In 1931 Chicago’s pioneer skyscraper was torn down-to make way for a taller building. By then it was already being dwarfed by nearby construction. The Home Insurance Building added two additional floors in 1890. And once the building was completed, electricity ran the elevators and lit the interior. The new power source made construction easier. This was the so-called Chicago School of Architecture.Ībout this same time, electricity was being harnessed. Compared to older structures, the walls of the new buildings looked like curtains of glass. Now other architects began going higher and higher. That’s why it’s considered the world’s first skyscraper. Jenney’s building was not totally supported by the metal frame, but it is important because it showed the way of the future. The 10-story structure topped off at 138 feet in 1885. But Jenney also used steel, making Home Insurance the first building with structural steel in its frame. This building is part of the Seven Sisters, commissioned by Joseph Stalin to be built in the Socialist Classicism. Jenney built an interior metal frame as the main support of his building. The first skyscraper in Europe with a height of 176m/577ft and 32 floors was completed in 1952, designed by the architects Dmitry Chechulin and Andrei Rostkovsky. Metals had become stronger and easier to use. William LeBaron Jenney, architect of the Home Insurance Building, changed this. You want larger windows? Then you build buttresses holding up your walls, like the Gothic cathedrals. That limited the sunlight coming into your building. Trouble was, you reduced interior space, and wound up with a bunch of small rooms.Īnd because your outside walls were weight-bearing, glass windows had to be small. Of course, you could take some of the weight off the walls by putting support columns inside the building. That’s because the base had to carry the weight of everything above it. The higher you went, the wider the bottom. Chicago had height restrictions until after WWII that prevented it from competing with New York for really tall skyscrapers, but it had developed a cluster that probably outdid any other city (exept, of course, New York) by the 1920s. Before 1884 buildings were supported by their walls. The first skyscraper was built in 1885 in Chicago, as Joey V posted here. The Home Insurance Building would start a revolution. On March 1st the city issued a permit to erect an office building at the northeast corner of La Salle and Adams.
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