Building History
Some campuses were built to be campuses. Columbia's is not one of them. Every one of the college's South Loop buildings has a previous life (or two, or three), and a thousand stories to tell.
600 South Michigan Avenue (Alexandroff Campus Center). Photography for DEMO by Jonathan Greene ('05). Vintage photograph: Fairbanks-Morse Building, 1908. Photographer: Kaufmann & Fabry. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society, used by permission.
For instance, the 600 South Michigan Avenue building--now the Alexandroff Campus Center--was built for the International Harvester Corporation, the largest farm-machinery company in the world during the early 1900s. Christian Eckstorm was commissioned to design the building in 1907-08 (with additional work by Holabird and Root), representing the corporation's growing success as an industrial leader.
The 624 South Michigan Avenue building (better known to some as the "Torco building") was built in 1908 by Eckstorm to house the Chicago Musical College, founded by Dr. Florenz Ziegfield in 1867. Ziegfield's son, Florenz (Flo) Ziegfield Jr., would gain worldwide fame as the producer of Broadway's Ziegfield Follies?an interesting history for a school with such an emphasis on the performing arts. In the 1920s, Harold Blum purchased the building, and it became the home of Blum's Vogue, a high-fashion clothing store catering to an upscale clientele. The Torco Oil Company purchased the building in the 1970s, topping it with the landmark sign that led to its nickname, the Torco building, which persists despite the removal of the sign last year.
In 2004, the college was awarded a $150,000 Getty Foundation Campus Heritage Grant to research its historically significant buildings (unearthing these and other interesting stories), create a campus preservation plan, and develop historic-building restoration guidelines. The firm of McGuire, Igleski and Associates completed the 11-volume preservation plan in June 2005. In the fall of 2005, the project culminated in an exhibition and lecture series exploring the significance and the fascinating histories of these buildings. The show featured images and ephemera relating to the history of the buildings, including historic photographs, posters, sound recordings, and sheet music. Some of that history can now be viewed on the library's architectural history website, which features past and present images of Columbia's buildings, and includes descriptive information about each.