BEAUX ARTS
A very rich, lavish and heavily ornamented classical style taught at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in the 19th century
The term "Beaux Arts" is the approximate English equivalent of "Fine Arts."
The style was popularized during the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. One outgrowth of the Expo was the reform movement advocated by Daniel Burnham, the City Beautiful Movement.
Very influential in the US in that many of the leading late 19th century architects had been trained at Ecole des Beaux Arts, e.g., Richard Morris Hunt (the first American to study there) , H. H. Richardson (the second American to study there, but who chose to develop his own style, "Richardsonian Romanesque") and Charles McKim,
More than any other style (except perhaps the Chateauesque), the Beaux Arts expressed the taste and values of America's industrial barons at the turn of the century. In those pre-income tax days, great fortunes were proudly displayed in increasingly ornate and expensive houses.

Broadly speaking, the term "Beaux Arts" refers to the American Renaissance period from about 1890 to 1920 and encompasses the French Renaissance, Italian Renaissance, and Neoclassical Revivals.
In Buffalo, the movement was featured at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901.
Features:
* Symmetrical facade

* Roofs: flat, low-pitched; mansard if modeled after French Renaissance Revival

* Wall surfaces with decorative garlands, floral patterns, or cartouches dripping with sculptural ornament

* Facades with quoins, pilasters, or columns (usually paired with Ionic or Corinthian capitals)

* Walls of masonry (usually smooth, light-colored stone)

* First story may be rusticated

* Large and grandiose compositions * Exuberance of detail and variety of stone finishes * Projecting facades or pavilions * Paired colossal columns * Enriched moldings * Free-sanding statuary * Windows: framed by freestanding columns, balustraded sill, and pedimented entablature on top * Pronounced cornices and enriched entablatures are topped with a tall parapet, balustrade, or attic story
ART DECO
Art Deco was originally called the Modernistic style, or Style Moderne. However, by the 1970s the term Art Deco was widely used; it was coined at the great Paris art exhibition of 1925 Also, Art Deco is sometimes called depression moderne because many Art Deco buildings were built during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Art Deco began as a "smart" urban style in the United States, the latest fashion among a small contingent of upper-middle class sophisticates in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and other major cities throughout the US.
Art deco architecture, painting, etc. is recognizable because of three main things: distinct geometric shapes, intense, bright colors that stand out, and a decorative look. Also, Art Deco, while being decorative, is very simple, in that it doesn't have any complicated shapes. The Art Deco movement is also characterized by clean lines, streamlining, and symmetry. In addition, Art Deco works exhibit abstraction, distortion, and simplification, particularly geometric shapes and highly intense colors.
The Art Deco style was influenced by a number of other art movements. Some art movements that had a major influence on Art Deco were: * Cubism - the reduction of natural forms to their geometrical equivalents * Expressionism - forms derived from nature are distorted or exaggerated and colors are intensified for emotive or expressive purposes * Futurism - forms derived chiefly from Cubism were used to represent rapid movements and dynamic motion; showing hostility to traditional forms of expression * Vorticism - using the concept of a vortex
Chicago is one of the most Art Deco-influenced cities in the world. There are numerous examples of Art Deco architecture throughout the Chicago and the Chicagoland area. Some of the more notable buildings are: * The Chicago Board of Trade - 1930 by Holabird and Root (allaboutdeco.com) * LaSalle National Bank Building - 1934 by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White(allaboutdeco.com) * Adler Planetarium - 1929-1931 by Rapp & Rapp (Gebhard 103) * The Robie House - 1906-1909 by Frank Lloyd Wright(allaboutdeco.com)
INTERNATIONAL
Modern structural principles and materials; Concrete, glass, steel the most common; occasionally reveals skeleton-frame construction, exposing its structure; rejected non-essential decoration; ribbon windows, corner windows a hallmark of the style; bands of glass as important as bands of "curtain wall"; balance and regularity admired and fostered; flat roof, without ledge. Often with thin, metal mullions and smooth spandrel panels separating large, single-pane windows.
Except for houses, completely dominated American architecture from the 1950s through the late 1970s. This (anti-) style epitomized the height of the modern movement in the United States and Europe. By the late 1920s, American architects and clients were increasingly persuaded that European modernism was both visually progressive and structurally sound. After WWII, U.S. interests were characterized by a confident, enthusiastic desire to "get on with the business of progress". The ideas of the earlier International style were still potent, and thus the style flourished during the first major building boom, 1948-49. So-called "anonymous glass boxes" (glass-covered office towers) appeared throughout small and large cities between the late 1950s and 1970s. The World Trade Center towers in New York City represented the height of the International-style office tower of the 1970s, literally, as does the Sears Tower in Chicago
POST MODERN
The postmodern era is most associated with architecture appearing since the late 1970s, continuing through today. Often postmodern architecture is referred to as neo-eclectic, essentially representing a revival of period styles for houses, and an unending variety of forms and sleek, asymmetrical designs for commercial buildings. Postmodernism is basically an allusion to the past, with multiple associations and meanings. It is a rejection of modernist thought, a return to traditional, historical precedents, a re-awakened interest in history and heritage. Postmodernism coincides with both the historic preservation movement and the new urbanism movement quite well. Contemporary skyscrapers (office towers) and their designers are basically thumbing their collective noses at the now-bland "anonymous glass box" architecture of the International era. With postmodernism, anything goes. Historical features tend to be widely exaggerated, and the critics of postmodern architecture point to the fact that contemporary architecture does not necessarily try to replicate historic styles as did the period styles. Instead, postmodernism makes fun of the past, using a wide variety of historic forms, simplifying and mixing them into an unorganized, illogical jumble of a building. Others like the trend, citing a nice "balance" between the sleek, technical look of modern architecture and the wide variety of historic forms that can be applied.

