The Chicago School
the area, which then comprised
In 1785 the American Congress ruled to divido Doie H Bun &C
Many of the ropidly-growing Tora, Fler Bungee Ta
the United States, into uniform grid squares.
urban planning, includina 1901-1900
centres adopted this organizotional format into their
sterectypical grid form The
New York, which in 181| laid out its streets in a
economy: untorm ares
chief orguments behind this move were efficiency and
with irregular
could be developed more rationally and economically than those
poricularly unin
shapes and varying sizes. In Chicago, where expansion was
at the mcuth of
hibited, the first lorge construction site vwas staked out in 1830
people.
the Chicogo River. By 1900 it was already home to I.7 million
Building proceeded simply ond quickly, preferably using the balloon-frame
method of construction introduced in 1832, whereby waoden larhs were
placed ot close intervals on a foundation and reintorced with diagonal studa.
The pots were not mortised, but were simply joined with steel nails. Over the
cOurse of time houses were built closer and closer together, grew toller, and
began to require solid masonry. In 1851 Goffried Semper cited a technician
fomiliar with the American construction industry of the day: "lf a Yankee wants
a building plan, he goes to an architect in the morning, tells him what he wants,
the size of the plot and the amount of money he can spend. He comes back
that evening to see the drawings. If he likes them, the forernan is allotted a
round sum, building is begun on the third day and he moves in during the sixth
week." The side walls and the rear façade were made of brick, and the win
dows installed immediately. Wooden beams, whose length corresponded to
the always identical - plot width, made up the false ceilings, and only the
PACH Re
depth of the houses varied. "Depending on the client's budget, the stonecutter
sticks ... slabs of sandstone, marble or gronite on the front façode and hangs
this cladding with iron clips to the back masonry and the carpenter's muilian
wings. Then the plasterer comes and transforms the whole edifice with some
truly excellent stucCo into the most solid house in oll the world."
After 1855, cast-iron façade parts from Daniel Badger's New York factory were
also delivered to Chicago, but the majority of houses were still made of wood.
The risks this involved became evident in the greot fire of 187l, which de
stroyed most of Chicago.A second highly destructive fire in 1874 reintorced
efforts to develop fireproof building. Since iron
constructions had proved veny
vulnerable to fire, tried-and-tested brick construction was preterred and
Oxperimentation provisionolly relegated to the background.
Unlike New York, where single, tower-like buildings rose from o
sea ofbuld
JW. Ritch
beiore 1865
Gilsey Building, New York
of Congress
Photo Irving Underh/Ubrary
J. P.Gaynor (arch.)
Building made of cast iron on the corner of
Broadwayy and Broome Street,
New York,
1857
From: D. Badger, lllustrations of Iron
Architecture made by the Architectural Iron
Works, New York, 1865
Daniel D. Badger was president of the
"Architectural Iron Works" and his compony
Completed their first building in Boston, in
1842. Ar this time, there were already a
number of buildings containing interior
interio iron
girders and beams, but now the façades,
with all their columns, parapets, sash bars
and even window blinds, were belng manu
factured out of metal. To passers-by, the
EAL imitated elements of the bullding resembled
stone. but if knocked upon, there would be
an unfamiliar hollow sound that revealed a
different material.
This six storey commercial and office build View and plan of a façade made of cast iron
ing on Broadway was built by Badger's ings to create a typical urban skyline, Chicago's houses grew uniformly ond elements
From: D. Badger, llustrations of Iron
Architechural Iron VWorks" blocks. Speculative exploitation of desirable downtown development se Architecture made by the Architectural Iron
torced architecture upwards, there were many multi-storey buildings in Ce Works, New York, 1865
go in the nineties which, even if they only had eight or nine floors, were pro With relatively few decorative detoils, the
called "skyscropers". As buildings grew taler, so did the advantages otle standardized, load-bearing supports ond
girders (oin together to create an overall
construction. It burdened foundations with less weight, and made if possu plcture that, according to personal toste,
avoid the thick ground-floor walls which had stood in the way of gene could either remind the builder-developers
of the renaissance or of one of the
shop windows and thus the lucrative rental of around-floor store space. o
competition's buildings.
one the preconditions for high-rise building were all met: the invention
foundolio
fireproof steel frame, the technology for sufficiently load-bearing
and, above all, the elevator which Elisha Otis first introduced
passenger
New York in 1857. Access became available to even higher levels,
ondth
tormerly cheaper upper floors now become the more valuable. window
48
In using brick columns on the
façades and large, serially-ordered 49
Wlan Le8oron Jenney Roche
Foir Store in Chicogo,o, linois, 1890
-1891 William Holabird and Martíin
firsproal construction methiod Tocoma Building in Chicago,
encased in coment Illinois, 1887-1889
The ron supports were
oiat bond was View from the south-eas
ond the curiy brckled Photogrophing
gven a concrets loor. The
gos pipes were Photo Chicogo Architectural Art
olso 1eOled in concrete Co/Ryerson and Burnham Archives/The
Institute of Chicogo
Technologlcal progress ond esthetics did
Technically-innovative
not alwoys coincde.
buildings frequently oppeared conservative
façodes which seemed
in their exteriors, while
concealed
to express new concepts merely
Tocoma
conventional stone constructions. The
the skeleton
Building ultimately looked like
construction it was.
