American architect, born in Brookline, MA, on the 19th of August 1859; descended on both sides from old New England colonial settlers; received his education in private schools, the Brookline High School, the Boston Institute of Technology and the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University. After spending some months with the architectural firm of Peabody and Stearns in Boston, he entered competitive drawings for the Union League Club House in Chicago, won the appointment, and at the request of the directors removed to Chicago to superintend its building, and thus became established there as an architect in 1882. Mr. Cobb has built many private residences, both city and suburban; those of Potter Palmer, R. R. Cable and Dr. McGill in Chicago being conspicuous among the former, and the Studebaker mansion at South Bend, IN, and the Country Club House at Lake Forest, IL, among the latter. The greater part of his time, however, has been devoted to public buildings, the Newberry Library, Yerkes Observatory, Chicago Historical Society, the Owings and Venetian office buildings, Kinzie Apartment House, the Chicago Athletic Association Building, Durand Art Institute at Northwestern University, Lake Forest, and several churches being among the number.
His most important work has been the building and construction of the Chicago University, upon a plan more extensive and complete than any similar group in the world. It consists of forty-six buildings, composing four large quadrangles and covering four large city squares, and includes not only ranges of dormitories, but a gymnasium, library, chemical laboratory, observatories, chapel, administrative and recitation buildings, and all the other accessories of a liberally equipped university.
At the time of the Columbian Exposition Mr. Cobb designed the Fisheries Building, with its myriad unique details, the East India and Indiana buildings, and Cairo Street. The Revue des Deux Mondes pronounced the Fisheries Building as being “the most artistic, architecturally perfect, original design of the century.”
He was selected by the United States government as architect of the new Federal building in Chicago.
