German Building

The German Building was for a time the icon of Jackson Park, featured on many postcards.

From http://www.oldplaces.org/illinois/jacksonpark.htm

Unlike most of the Columbian Exposition, it was made of permanent materials—a limestone basement, brick first floor, half-timbered upper floors, and a tiled roof. The interior had 6-foot high oak wainscoting in one wing, elaborately tiled floors, carved wooden ceilings, and splendid stained glass. 

Interior vestibule of the German Building, from Shepp's World's Fair Photographed 1893

The German monarchy spent a fortune on it, even though its main purpose was to provide offices for the German commissioners and visiting dignitaries. The real business of selling German business happened in the themed buildings where they spent more than any other foreign government.

Because of the big splash, Germany got plum real estate for their stand-alone building, right on the lakefront with its busy traffic ferrying visitors. It was north and east of the Haiti building. A plaque dedicated to Frederick Douglass marks the general location near the 59^th Street harbor, about where the lawn bowling club is now.

Photo of a map at the Newberry Library Exhibit

Lakefront location of the German Building, from Beautiful Scenes of the White City and the Famous Midway Plaisance, Farewell Edition 1894

With a large German population in Chicago, it was a popular destination, even though there wasn’t much inside for the public aside from a display of old and new books and engravings, a reading room, and a chapel displaying lavish ecclesiastical items, including a Nuremberg clock—where mechanical figures rotated through the hours, illustrating the Passion play at Oberammergau.

The face it turned toward the lake celebrated the unification of the German State. The 150-foot bell tower housed chimes for the hours and quarter hours and a set of large bells that rang a peal twice a day. Below the bells were gilded statues of St. Michael, St. George, Strength, and Wisdom. Next were the frescoes: an immense German eagle in black, followed by a sunburst, two knights with swords defending the German crown, and, over the three entry arches, the coat of arms of the German states.

 

https://chicagology.com/columbiaexpo/fair016/

Because it was so grand, inside and out, and built of permanent materials, the German government did not want to tear it down. It did remove the exhibits. One of the stained-glass windows memorialized the many U.S. Navy sailors killed by a hurricane off Samoa in 1889. It was donated to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The bells went to Berlin for the chapel that memorialized the Kaiser’s mother.

The South Park Commission didn’t want it in the park, so Germany considered donating it to a German-American society as a clubhouse or to Lincoln Park where the surrounding German neighborhood would appreciate it. Apparently inertia meant it stayed in Jackson Park. 

Judging by the many images, it was a beloved landmark, open during summer months for music concerts, later used as a park refrectory. Judging by the map of the interior, it could have served many uses.

A map of the interior in the Chicago Tribune of May 21, 1893, showing a flexible space that could have been put to many uses.

In the winter it was closed and apparently haunted. In 1898 the Inter-Ocean claimed that a shadowy figure with a stein flickered past the windows, laughter and the clink of glasses echoed along the north wall, and, eeriest of all, a huntsman’s horn, horses’ hooves, and baying hounds would occasionally float in the winter wind.

By 1899, another kind of ghost haunted the German Building. An old man with a Grand Army of the Republic pin sat on the benches along Lake Shore Drive. If someone came along who didn’t know what it was, he’d conduct them around the park, waxing eloquent about the wonders of the Fair. He’d lament how so little was preserved, how the South Park Commissioners had covered over the frescoes and didn’t care, how they were scraping away the remnants of the Fair. And then he’d sink back down on his bench in grief.

From the Library of Congress, circa 1906. det 4a13200 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/det.4a13200

The South Park Commission was difficult to deal with apparently. By 1913, they had not provided beaches on the south side, where thousands sweltered without air conditioning. Under pressure from businessmen, civic groups, and the University of Chicago, they agreed to create a 300-foot public beach in front of the German Building, which they turned into a beach house.

Then in 1925, a fire damaged the interior just as a committee formed to discuss the building, the same group of people who were organizing to turn the Fine Arts/Field Columbian into the Museum of Science and Industry. Lorado Taft was an enthusiastic supporter as was Julius Rosenwald and the band of civic-minded women. The original German architect, Paul F. P. Mueller, inspected and declared the building sound. The committee vowed to put up the bulk of the $300,000 to repair the fire damage and the years of neglect.

A heated series of letters appeared in the Tribune, some of which were virulently anti-German. The majority however seemed to agree with the man who wrote “Why not preserve it now in memory of the most wonderful exposition the world has ever known?” The Trib itself was for preservation. The South Park Commission was not. They tore it down.