Wiliom LeBaron Jenney
Leiter Building in Chicogo, llinois, 1879
Photo 1. W. Toylor/Ryerson and Burnham
Archives/The Ant lnstitute of Chicogo
nJenney's leiter Store, iron pillars behind the
bnck columns supported the wooden ceiling
olsts for eoch floor. The narrow frames be
tween the windows were made of wrought
iron and rested on stone paropets. Since the
construction featured almost no tension-resist
ant joints, it connot be sold to possess o true
fromework Notable is its extensive rejection
of focode decoration. In 1888 wo storeys
were added to the building; when this
photogroph was taken they had alreody
been completed. The tracks of the "Elevoted'
the suburban roilway which ran in o loop
oround the city centre, con be seen in the
foreground. It gove its nome to the "Loop",
Chicogo's centre of commerce.
James Mclaughlin put a face on the iron fraome construction of a Cincinnot
deportment store in 1877 which soon became yoicol for lorge commercial
buildings throughout Americo. Williom leBaron Jenney folowed this trend wvith
his Leiter Store in Chicago. Extensive glazing and the rejection of cmamen
tation and any crowning of the façade modea fochucl functionol impression.
Others building olongside Jenney in Chicogo's loop inchuded Daiel H
Burnham, John Wellborn Root. John Holobird. Mortin Roche Henry Hobson
Richardson, Dankmar Adler ond Louis Sulivan Richardson ond Slvon tred
determinedly to find an otistic fom for commercial bulding prajects Whle
Richardson accented his powertul, even sfone façades with carefully placed
windows and rounded arches, Sulivan took on the chalenge ata more tunda
mental level. He summarized hs thaughts on ofice buling design in the essoy
The tall ofice building ortisticoly considered Sulvan structures the building
in terms of three functions The ground flcor is thus for shops and for access to
50
S1
Oppos
om &.Root with Charles B. Atwood
Relionce Buling. Cnicogo, minot,o4-16v0
HOEEEEECE
TAYLO1
52
Adler and Sullivan
Guaranty Building, Buffalo, New Yor
1894-1896 Louis H. Sullivan
ibrary of Congress Schlesinger & Mayer Department Store in
Chicago, Illinois, l899-1904
Sullvan's particular
the occomplishment
foct that he did not ios
odopt the bnke
Photo E. van Altena/Ryerson ond Burnham
Archives/ The Art Institute of Chicago
sleel skeleton, with its wide
gops bete Rich, artully-crafted ornaments, designed by
supports, into the
this a unique grid toçadedesign, but gbe Sullvon and George Elmslie, decorate the
that
suggests the imopa bose of hls consumer's poradise. The sales
a high-ise
building ith narow venicol levels were joined- as was common practice
windows, each crowned at the top like in the lorge Chicago department stores of
dot of an ".
the time - by an ort gallery, cofé, restaurant
ond on exquisitely-furnished lounge. Further
storeys wore added by Burnham & Co. os
early os 1906, ond the original roof, shown
in the prosent photograph, thereby altered.
Plan
the upper floors. It is followed by a middle section containing ony number of
similar floors of offices;, its façode is hence structured by a uniform grid of The ornamental cast iron
the entrance create a
surface-fllings over
contrast
windows and columns. The top floor, which houses elements of the building's quality of the facade.
to the sober
ohlities, is emphasized os a concluding attic storey. His typical ideal multi-sto Photo Peler Gössel
rey building therefore features a base, shaft and capital, os in a classical col
umn. Sullivan's arqumentation ends in the much-anolyzed conclusion: "It is the
pervoding law of oll things organic, ond inorganic, of oll things physical and
metaphysical, of all things human and oll things superhuman, of oll true mani
festations of the heod, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its
expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law .." The representative
value of a house was nevertheless a function which he took seriously. Ever taller
buildings now sprong up at great speed. Highly-specialized teams of workers
erected their steel scaffolding at dizzying heights, with Chicago and New York
alternately outdoing each other. Meonwhile the streets below grew darker and
54 55
SUEP
Opposite poge.
George Herbert Wyman
Bradbury Building in Los Angeles, Colifornia
1889-1893
Photo Julius Shulman/Getty Research Inst
This brick and sandstone offlice building
is ive floors seems conservative on the ou
slde. Its inner courtyard, with glozed roo
xposed stalrcases and Ireo-stonding
hydraulicolovotors is, however, a. triumph
iron orchitecture, Forms of gccess have he
bocome outonomous eloments of moveme
and cormnunicotlon.
S7
Ernest Flagg
Singer Building in New York, 1906-]9n9.
Photograph taken during construction
From: History of the Singer Building
Construction
The Singer Manufacturing
Compony prous
declared their new office building toto be the
"highest building in the world" Its 612
indeed fo
mode it taller than the Washingt
Monument, the Philadelphia City Holl
Cologne Cathedrol and the Gizeh Pyromi
The Eiffel Tower wosquietly
ignored. Therl
ogrt of the building, dating from 1897 vo
intearated into the new section ond
expanded. The wind bracing on the ower
steel crosses in the corners- is cleary vick
The foundation work employed pneumol
cally-sunken boxes which produced
atmospheric overpressure and were
supposed to prevent the intrusion of wote
during excavation.
aANY NO
darker until, in 1898, architect Ernest Flogg suggested that only the base sec Opposite page:
New York skyline of 1914
tions of buildings should be permitted to extend as far as the street, while any Collection of The New-York Historicol
projeching towers should be restricted to one-quarter of the total site size. This Society/neg. #43103
idea was adopted in 1916 as part of New York's new construction regulations, The Singer Building by Ernest Flogg and the
and was not without impact on architectural design. The rigorous exploitation Woolworth Building by Cass Gilbert (19:
of moximum permitted building volumes led to unproportioned, tiered buildings 1913) con be seen in the background, ano
the foreground, the Adams Building.
which rose like wedding cokes from massive boses. Therefore the structural
clarity of eorlier high-rises was completelydestroyed, and it would take a long
time before comparable achievements were once again reached.
58 59
