February 10. 1922 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



35 



Photograph From Architect's Drawing of World's Largest Furniture Exhibition Building. It Will Be Erected in Chicago and Wil 



Have Over 1.500,000 Square Feet of Floor Space 



Be Sixteen Stories High and 



Chicago to Have Greatest Furniture Mart 



The announcement on February 4 that the largest furniture ex- 

 hibition building in the world will be erected in Chicago, challenges 

 Grand Rapid* s position as the w^orlds greatest furniture market. 

 This building will be called "The American Furniture Mart," and 

 will be erected by the American Furniture Mart Building Corpora- 

 tior, 20 West Jackson boulevard, Chicago, at an expense of some 

 $6,000,000. The furniture mart will be located in the center of the 

 new business and hotel district just out of the Loop, seven blocks 

 north of Madison street, on the block bounded by Erie and Huron 

 street and McClurg Couit. The building will be 2 1 8 feet wide, 

 415 feet long and 16 stories high. It will have over 1,500,000 

 square feet of floor space, one and one-quarter miles of marble 

 corridors and 600 units of exhibition space. It is estimated that 

 the floor space w^ill be about equal to all the combined floor space 

 in all the other furniture exhibition buildings in Chicago. 



It will be a steel structure with concrete floors, terra cotta and 

 face brick exterior and finished w^ithin according to best modern 

 building practice. Ceiling and walls will be plastered and dec- 

 orated. Indirect lighting will be used throughout and a concealed 

 sprinkler system will be installed for fire safety. 



tintry will be on Erie street through a spacious lobby where 

 regi-'tration clerks will be stationed. To the right wil! be the gen- 

 eral offices. A marble floored corridor will run lengthwise of each 



floor and exhibition spaces will be 100 feet deep, fronting on the 

 corridors. Fireproof partitions will separate exhibits and the 

 aisle exposures will be typical plate glass store fronts with locked 

 doors, individual features of the American Furniture Mart. 



Four high speed passenger and two freight elevators will be 

 located at the center of the building and will be adequate to han- 

 dle the crowds of the market season. Ample toilet facilities will 

 be located near the elevators on each floor. 



Samples w^ill be uncrated in the basement and transferred by 

 electric trucks direct to exhibitors' spaces without rehandling at 

 elevators. 



The building will be first class in every detail and such a pro- 

 gram is incompatible with low first cost. Those behind the project 

 have not intended merely to add to the total of Chicago's exhibition 

 space. Their purpose is to make the American Furniture Mart 

 the center of every activity in the furniture industry and as such it 

 must be carried through on a generous scale. 



The promoters of the project intend to make it the logical home 

 of the National associations of furniture manufacturers and retail- 

 ers. It will be the one point where buyers and salesmen will 

 congregate daily. 



This idea of broader service has crystallized in what will be 

 ii'onthnti'd uH prtfjf 4C< i 



