Stewart County GaArchives News.....Prominent Architecture Has Its 'Roots' in a Talented Draftsman April 30, 1978 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 May 15, 2007, 1:42 pm Columbus Ledger- Enquirer April 30, 1978 Prominent Architecture Has Its 'Roots' in a Talented Draftsman By Kaffie Sledge Ledger Staff Writer "As long as one stone remains above another, those stones will have a tongue to proclaim his genius," so went the eulogies for John Wellborn Root, according to "Memoirs of Georgia." Root was born in Lumpkin, Stewart County, Ga., son of Sidney and Mary Root, Jan. 10, 1850 and he died Jan. 15, 1891 in Chicago. Root was said to be a musician and as a youngster he was able to draw recognizable portraits at the age of seven. He attended Lumpkin's Boys Academy until his family moved to Atlanta during the Civil War. When Atlanta was captured, Root was sent to school in Claremont, England. He attended Oxford University but graduated first in his class from the university of New York City in 1868 with a degree in civil engineering and architecture. Root worked in some architectural offices in New York for a while but went to Chicago in 1871 as head of the drafting department of Drake, Carter & Wright. The next year Root and Daniel H. Burnham formed a partnership. They started working after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 and their reputation grew as they created buildings and homes the like of which had not been seen before. In Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Atlanta, Root's designs were said to be the ultimate in creativity, imagination and orginality. In 1890 Chicago was selected as the site of the World's Columbian Exposition. Of course, Root was appointed consulting architect. At his request the appointment was changed to include his partner, Burnham. Root had called a meeting of architects from other cities for consultation but he died of penuemonia before the meeting took place. Root is however credited with the site of the Exposition and the basic plans for it. He also designed the Fine Arts Building that later became Chicago's permanent Museum of Fine Arts. "Who's Who in Architecture from 1400 to the Present," edited by J. M. Richards for Holt, Rinehart and Winston, identifies the Montauk Block in Chicago as the partnership's first important commission. The year was 1882. The block was "distinguished for its realistic approach to the problems of office building design. Root wrote extensively on this subject and on the situation of architecture in general; it was he who was primarily responsible for the design concepts of the firm's office building." Richards continued, "The success of the Montauk block led to other commissions, including The Rookery (1886) and the Monadnock Building (1889-91). The strength of the Monadnock's structure is perfectly expressed in its unadorned brick walls, sloping inward above the ground floor and sloping out slightly at the cornice line; by one account Root was inspired by ideas of Egyptian architecture." Other Root designs include the Rand-McNally Building, the Women's Temple and the Masonic Temple, all in Chicago, and all steel-framed buildings. "Root's theories of an organic and functionally expressive architecture, growing out of contemporary needs and utilizing contemporary technology, will always suggest the' potential his early death kept him from completely fulfilling." In "Image of American Living" by Alan Gowans identifies Root as a "skillful engineer and sensitive artist." He also lists Louis Sullivan, John Root and the young Frank Lloyd Wright as "progressives" or "pioneers." Members of the Chicago School, Gowans said, "All are primarily concerned in achieving what Sullivan in an article in the Interstate Architecture for 1900 called 'Reality in the Architectural Art,' only secondarily with 'beauty.'" In his book, "Architecture, Ambition and Americans," Wayne Andrews quotes the late great architect Louis Sullivan as saying that Root as "a facile draftsman, quick to grasp ideas and quicker to appropriate them; an excellent musician, well-read on almost any subject; speaking English with easy exactitutude of habit ...and vain to the limit of the skies. This vanity, however, he tactfully took care should not go too obtrusive . . .His temperament was that of the well-groomed freelance, never taking anything too seriously, wherein he differed from his ponderous partner, much as a dragon fly and mastiff. Nor had he one tenth of his partner's settled will,nor of said partner's capacity to go through hell to reach an end." Wayne added that "Even if Root were simply another brash young man in his contempt for all that passed for tradition in American architecture, he was a typical representative of the Chicago School in his distrust for period and styles. And in his demand for simple and direct business buildings he was expressing the innermost convictions of Burnham and Root at the start of their career." Root was secretary of the National Institute of Architects, corresponding member of the Royal Institute of Architecture of Belgium, one of only two honorary members of the Art Institute, a member of the Union League and many others. In 1880, Root married Mary Louise Walker- she died six weeks after the wedding. In 1882 he married Dora Louise Monroe, daughter of Henry S. Monroe, a prominent lawyer and citizen of Chicago. The couple had two, daughters and a son. Special Sesquicentennial Supplement III Ledger- Enquirer, Sunday, April 30, 1978,pg S-8. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/stewart/newspapers/prominen2258gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 6.1 Kb