Historic bank gets a new metal roof worthy of its heritage
The Hyde Park Bank building, located in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, was the largest bank building outside of the city’s Loop business district when it opened in 1929, and it remains a landmark today. A 2005 renovation of the bank’s immense, marble-lined banking hall by Florian Architects of Chicago won a National Honor Award from the AIA, and its limestone façade remains a great example of 1920s Classical Revival design.
With this architectural heritage in mind, the bank’s current owner, the Wintrust family of community banks, set high standards for the building’s new roof when the original required replacement. Even though most of the low-slope roof can’t be seen from the street 10 stories below, its craftsmanship stands up handily to that seen throughout the structure – and PAC-CLAD’s steel panels play a significant role in the installation’s success.
Albert J. Wagner & Son of Crystal Lake, Ill., designed and fabricated the roof using 33,720 sq. ft. of PAC-CLAD’s .24-gauge steel architectural sheet in Hemlock Green. This square footage translated into 1,000 sheets of the material, which were then cut into individual roof tiles. Those tiles were then curved into the form of classic terracotta units. The Hemlock Green hue resembles patinaed copper, giving the roof a sense of age to match the bank’s heritage façade.
The expertise shown in the tiles’ design and fabrication was carried through in the installation work done by the professionals from Prate Roofing based in Wauconda, Ill. That company also was the general contractor on the job.
