Civic Opera Building
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Architect: Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
Year Completed: 1929
Location: 20 N Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois
Style: Art Deco / French Renaissance
The Civic Opera Building was financed by Samuel Insull, director of Commonwealth Edison and several traction companies. The building features an office building, a 3,500-seat opera house, and a 900-seat theater.
The building posed some engineering challenges since the open space of the theaters made it difficult to support the tall office building. This challenge was met with a complex series of trusses to support the structure.
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, the architects of the building, were one of the most popular architects during the Art Deco era.
Inside, the building's grand foyer was over forty feet high. The entrance to the opera house is on the south side of the building while the theater entrance is on the north side.
The first picture above is a view from the east of the building. The second picture shows the opposite side of the building which faces the river.
At the time the Civic Opera Building was completed, Adler and Sullivan's 1889 Auditorium Theatre was the center of Chicago's theater world. Although the Auditorium Theatre had better acoustics and sight lines than the Civic Opera Building, the newer Civic Opera managed to book the new shows driving the Auditorium Theatre out of business.
The Civic Opera Building is located across the river from Riverside Plaza, another significant Chicago Art Deco building.