Hugh Ferriss
American, 1889–1962
Trinity Portland Cement Company Promotional Materials, Lobby and Escalators, Presentation Drawing
INV-1909
Hugh Ferriss
American, 1889–19621943
Trinity Portland Cement Company Promotional Materials, Lobby and Escalators, Presentation Drawing
Hugh Ferriss American, 1889–1962 →20th Centurypresentation drawingarchitecture
Date
1943
Medium
Gravure print on paper
Dimensions
38.2 × 30.3 cm (15 1/16 × 11 15/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of James Edwin Quinn
Renowned architectural illustrator Hugh Ferriss was best known for his dramatic renderings of Art Deco skyscrapers, featured in his 1929 book The Metropolis of Tomorrow. His drawings of illuminated skyscrapers at night had a strong influence on popular depictions of the city in that era, including the shadowy look of Gotham City in the first comic book devoted to Batman, in 1940. In 1943 Ferriss produced a yearlong series of plates that appeared on the back covers of the magazine Progressive Architecture. These drawings presented his high-tech vision of the America of the future—from a network of winding highways and houses with helicopter pads to glass high rises—later published as prints by Trinity Portland Cement Company. Common in Ferriss’s renderings are spaces of communication and transportation, two functions that are highlighted in this image of a large urban plaza connecting a seemingly endless network of escalators, an innovation that became widely used in American cities in the 1930s.
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