Root, John Wellborn, 1850–91, American architect, b. Lumpkin, Ga. He worked in New York City with James Renwick and became a partner of D. H. Burnham in Chicago. The firm created the modern type of highly organized architectural office suited to the planning of metropolitan buildings. Its partners were pioneers in the development of the steel-frame office building, and won international attention by their planning of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. Root developed a type of ornament, based upon Romanesque design, that was later further developed by Louis Henry Sullivan.
See studies by H. Monroe (1896) and D. Hoffmann (1973).
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