Marshall & Fox (firm)

Name

Marshall & Fox

Location

Chicago, IL

Firm History Sources

Historical note:
Contributed by the Alexander Architectural Archive, University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas:
The son of a wealthy miller, Benjamin Marshall was born in Chicago in 1874 and attended a South Side prep school, the Harvard School in Kenwood. Although he received no formal education in architecture, he apprenticed with the firm of Marble and Wilson from 1893 to 1895. Upon the death of Marble, he was made a partner in the firm after only two years as an apprentice. Following an extended European trip, Marshall started his own firm in 1902. During the next three years, he established a reputation as a designer of theaters including the Iroquois Theater, Chicago (1903). In 1905, Marshall formed a partnership with Charles Fox that would last until Fox's death in 1926. Charles Eli Fox was born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1870. After studying at MIT, he moved to Chicago and worked in the office of Holabird and Roche from 1891 to 1905 as a specialist in steel construction. In the partnership of Marshall and Fox, Fox served as the construction specialist and project manager while Marshall utilized his talents as a designer and entrepreneur to solicit prestigious commissions from Chicago's elite.
The firm designed a wide range of building types including warehouses, commercial office buildings, banks, theaters, and mansions. The firm was best known for their luxury hotels and apartment buildings. Marshall, acting as both developer and architect in many projects, attracted wealthy tenants to these high-rise buildings by adopting the characteristics of the elegant French "flat." Even the rooms of the leasing plans were labeled in French. The firm's success at synthesizing the domesticity of the era's elegant mansions with the high-rise form is best represented in such projects as The Breakers (1911), 1550 North State Parkway (1911), the Stewart Apartment Building (1912) all located in Chicago, and the Edgewater Beach Apartments in Edgewater, Miss. (1927). Marshall & Fox also designed numerous luxury hotels with elegantly decorated terra cotta facades and luxuriously appointed interiors including two for the Drake family, the Blackstone Hotel (1908) and the Drake (1919), both in Chicago.
After Fox's death in 1926, Marshall continued to practice alone until the 1930s at which time Lewis B. Walton, Marshall's chief architect, took over the firm. Subsequent successor firms were Walton & Kegley (1935-1950) and Walton and Walton (1950-1969).

Related Records

Charles Eli Fox
Benjamin H. Marshall
Walton & Walton (firm)

Archival Holdings

Alexander Architectural Archive, University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas
Marshall and Fox, Drawings and records, 1900-1959, Chicago
The Marshall and Fox records are comprised of approximately 9,000 architectural drawings (including working drawings and presentation drawings), 36 volumes of contract ledgers and account books, specifications, a limited amount of correspondence, plat books, and a scrapbook. The records document the work of the Chicago architecture firms of Benjamin Marshall, Marshall & Fox, and the successor firms of Walton & Kegley and Walton & Walton. The bulk of the collection dates from 1909 through 1929 with limited representation of the firm's later work from 1940 through 1956.
Correspondence is limited to letters about two projects. The 36 contract ledgers and account books record payments to contractors and sub-contractors for each project. The summary sheets are blueprint reductions of floor plans. The project summaries include reductions of floor plans as well as construction data for the project. The plats cover the area of downtown Chicago. The scrapbook contains photographs of the Edgewater Gulf Hotel in Edgewater Park, Miss. It appears to function as a promotional piece for either the hotel, the firm or both.
The vast majority of the architectural drawings are construction drawings that include structural and mechanical sheets. These sets of construction drawings, particularly for high-rise buildings, include as many as 300-400 individual sheets per project. The firm also designed the interiors of many of their buildings and such drawings are well represented within the collection. There are very few preliminary sketches for projects as these were either lost or their absence due to Marshall's working method of using a large blackboard for preliminary studies.
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