Solon Spencer Beman (1853 – 1914) was an American architect, born in Brooklyn, New York, best known as the architect of the planned Pullman community and adjacent factory complex. Several of his other largest commissions, including the Pullman Office Building, Pabst Building, and Grand Central Station in Chicago, have since been demolished.
Career
Beman began his architectural training in the office of New York architect Richard Upjohn, where he helped design the Connecticut State Capitol. He came to Chicago in 1879, commissioned by George Mortimer Pullman, to design what would become the nation's first planned company town. Located on the city's Far South Side, the Pullman project included more than 1,300 houses, a factory, monumental water tower, theater, church, hotel, market, and schools.
In Chicago, Beman also designed the Studebaker Fine Arts Building (1884) at Michigan Avenue and Van Buren Avenues in the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District, the Pullman Building on Michigan Avenue, and parts of George Pullman's Prairie Avenue home, which was also later demolished. In 1897, Beman also designed Pullman's monument at Chicago's Graceland Cemetery, a towering Corinthian column flanked by curved benches. Elsewhere, Beman designed the distinctive Pullman summer home at the Thousand Islands, "Castle Rest."
The Lakeside Club, designed by Beman, circa 1910.
Beman's other projects in Chicago included several buildings at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, Grand Central Station and its train shed at Harrison and Wells (1891, demolished 1971), the Kimball mansion in the Prairie Avenue District, the Blackstone Public Library (1905) in the Kenwood neighborhood, the Hamilton Club Building at Madison and Dearborn Avenue (1913, Demolished) and First Church of Christ, Scientist, at 4017 S. Drexel Blvd., 1897.
The Blackstone Public Library Branch, built in 1905, was Chicago's first branch library. The design was a near duplication of the James Blackstone Memorial Library in Branford, Connecticut (1896). Both libraries were built with bequests from the Blackstone family of Chicago.
Solon S. Beman also designed at least a dozen other Christian Science churches across the country, and an addition to Mary Baker Eddy's Last Home, He also designed the Pioneer Building in Saint Paul, Minnesota (1889), the Procter & Gamble factories in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Studebaker plant in South Bend, Indiana, the 14-story Pabst Building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1891, demolished), the Michigan Trust Company Building in Grand Rapids, Michigan (1913), and the JMS Building, also in South Bend (1916).
Spencer S. Beman, son of Solon S. Beman, practiced architecture with his father and after his death, carried on his Christian Science church design work.[1] The Solon S. and Spencer S. Beman Collection of archival materials, held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago, includes publications documenting their architectural projects.
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