Product Review

Marshall Field built the largest department store in the world at the time, and his architect Daniel Burnham, following Field's dictum "dazzle the customer with opulence," created a store unmatched in elegance.

Influenced by the Florentine palazzi of the Renaissance, Beaux-Arts monumentalism, and the Chicago School, the exterior of Marshal Field's radiated a luxury that only hinted at the elegance inside. An extravagantly beautiful Louis Tiffany tesserae dome poured light onto all who entered; a soaring balcony allowed women to see and be seen. Field's was as close to a temple of commerce as any building has ever come.

Jay Pridmore is an architectural historian who has written widely about the people and ideas behind the building of Chicago. His 1993 book Chicago Architecture and Design, coauthored with George Larson, is one of the city's most popular books about local architecture.