Benjamin Marshall (architect)

Marshall and Fox was a United States architectural firm based in Chicago from 1905 to 1926. The principals, Benjamin H. Marshall and Charles E. Fox, designed a number of significant buildings of many types in Chicago and other cities, but they were best known for luxury hotels and apartment buildings.

Benjamin Marshall (May 5, 1874 – June 19, 1944) was a native of Chicago. His formal education did not extend beyond his years at a private preparatory academy, the Harvard School, in then-suburban Kenwood. Impressed by the buildings being erected for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 near his south side home, the young Marshall decided on a career in architecture. He became an apprentice of the firm of Marble and Wilson from 1893 to 1895. At Marble's death he became a partner in the firm, and then in 1902 established his own practice. One of his earliest commissions was destroyed a month after its completion in an event remembered as one of Chicago's worst disasters, the Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903.

Marshall's career was only temporarily affected by the disaster, and in 1905 he established the partnership with Fox which would continue almost until the latter's death in 1926. Marshall was handsome and wealthy, and he has been described as a cross between the fictional playboy Jay Gatsby and real-life showman Florenz Ziegfeld. Although not an original stylist, nor great structural innovator, he was a creative re-worker of style in popular building projects. Marshall continued to operate the firm alone until his retirement in the 1930s when he was bankrupted by the Great Depression. He later moved into one of his buildings, the Drake Hotel, where he continued to design several of its interiors.

Charles Fox (July 1, 1870 – October 31, 1926) was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. After studying architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology he moved to Chicago in 1891. He was employed by the noted firm of Holabird & Roche, working primarily as a specialist in steel construction. The final 21 years of his career from 1905 to 1926 were spent in the partnership with Marshall. He was the firm's construction specialist and project manager.

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