page_title: Robert Seyfarth
section_title: Influences and early career
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Seyfarth / Education and career / Influences and early career
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph from the north-east of the residence of George Dryden, Evanston, IL. George Washington Maher, architect. 1920
context_page_description: Robert Seyfarth was an American architect based in Chicago, Illinois. He spent the formative years of his professional career working for the noted Prairie School architect George Washington Maher. A member of the influential Chicago Architectural Club, Seyfarth was a product of the Chicago School of Architecture.
context_section_description: Robert Seyfarth graduated from the Chicago Manual Training School in 1895, and literature published by the school shows his position upon graduation to be that of a "Draughtsman" for the Chicago architect August Fiedler. Fiedler was born in Germany and came to the United States in 1869, establishing himself first in New York City and then in Chicago as a much sought-after designer of high-end residential interiors, later becoming an architect.  He designed some of the woodwork and other decoration for the Samuel Nickerson House (1879–1883) on Erie Street in Chicago  (now the Driehaus Museum), and the interiors of the Hegeler Carus Mansion (William W. Boyington,1874–1876) in LaSalle, Illinois. In an 1881 letter to a colleague, one of Fiedler's contemporaries commented on the quality of Fiedler's design work for Nickerson by saying that "...it would be hard to comprehend its beauty without seeing it".  From 1893 to 1896 he was the chief architect for the Board of Education for the city of Chicago (being the first to assume the position upon the creation of the building department on January 18, 1893), for whom he designed and/or supervised the construction of fifty-eight school buildings, and he was responsible for the design of thirty-eight buildings (thirty-six in the German Village alone
  ) at the World's Columbian Exposition
  . Seyfarth began his career as an architect at the age of 17 working for Fiedler during the time the latter was architect to the board of education, and records show his position at the time he was hired to be "messenger" (although, as noted above, his graduation notice suggested something more than that), for which he was compensated with a salary of $6.00 per week (about $168.07 in 2015). Fiedler operated out of offices in Adler and Sullivan's Schiller (later Garrick Theater) Building (1891, demolished 1961), and Seyfarth was almost certainly introduced to him through his uncle Henry Biroth, who was one of the earliest pharmacists in Chicago and served at various times as the secretary and president of the Illinois Pharmaceutical Association, which occupied offices down the hall from Fiedler. The Seyfarth family had been acquainted with  Fiedler for several years before Seyfarth began to attend Chicago Manual Training School. Henry Biroth was an active member of Chicago's large ethnic German community, and in 1887, Fiedler (with his partner John Addison) had designed a house for him in Blue Island. How long the young Seyfarth worked for Fiedler and the board of education is not known (Fiedler separated from the board of education late in 1896, and was replaced by Normand Patton), but by 1900 he was working for George Washington Maher on the renovation of the interior of the Nickerson mansion for Lucius Fisher. Here, according to the Historic American Buildings Survey, he designed and carved the woodwork for the rare book room. 
  
  Maher was an influential architect associated with the Prairie School movement. According to H. Allen Brooks, professor emeritus of fine arts at the University of Toronto "His influence on the Midwest was profound and prolonged and, in its time, was certainly as great as was [Frank Lloyd] Wright's.  Compared with the conventional architecture of the day, his work showed considerable freedom and originality, and his interiors were notable for their open and flowing ... space". Henry M. Hyde, in a 1913 article in the Chicago Tribune, recognized the work of Maher and of the other members of "the new American School of Architecture" by noting "They pay no attention to the conventions and rules of the classic types of architecture. They would express a new and democratic spirit." He went on to say "...there is no doubt that just now the Chicago insurgents and their work is attracting more attention and causing more comment than any other architectural development in America".
  The beginning of Maher's life, however, wasn't quite so auspicious. He was born in Mill Creek, West Virginia, and at about the age of five, due to the adverse economic conditions in Mill Creek at the time,
caption: The residence of George B. Dryden (1869-1959), 1314 Ridge Ave, Evanston, Illinois. George Maher, architect (1918[68]). Maher was not above providing a design for a building in a traditional style when the occasion called for it, and this example shows that his office was capable of executing well-designed work. In featuring this house in its January, 1920 issue The Western Architect magazine acknowledged that although the house was stylistically outside the realm of what Maher would normally be expected to provide, it noted that "He certainly maintains his faith in the "progressive" movement and will continue to work along such lines, believing, however, that no architect is capable of doing creative work who is not thoroughly well-grounded in the architecture of the past". This statement, if it accurately portrays Maher's philosophy, must have had a decided effect on Seyfarth's architectural development.[69] The house still stands. Along with its coachhouse, it is divided into six condominium units.[70]
exif: {}