* Globally recognized, Chicago has been called "the most American of big cities". Exponential growth, avant-garde design, and a diversified population have helped constitute Chicago as a symbol of the modern city. A world class architectural Mecca, Chicago's architecture schools are the perfect inspiration for students looking to study architecture in the birthplace of the skyscraper. Chicago is where it all began..... * "One of the unique characteristics of Chicago," said Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts curator Bob Cozzolino, "is there's always been a very pronounced effort to not be derivative, to not follow the status quo."
History
* The architecture of Chicago, both past and present, has influenced and reflected the history of American architectural style. Since most buildings within the downtown area were destroyed (the most famous exception being the Water Tower) by the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, Chicago buildings are noted for their originality rather than their antiquity. The area destroyed in 1871 by the Great Chicago Fire was four miles long and two thirds of a mile wide. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in Chicago, ushering in the skyscraper era. * The outcome of the Great Chicago Fire led to one of the largest building booms in the history of the nation. Perhaps the most outstanding result of this event was the relocation of many of the nation's most prominent architects from New England to the city for construction of the 1893 World Columbian Exposition. In 1895, Chicago was determined to have the capital of the United States relocate to the windy city. The campaign was not successful, but it did result in Chicago being granted the grandest, most expensive federal building in America. * Widely considered America's first truly modern architect, Louis Sullivan, realizing that the skyscraper represented a new form of architecture, discarded historical precedent and designed buildings that emphasized their vertical nature. This new form of architecture, by Jenney, Burnham, Sullivan, and others, became known as the "Commercial Style," but was later called the "Chicago School" by historians. * Since 1963, a "Second Chicago School" has emerged, largely due to the ideas of architect and structural engineer Fazlur Khan. Khan, more than any other individual, ushered in a renaissance in skyscraper construction during the second half of the twentieth century by introducing a new structural system of framed tubes. Khan's acclaimed framed tube structure was defined as a three dimensional space structure composed of three, four, or possibly more frames, braced frames, or shear walls, joined at or near their edges to form a vertical tube-like structural system capable of resisting lateral forces in any direction by cantilevering from the foundation. * One of the first buildings to apply the tube-frame construction was the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartment Building, completed in 1963. This laid the foundations for the tube structures of many other later skyscrapers, including Khan's own constructions of the John Hancock Center and Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower). His influence can also be seen in the construction of the Petronas Towers, Jin Mao Building, and most other supertall skyscrapers since the 1960s. Willis Tower would be the world's tallest building from its construction in 1974 until 1998 (when the Petronas Towers was built) and would remain the tallest for some categories of buildings until the Burj Khalifa was completed in January 2010. * Numerous architects have constructed landmark buildings of varying styles in Chicago. Some of these are the so-called "Chicago seven": James Ingo Freed, Tom Beeby, Larry Booth, Stuart Cohen, James Nagle, Stanley Tigerman, and Ben Weese. One of Chicago's suburbs, Oak Park, was home to famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright (a student of Sullivan).