1 jan 1885 ano - First skyscraper completed in Chicago

Descrição:

Chicago School: A school of architecture dedicated to the design of buildings — such as skyscrapers — whose form expressed their structure and function.

By the 1880s the invention of steel girders, durable plate glass, and passenger elevators began to revolutionize urban building methods. Architects invented the skyscraper, a building supported by its steel skeleton. Its walls bore little weight, serving instead as curtains to enclose the structure. Although expensive to build, skyscrapers allowed downtown landowners to profit from small plots of real estate in high-rent urban business districts. By investing in a skyscraper, a landlord could collect rent for ten or even twenty floors of space. Large corporations commissioned these striking designs as symbols of business prowess.

The first skyscraper was William Le Baron Jenney’s ten-story Home Insurance Building (1885) in Chicago. Though unremarkable in appearance — it looked just like other downtown buildings — Jenney’s steel-girder construction inspired the creativity of American architects. A Chicago school sprang up, dedicated to the design of buildings whose form expressed, rather than masked, their structure and function. The presiding genius of this school was architect Louis Sullivan, whose “vertical aesthetic” of set-back windows and strong columns gave skyscrapers a “proud and soaring” presence and offered plentiful natural light for workers inside. Chicago pioneered skyscraper construction, but New York, with its unrelenting demand for prime downtown space, took the lead by the late 1890s. The fifty-five-story Woolworth Building, completed in 1913, marked the beginning of Manhattan’s modern skyline.

Adicionado na linha do tempo:

Data: