Marshall Field and Company Building
Look up on the ground floor and the ceiling becomes a sky: six thousand square feet of Tiffany glass, set in 1907.
At a glance
The great store on State Street, long known as Marshall Field and Company and now Macy’s, was built in stages by Daniel Burnham’s office between 1892 and 1914. Two landmark clocks mark its corners. Its glory is indoors: a vaulted ceiling of iridescent Favrile glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany, the largest mosaic of its kind, finished in 1907.
Key facts
- Location: 111 North State Street, Chicago
- Architect: Daniel Burnham (D. H. Burnham & Co.)
- Built: in stages, 1892–1914
- Tiffany dome: Favrile glass mosaic, completed 1907
- Status: National Historic Landmark; now a Macy’s store
History
Marshall Field built the modern department store on the idea that the customer was always right. To house it, Burnham’s firm raised the State Street block in sections between 1892 and 1914, a steel-framed Chicago commercial design dressed in stone.
In 1907 Tiffany Studios set a mosaic dome of Favrile glass over the southern light court. It took more than a year and over a million pieces of glass. The store traded under the Field name until 2006, when it became Macy’s.
What you see
The Tiffany dome shimmers in blues, golds and greens, a curved field of glass that turns a shop floor into something closer to a basilica. The cast-iron clocks on the corners have set Chicago meetings for generations. The Art Nouveau impulse, that ornament should glow and flow, reaches its American peak here, in glass, above the perfume counters.
Practical information
- Open: standard retail hours
- Cost: free to enter and look up
- Best for: the Tiffany dome and the corner clocks
- Time needed: 20–40 minutes
Getting there
The store fills the State Street block between Randolph and Washington, above the Loop. CTA trains stop at Washington/State and Lake within a block; the Pedway connects it underground to nearby stations.
Nearby
- Chicago Cultural Center — its own Tiffany dome, two blocks east
- Sullivan Center — Louis Sullivan’s ironwork, three blocks south
Sources
- Encyclopædia Britannica / Wikipedia — Marshall Field and Company Building
- National Park Service — National Historic Landmark record
- Wikimedia Commons — image source and licence
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