Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room: Reconstruction at the Art Institute of Chicago
1893/94 (original built) 1972 (original demolished) 1976/77 (reconstructed)
Medium
Mixed media recreation of room
Dimensions
Room is roughly 5,704 square feet (not including gallery)
Classification
architectural fragment
Department
Architecture and Design
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
156538
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The metal-frame Chicago Stock Exchange building was one of Dankmar Adler and Louis H. Sullivan’s most distinctive commercial structures. The centerpiece of this thirteen-story building was the Trading Room, a dramatic, double-height space that was designed for the daily operations of the Stock Exchange and filled with Sullivan’s lush organic ornament and stenciled patterns. Despite the singular beauty of this room, it served its original function for just fourteen years and was occupied only spo...
About the Artist
Adler & Sullivan, Architects · 1883–1896
Adler & Sullivan was the Chicago architectural partnership that laid the conceptual and structural foundations for the modern American skyscraper. Dankmar Adler (1844–1900), a German-born engineer celebrated for his mastery of building acoustics and structural systems, hired Louis Sullivan (1856–1924) in 1879; the two became full partners in 1883. Sullivan had trained at the Massachusetts Institut...