from the use of ornament for a period of years, in order that our thought might concentrate acutely upon the production of buildings well-formed and comely in the nude...This step taken, we might safely inquire to what extent a decorative application of ornament would enhance the beauty of structures - what new charm it would give them...We shall have learned,...that ornament is mentally a luxury, not a necessary, for we shall have discerned the limitations as well as the great value of unadorned masses."Having worked in the frequently austere style of Maher for a "period of years", Seyfarth was ready to work with traditionally inspired ornament, judiciously applied.
And as stylistically different as Seyfarth's work is from the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Seyfarth embraced Wright's feeling that
"...We no longer have an outside and an inside as two separate things. Now the outside may come inside and the inside may and does go outside. They are of each other."Seyfarth frequently designed outdoor living space that was under the protective roof of the house but exposed its occupants to the benefits of fresh air and sunlight (see gallery images 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 23, although some have been subsequently enclosed.) And the centrally located fireplaces that Wright espoused, along with their prominent chimneys, were to become a major feature of Seyfarth's work.
One feature of the current age, the ubiquitous attached garage (the successful inclusion of which apparently continues to confound architects today), was frequently incorporated into the design of the main house with such skill one observer noted that "...Norman peasants must have been driving automobiles since the Conquest."
Significant works
- Design for built-in cabinets and fireplace for the gallery of the Samuel Nickerson houseNickerson HouseThe Samuel Nickerson House, located at 40 East Erie Street in the Near North Side neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, is a Chicago Landmark. The house, built in 1883, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places....
, Chicago, IL (Burling & Whitehouse, 1883), for Lucius Fisher,1900-1901 - (extant). - The original Patten GymnasiumPatten GymnasiumPatten Gymnasium is a multi-purpose gymnasium in Evanston, Illinois. The original building, designed by George Washington Maher, opened in 1910 and was home to the Northwestern University Wildcats Basketball Team until 1940, when it was demolished and rebuilt farther north to make room for the...
, Northwestern UniversityNorthwestern UniversityNorthwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, 1909 - demolished 1940, Evanston, IL
(The first two as an assistant to George Maher
George W. Maher
George Washington Maher was a significant contributor to the Prairie School-style of architecture during the first-quarter of the 20th century. He also was known for blending the traditional with the Arts & Crafts-style. According to architectural historian H...
).
- The Florentine Room at the Congress Plaza Hotel, 1909, Chicago, IL (see image above) - (extant).
- Recital Hall and showrooms for the Baldwin Piano Co.Baldwin Piano CompanyThe Baldwin Piano Company was the largest US-based manufacturer of keyboard instruments, most notably pianos. It remains a subsidiary of the Gibson Guitar Corporation, although it ceased domestic production of pianos in December 2008.-History:...
, 264 (later 323 S.) Wabash Ave., 1910, Chicago, IL - demolished. - State Bank of West Pullman, 1910, 632 W. 120th St., West Pullman, ChicagoWest Pullman, ChicagoWest Pullman is a neighborhood located on the far south side of the city of Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the 77 official community areas of Chicago...
, IL - (extant). - First Methodist Church, 1918, Geneseo, IL - (extant).
- Clubhouse, South Side Country Club (now South Bluff Country Club), 1919, Peru, IL - (extant).
- West Ridge School addition, 1926, Highland Park, IL - (extant)
- Samuel Holmes House, 1926, Highland Park, IL, with Jens JensenJens Jensen (landscape architect)Jens Jensen was a Danish-American landscape architect.-Early life:Jens Jensen was born near Dybbøl in Slesvig, Denmark, in 1860, to a wealthy farming family. For the first nineteen years of his life he lived on his family's farm, which cultivated his love for the natural environment...
, landscape architect. - (extant). - Krueger Funeral Home, 1927, Blue Island, IL - (extant).
External links
- Blue Island Illinois Landmarks
- John Ellis House
- Winnetka Historical Society; 175 Chestnut
- RobertSeyfarthArchitect.com
- Architect Robert E. Seyfarth and family collection, ca. 1900-2000s | Lake Forest College Library Archives and Special Collections
- http://digital-libraries.saic.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=all&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISORESTMP=results.php&CISOVIEWTMP=item_viewer.php&CISOMODE=grid&CISOGRID=thumbnail%2CA%2C1%3Btitle%2CA%2C1%3Bdate%2CA%2C0%3Blength%2C200%2C0%3Bnone%2CA%2C0%3B20%3Btitle%2Cnone%2Cnone%2Cnone%2Cnone&CISOBIB=title%2CA%2C1%2CN%3Bcreato%2CA%2C0%2CN%3Bdate%2C200%2C0%2CN%3Bnone%2CA%2C0%2CN%3Bnone%2CA%2C0%2CN%3B20%3Btitle%2Cnone%2Cnone%2Cnone%2Cnone&CISOTHUMB=20+%284x5%29%3Btitle%2Cnone%2Cnone%2Cnone%2Cnone&CISOTITLE=20%3Btitle%2Cnone%2Cnone%2Cnone%2Cnone&CISOHIERA=20%3Bcreato%2Ctitle%2Cnone%2Cnone%2Cnone&CISOSUPPRESS=1&CISOBOX1=%22ROBERT+SEYFARTH%22&CISOROOT=%2FcaohpThe Art Institute of Chicago - The Chicago Architects Oral History Project - Results for Robert Seyfarth]
- "George Washington Maher"