Holabird & Roche

Holabird & Roche. American architects. William Holabird (1854–1923) settled in Chicago where he worked in William le Baron Jenney's office in 1875 before setting up in practice with Ossian C. Simonds (1857–1931) in 1880, joined the following year by Martin Roche (1853–1927). In 1886 the firm was commissioned to design the 12-storey Tacoma Building (completed 1889—demolished 1929), with a structure of cast-iron columns and wrought-iron beams as well as brickwork and concrete and steel, the whole clad in terracotta and glass. This established a skeletal structure for sky-scrapers and the Chicago School style. The firm's numerous office-buildings in Chicago had external walls employing the Chicago window, continuous piers, recessed panels, and terracotta ornament. A good example is the Marquette Building (1894–5), economically planned, and highly efficient. Other works included the Cable Building (1898–9—demolished 1961), the Republic Building (1904–5—demolished 1961), the Brooks Building (1909–10), and the McClurg Building (1899–1900), which anticipated the design of later skyscrapers.

Bibliography

Blaser (1992);
Bruegmann (1991, 1997);
Condit (1964, 1973);
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, xviii/4 (Dec. 1959), 126–39;
Mujica (1929);
Jane Turner (1996);
Zukowsky (ed.) (1987, 1993)