Garfield Park’s “Gold Dome Building” Photo by Julia Bachrach.
In honor of Beyond the Big Names, a four-part seminar I am leading at the Chicago Architecture Center, I’ve been focusing on early 20th century architects and firms that are often overlooked today. This month, I will spotlight Michaelsen & Rognstad, a partnership of two Chicagoans from working-class Norwegian immigrant families. Although the pair was only active for about a decade, they produced dozens of exuberant Jazz Age structures throughout Chicago including restaurants, entertainment halls, and monumental park and private club buildings.
Left: Humboldt Park Field House Rendering in Report of the West Chicago Parks on $10,000,000 Bond Issue, 1929. Right: Humboldt Park Field House, 2004. Photo courtesy of Chicago Park District.
In 1927, Michaelsen & Rognstad landed a huge contract to design a dozen structures for the West Chicago Park System. Two years later, the park commissioners published the Report of the West Parks on the $10,000,000 Bond Issue, underscoring that Michaelsen & Rognstad were “noted” for their “originality of design.” Ironically, however, the firm took strong and sometimes literal inspiration from historical precedents. For example, the booklet states that Michael & Rognstad’s design for the Austin Town Hall field house was “similar in character to Independence Hall at Philadelphia.”
Left: Independence Hall. Photo by Captain A.E. Theberge, NOAA Corps. Right: Austin Town Hall Field House, ca. 1935, Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
In 1919, Michaelsen designed this house at 6040 N. Northcott Ave. as a one-story home. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Born and raised in Chicago, Christian S. Michaelsen (1888- 1960) was the son a former Norwegian sea captain, Christian S. Michaelsen, Sr., who found work in Chicago as a teamster. By the early 1890s, the family was quite active in the local Norwegian community. Young Christian’s mother, Sophie Michaelsen, helped establish a Chicago orphanage called the Norwegian Lutheran Children’s Home, and both she and her husband served on its board of directors.
According to the Chicago Landmarks Commission, Christian S. Michaelsen’s architectural training began around 1905 in the office of Arthur Heun. Five years later, he served as a draftsman in the office of Howard Van Doren Shaw. In the 1910s, he was working as an architect for O.W. Rosenthal, a prominent Chicago construction firm. Apparently his employer allowed C.S. Michaelsen to take on independent projects. Michaelsen’s “side work” included a modest single family house for James Vanneta at 6040 N. Northcott Avenue in Chicago.
Christian S. Michaelsen is depicted on the left, and Sigurd A. Rognstad on the right. From Report of West Chicago Parks on $10,000,000 Bond Issue, 1929.
Sigurd Anton Rognstad (1892-1937) was also born and raised in Chicago. His father worked as a machinist in a piano factory and his mother was a piano teacher. Sigurd graduated from Crane Technical High School in 1909, and perhaps with help from his father, found work as a draftsman in a machinist’s office. By 1918, Sigurd was working in the office of architect Henry C. Dangler. While it’s possible that Michaelsen and Rognstad already knew each other through Chicago’s Norwegian community, by this time, they were both active members of the Chicago Architectural Club, and their involvement in the organization likely cemented their relationship. Michaelsen & Rognstad formed their partnership in 1920. One of their earliest commissions was for a one-story bank on the corner of S. State and E. 31st streets. Two years later, they produced the Milwaukee Irving State Bank, a Classically-styled building that included a bank, offices, and a department store.
Michaelsen & Rognstad’s 1922 Milwaukee Irving State Bank later became the Inland Bank. (Long sheathed by modern façades, the building was demolished in 2016.) Photo courtesy of Northwest Chicago Historical Society.
Around this time, Michaelsen & Rognstad began to enliven the facades of their brick buildings with rich terra cotta ornamentation—even for small projects. For example, in 1922, when Italian grocer John Bertini hired them for a $15,000 alteration for his storefront at 535 N. Wells Street, they created a new primary façade fully clad in elegant cream-colored terra cotta. A few years later, the partners designed a new headquarters for H.J. Coleman & Co., a real estate agency and loan corporation on S. State Street near 47th Street. With tall arched windows, highly sculptural engaged columns and pilasters, and other lavish details, both the Bertini and H.J. Coleman buildings are reminiscent of Venetian palazzos.
Left: In 1922, Michaelsen & Rognstad created the existing façade for what is now a restaurant 535 N. Wells Street. Photo by Julia Bachrach. Right: The architects produced this commercial structure at 4705 S. Street for a realty firm in 1925. Photo by David Silverman.
Early in their partnership, a relatively small alteration of a Chinese restaurant propelled Michaelsen & Rognstad to many new projects, including one of their most prominent, for the On Leong Merchants Association in Chinatown. In 1920, restauranteur Jim Moy had hired the newly established firm to design a new façade for and spruce up the interior of his Peacock Inn in Uptown (no longer extant). Moy was pleased with their work, and recommended the firm several years later, when he and his cousin Frank Moy served as directors for the newly-founded On Leong Merchant’s Association. The Moys and other Chinatown businessmen wanted to establish a civic building with offices, a shrine, a meeting hall, and commercial space on the street level.
