Abe and Barney Balaban, together with Sam and Morris Katz—founders of the Balaban and Katz theater chain, built the Chicago Theatre in 1921 as one of a large chain of opulent motion picture houses. The theater would become the flagship for 28 theaters in the city and over 100 others in the Midwestern United States that B&K operated in conjunction with the Paramount Publix chain. Cornelius W. Rapp and George L. Rapp were primary architects and the final construction cost was $4 million ($ million in dollars). The Rapp brothers also designed many other B&K properties in Chicago, including the Oriental and Uptown Theatres. Preceded by the now-demolished Tivoli Theatre of Chicago and Capitol Theatre of New York City, the Chicago Theatre was the "...largest, most costly and grandest of the super deluxe movie palaces" built up to that date and thus now the oldest surviving grand movie palace. The Chicago Theatre was among the earliest theaters in the nation to be built in Rapp and Rapp's signature Neo-Baroque French-revival style. It is the oldest surviving example of this style in Chicago.