Detail from “From the Balcony of the Fisheries Building” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine May 1893.
Henry Ives Cobb (August 19, 1859 – March 27, 1931) contributed several buildings to the fairgrounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, but perhaps none so beautiful and intricately detailed as the great Fisheries Building.
“In the Fisheries Building, a clever scheme of surface ornament has been composed from casts of starfish, seahorses, crabs, lobsters, and creatures of land and water which are calculated to delight the heart of a designer … The sinuous procession of seahorses winding around one pillar is offset by a geometrical spacing of starfish touching star points on another.”
–Candace Wheeler, “A Dream City” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine May 1893.
“The Fisheries Building” from Picturesque World’s Fair. W.B. Conkey, 1894.