The Extra Touches
Decor: Fleur-de-lys
The Extra Touches
Decor: Fleur-de-lys
About the image
Mosaic.
Perhaps Owen Aldis saw the Marquette Building not just as a money maker but also as a cultural treasure for its great city. The decorative scheme reflected on Chicago’s important history, and once inside the Marquette Building, you knew you were not in a typical commercial space.
The mosaics interpret moments in the life and death of Father Marquette.
“In this memorial rotunda, which is considered the most artistic and interesting portions of the building, [are]...three pictorial tablets descriptive of the events in the life of Marquette…These glass mosaic panels are certainly works of high artistic value… a glowing series of pictures never before attempted in glass mosaic.”
Architectural Reviewer, July 1897
© John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
