Home Insurance Company, First Skyscraper, Chicago, 1884 Stock Photo
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In September 1929 plans were made by Marshall Field's to construct a large office building spanning Adams, Clark, and LaSalle Streets. This building would be constructed and opened in parts, the first part occupying the western part of the lot and the site of the Home Insurance Building. The building weighed one-third as much as a masonry building and city officials were so concerned they halted construction while they investigated its safety.
Two more stories were added in 1890, bringing the construction up to 12 stories (180 ft.). Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians. Britannica is the ultimate student resource for key school subjects like history, government, literature, and more.
When Was The Home Insurance Building Built
The structure was one of Chicago’s first skyscrapers and played an important role in the city’s skyline development. The building served as a symbol of Chicago’s growth and progress, and it will always be remembered as one of the city’s most significant landmarks. Jenney’s achievement paved the way for the work of a group of architects and engineers that would become known as the Chicago School; together, they would develop the modern skyscraper over the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th. Several important members of this group worked at one time in Jenney’s office, including Daniel Burnham (who would go on to design New York City’s iconic Flatiron Building), John Root and Louis Sullivan.
One of his first big works was to lay out and build the beautiful village of Riverside for Emery E. Childs of Philadelphia. There was another trait of character which endeared him to his professional brothers, and to their usual enemies, the builders. He always gave a man a hearing, and if possible a chance, and it is said there are dozens of rich men in Chicago and New York today who owe their wealth to his interest and kindness.
What Do You Think Is The Significance Of The Home Insurance Building In Chicago?
Visiting architects flocked to Jenney’s office and, so far from projecting his idea, he gave over forty sets of blue prints of the building. The soil being compressible, it was necessary to use great care in calculating the dead loads and the actual live loads that would obtain in order to secure as near as practicable absolute uniformity of load per square foot on the clay throughout the entire building. Jenney was a dreamer who did thingsl a man who built castles in the air as an architect, and, turning practical builder, did them in steel and stone.
The new building, according to the Chicago Tribune, is the “most perfect and imposing structure of its kind” in the world. Because of its innovative use of a weight-bearing frame, this structure is known as the “Lever House” and is regarded as one of the first skyscrapers. Originally designed by William Le Baron Jenney, the structure is widely regarded as one of the world’s first skyscrapers. The height of the mountain, which stood at 138 feet (42.1 meters), was a watershed moment.
First skyscraper
This is an example of the inventive and progressive nature of the late nineteenth century. There is no definitive answer to this question as there is no agreed upon definition of what constitutes a skyscraper. However, the home insurance building is generally considered to be the first skyscraper. Lightning protection—The Home Insurance building was struck in a severe tempest. The lightning struck the top of one of the columns just above the roof in a party wall bon the east. The only damage was in knocking off a few brick at the top of the columns.
This was in stark contrast to earlier structures, which were supported by heavy masonry walls. Steel was not only lighter than brick, but it could carry more weight. With this new method of construction, lighter masonry walls could be “hung,” a bit like curtains, from the steel frame. As a result, the walls of the building didn’t have to be as thick, and the structure could be much higher without collapsing under its own weight. Buildings with this type of frame could also have more windows, as the steel frame supported the building’s weight and the stone or brick exterior merely acted as a “skin” to protect against weather.
The fact that some of these elements existed in a rather primitive state, and the framework did not conform to our modern ideals of rigidity, should not be allowed to effect our judgement of a courageous and credible undertaking. We fare, therefore, in complete accord in recognizing the Home Insurance building as the first tall structure of metal skeleton construction. While architects, engineers, building experts and material men pick away at its sturdy old frame, examine every nook and cranny, take notes and collect bits of its body, what is possibly one of the most significant buildings In the world is fast disappearing from the sight of man. This is the famous old Home Insurance building at the northeast corner of Adams and La Salle streets, which wreckers are now engaged in reducing to a memory. The columns in the Home Insurance building were cast iron, The riveted columns of plates and angles and others were at that time thought too expensive. It was in this building that the first Bessemer steel beams were used.
The plumbing of this building has been referred to already in our columns, but the work just finished on the eighth floor deserves specification, and in the building throughout no expenses nor pains have been spared to have the plumbing as good as any office building in the country. On the floor named—in one chamber and everything in marble—are twenty closets, five compartments, three wash basins, and a slop-sink which is one of the finest put up in Chicago, being all marble in panel work. In the hallway of each floor there is a beautiful drinking fountain. Mr. Edward Baggot, whose work it is, likewise furnished one of the floors with gas fixtures at Fifth avenue and Madison street.
During the 1870s, some five and six story buildings had steam-powered elevators, which had cables wound around a huge rotating drum; but these were not suitable for taller buildings, since the drum would have to be impractically large. The Eiffel Tower used hydraulic-powered elevators, which required a huge power source. During the 1880s, the electric elevator offered a more practical solution. There is no technical number, as most "tall" buildings are called skyscrapers. Some may say that any building over 12 stories is a skyscraper, since the term's use originated with the Home Insurance Building. In the 20th century reinforced concrete emerged as steel’s main competitor.
If he liked a student in his office or a draftsman he would stop his work and spend an hour or two teaching, instructing, explaining. He was a naturak teacher, able to impart his own knowledge to others, and his success in this line is evinced by the fact that scores of men who now are at the head of the architectural profession in America were trained under him. Yet, except among architects and builders, he was little known in Chicago. Possibly he was as well known in Berlin, London, Vienna, Paris—in any great city—as he was in his own. Architects and builders from all over the world came to him to learn—and were taught.
The arrival of several new technologies permitted the construction of buildings taller than ever before. Foremost among the new technologies was the metal frame, a method pioneered by architect William Jenney in Chicago. Although it was possible to construct buildings more than 16 stories high using masonry walls, the buildings had to have such thick walls and small windows that they were unappealing to landlords. The falling price of steel during the 1880s meant that tall buildings with steel frames became cheaper to build.
However, as a general rule of thumb, you should consider getting a life insurance policy that is worth at least 10 times your annual salary. If you have dependents, you will need to factor in their needs as well. The word skyscraper, in its architectural context, was first applied to the Home Insurance Building, completed in Chicago in 1885. A controversy was definitely ended yesterday by Thomas E. Tallmadge, chairman of a committee appointed by the Marshall Field estate to decide which was the actual “first skyscraper,” the Tacoma building, completed in 1888, or the Home Insurance building, finished three years earlier, in 1885. Mr. Jenney came to Chciago in 1867 and started as engineer and architect, later forming the firm of Jenney, Schermerhorn & Bogart, the last named later being one of the most famous landscape men in the world.
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