Virtual Sketching Social: The Chicago Board of Trade

Virtual Sketching with the Chicago ICAA: The Chicago Board of Trade

Chicago ICAA would like to invite you to join us for our virtual weekly sketching exercise. This week's subject is the Chicago Board of Trade.

Holding court at the south end of LaSalle St., the Chicago Board of Trade Building presides over Chicago’s financial district. The regal 45-story skyscraper is the epitome of Art Deco styling.

It was designed and constructed by John A. Holabird and John Wellborn Root Jr., in 1930. The prolific pair’s structure confidently occupies its prestigious site while boldly communicating its contribution to the Chicago economy.

The plentiful gray Indiana limestone piers, dark windows and spandrels—so recessed they practically disappear—work together to give the building a striking vertical emphasis. Its streamlined, geometric and abstract exterior ornamentation, and the building’s throne-shaped massing, are also indicative of the period’s Art Deco trend. A faceless aluminum statue of Ceres, by artist John Storrs, sits atop the building’s pyramidal roof. The straight lines on her garment and her machine-made appearance make her the quintessential Art Deco ornament for this completely stylized structure.

Our Process

• Chicago ICAA will provide reference images each Monday for the selected building or focus. You may use any media or technique of your choice.
• Reference images can be found here.
• Please forward a JPG file of your sketch to [email protected] by Sunday evening following the sketch date and we will post to the Chicago ICAA Instagram account on Monday afternoon. Please include your Instagram handle in the email in order to tag your sketch.
• Post to your own Instagram account using #icaachicago #connectingthroughsketching #classicalarchitecture #classicismathome #virtualsketching

Ends Sunday, August 9 at midnight.