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The Home Insurance Building was built in 1884
in Chicago, Illinois, USA and demolished in 1931 to
make way for the Field Building (now the LaSalle National Bank
Building). It was the first building to use structural
steel in its frame, but the majority of its structure was
composed of cast and wrought iron. It is generally noted as the
first tall building to be supported, both inside and outside, by a
fireproof metal frame.[1]
However, this may not be entirely correct as Ditherington Flax Mill was built
as a fireproof metal framed building in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK, 88 years earlier in 1796, it is as
tall as a modern five story building, and is still standing
today.[2] Oriel Chambers,
1864, in Liverpool, England, was the first 100%
metal framed glass curtain walled building. Before the invention of
the elevator, it being only 5 floors high.
Due to the Chicago building's unique architecture and unique
weight bearing frame, it is considered to be the first skyscraper in the world.
It had 10 stories and rose to a height of 138 feet (42 m).[3] In
1890, two additional floors were built on top of the original
10-story building. A forensic analysis done during its demolition
purported to show that the building was the first to carry both
floors and external walls entirely on its metal frame, but details
and later scholarship have largely disproved this, and it has been
shown that the structure must have relied upon both metal and
masonry elements to support its weight, and to hold it up against
wind. Although the Home Insurance Building made full use of steel
framing technology, it was not a pure steel-framed structure since
it rested partly on granite piers at the base and on a rear brick
wall.
The architect was William LeBaron
Jenney, an engineer. In fact, the building weighed only
one-third as much as a stone building would have; city officials
were so concerned that they halted construction while they
investigated its safety. The Home Insurance Building is an example
of the Chicago School in architecture. The
building led to the future in the skyscrapers. “In 1888, a
Minneapolis architect named Leroy S. Buffington was granted a
patent on the idea of building skeletal-frame tall buildings. He
even proposed the construction of a 28-story
"stratosphere-scraper"--a notion mocked by the architectural press
of the time as impractical and ludicrous.Nevertheless, Buffington
brought the potential of the iron skeletal frame to the attention
of the national architectural and building communities. Architects
and engineers began using the idea, which in primitive form had
been around for decades.” [4]
The Bank of America Building (former Field Building and then
Lasalle Bank Building), where the Home Insurance Building once
stood, contains a plaque in the lobby that reads:
- This section of the Field Building is erected on the site
of the Home Insurance Building which structure, designed and built
in eighteen hundred and eighty four by the late William LeBaron
Jenney, was the first high building to utilize as the basic
principle of its design the method known as skeleton construction
and, being a primal influence in the acceptance of this principle
was the true father of the skyscraper, 1932
References
Other
References
- 1885 First Skyscraper, Chicago Public Library (Archive copy at the Internet
Archive)
- Theodore Turak, William Le Baron Jenney: A Pioneer in
Modern Architecture, Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press,
1986
- Carl Condit, The Chicago School of Architecture, The
University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1964
See also
External
links
| Chicago Skyscrapers |
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| Supertall Downtown
towers |
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Selected towers with
20 or more floors |
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Chicago Landmark
skyscrapers
with 12 or more floors |
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