William Borden Residence, Chicago, Illinois, East Elevation 1885

This is Richard Morris Hunt’s architectural drawing for the William Borden Residence in Chicago. Hunt was the architect of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and here, he envisions the private home as a kind of museum for living. The Borden residence is a prime example of Gilded Age architecture, where industrialists displayed their wealth through grand buildings. The American Gilded Age was a time of rapid industrialization when self-made men made vast fortunes, radically transforming American social structures and challenging traditional elites. New institutions arose to support the development of art, like the Art Institute, founded in 1879. Careful study of architectural plans like this one, alongside period sources such as newspapers and social registers, help us to understand the ways buildings reflect and reinforce social hierarchies. The social history of art reminds us that aesthetic choices are intertwined with questions of power, status, and cultural values.