Mills Building

While Post had taken his inspiration for the design of his Cornelius Vanderbilt II mansion from Hunt’s earlier chateauesque designs, his final design for the Mills Building seems to owe more to Snook’s William H. Vanderbilt palazzo.  In the final ten-story, 156′ high design of what can be considered to be the first large office building of the 1880s, Post completely abandoned his original ornate roofline, in favor of the overall box-like, palazzo form of the Shillito’s store.  He conversely reverted to the standard paired window and colossal Classical pilaster language of his office buildings of the 1870s, to arrange the elevation into a two-story stone base with the upper eight floors articulated into a 2:3:2:attic rhythm.   As he had done in the Western Union building, Post tried to make a transition in the second layer by alternating layers of the base’s brownstone with layers of red brick from the upper four floors that were sheathed in red brick and terra cotta (provided by Loring’s Chicago Terra Cotta).  It had the result of once again imparting an unnecessary busyness to that area of the building’s façade.  As in the Shillito’s Building, there were no arches in the facade of the Mills Building, except for the triumphal arched entry.  The Mills Building was another early example of a non-romantic, rational composition of a multistory façade (with applied Classical details).