The impressive entrance is believed to have been required by Daniel Burnham, head of the architectural firm and the building's main stockholder.

[4] This Chicago School of Architecture building with Beaux Arts detailing is organized as a classicization of John Wellborn Root's Rookery.

A street-level, two-story enclosed court designed in a symmetrical Beaux-Arts style was surmounted by an open lightwell which was surrounded by a ring of offices.

By the formal arched entrance on Jackson Boulevard, a large staircase led to shops and a second-floor balcony.

[6] The building is significant as a historic site because Daniel Burnham and his staff made the 1909 Plan of Chicago in a penthouse on the northeast corner of the roof.

[7] Though the firm's successor, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, has moved, a number of architectural organizations still practice there, including the Goettsch Partners, VOA Associates, Harding Partners, and the Chicago offices of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and landscape architecture and planning firm, Design Workshop.