Ernst Boerschmann published photos of China in 1925 that inspired Michaelsen & Rognstad’s architectural designs in Chinatown. Left: End of Bridge in Summer Palace, Peking, from Picturesque China by Ernst Boerschmann. Right: Terra cotta dragon detail, On Leong Merchant’s Association. Photo by David Silverman.
Christian Michaelsen and Sigurd Rognstad had little knowledge of authentic Chinese architecture. However, a newly published book allowed them to immerse themselves in the topic. Ernst Boerschmann, a German architect and photographer who had spent several years travelling through China and documenting its buildings and landscapes, had published a 1925 book entitled Chinesische Architektur.
On Leong Merchant’s Association Building, now Pui Tak Center, 2216 S. Wentworth Avenue. Photo by David Silverman.
When the plans for Chicago’s iconic new Chinese building were shared with reporters in 1926, the Tribune published a glowing report. It stated: “It will be a gorgeous three-story Oriental structure by Michaelsen & Rognstad, with walls vividly colored in reds, greens, blues, and purples, and with much colored glass, gay roof tiles, ferocious dragons, and other Far East decorations.” Although the architects’ approach might be likened to a theme park today, the building was well-received by the Chinese American community. They obtained other commissions in Chinatown, including Won Kow, directly across the street from the Merchant’s Association.
Won Kow, 2233-39 S. Wentworth. Photo by David Silverman.
The Midwest Athletic Club, 6 N. Hamlin Avenue, Chicago. Photo by Andrew Jameson.
By now, Michaelsen & Rognstad also had close ties with Chicago’s West Side business community. The firm’s office was in the neighborhood, initially at 3815 W. Congress and later at 3256 W. Franklin Boulevard. In 1924, a group of West Side business leaders had agreed to sponsor the development of a private club, and they chose Michaelsen & Rognstad as the project architect. Two years later, ground was broken at a site just west of Garfield Park for the Midwest Athletic Club, a 13-story building that would include ballrooms, dining rooms, gymnasiums, a swimming pool, billiard room, library, and hundreds of guest rooms. The building features Spanish Baroque ornamentation but its mansard roof also gives it a French flair.
In 1927, when their high-profile Chinatown and Midwest Athletic Club projects were both underway, Michaelsen & Rognstad completed another huge and lavishly ornamented building, the North Side Auditorium. Described by the AIA Guide as a “Roaring Twenties,” entertainment hall, this structure is also enlivened by whimsical details in buff-, pink-, and tan-colored terra cotta. By that time, the firm had clearly established its reputation as the designer of fanciful buildings that would serve vast numbers of people. This was the same point at which the West Park Commissioners retained the firm as the architect for its ambitious $10-million building program.
The historic North Side Auditorium is now Cabaret Metro, 3730 N. Clark Street. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Goodhue’s California Building in Balboa Park. Photo by Bernard Gagnon.
The full scope of Michaelsen & Rognstad’s West Chicago Park work included several large new field houses, a roque (type of croquet) facility, a warehouse and shop structure, and a massive domed administrative building in Garfield Park to serve as the commission’s own headquarters. The architects rendered the building in the Spanish Baroque Revival style, which had been popularized throughout the nation by the 1915-1916 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego’s Balboa Park. There is little doubt that exposition buildings designed by Bertram Goodhue influenced the Chicago architects.
Crowned with an enormous terra cotta dome gilded in gold leaf, the Garfield Park building has elaborate “Churrigueresque” sculptural details. The structure only functioned as an office building and park police station until 1934, when the West Park Commission was consolidated into the Chicago Park District. Now a field house, the iconic structure is known as the Gold Dome building today.
Garfield Park’s “Gold Dome Building,” ca. 1980, Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
During the late 1920s, Michaelsen & Rognstad ventured into a new style, the Art Deco, when they prepared plans for the East 7th Street Hotel. The hotel was completed in 1930. Its striking primary facades include terra cotta spandrels of dark green, as well as black and gold trim above the storefronts, both featuring stylized sunbursts. Today, the building is known as the Carter Hotel.
The East 7th Street Hotel, now Carter Hotel, 1 E. Balbo Drive. Photo by Eric Allix Rogers.
The firm’s workload slowed during the Depression. Sigurd A. Rognstad died in 1937 at the age of 46. (Michaelsen went into partnership with architects Charles Rabig and Albert Ramp a few years later.) Michaelsen & Rognstad had produced an impressive collection of buildings over a short period of time. We’re fortunate that so many of them are still extant. I hope I’ve enhanced your appreciation of them.