The Chicago Home Insurance Building: A Skyscraper That Paved The Way For Modern Skyscrapers
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This skyscraper is the world’s oldest skyscraper that is solely made of bones. Skyscrapers are essentially depreciating the sky by obstructing its surface. Because it keeps sticking out and blocking the view, a skyscraper essentially erases the sky. A skyline is a symbol of civic unity and pride, reflected in its vertical trajectory, as well as the aspirations of its surroundings. There is no definitive answer to this question as the first skyscraper is often debated. Some believe that the first skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, which was completed in 1885 and stood at a height of 138 feet.
Steel-girder construction was first used in Chicago in 1896, when William Le Baron Jenney built a ten-story Home Insurance Company Building. The building was designed in 1884 by Jenney for the Home Insurance Company. But one thing stands out, and that is the honesty of the American materials and workmanship that went into this pioneer structure. Henry Penn, Chicago representative of the American Institute of Steel Construction, asserts that he found no deterioration in the metal work he has examined. It has been reported that deterioration was found In metal exposed to the air In the elevator shaft.
When Was The Home Insurance Building Built
He was told to provide the maximum number of small offices above the second floor. He saw at a glance that neither brick nor stone would carry the load per unit of section. Architects often had built iron columns into masonry piers where the load was exceptionally great, and Mr. Jenney had done the same thing in the Fletcher & Sharo building at Indianapolis. The material solution of the problem was to make this construction general, and inclose an iron column within each of the small masonry piers, thus satisfying the three requirements—small piers, strong and fireproof.
The material and workmanship are of the same perfect sort that characterizes all this company’s many contributions to the upbuilding of Chicago. The first insurance agent in Chicago was Gurdon Hubbard, afur trader, investor, and speculator who arrived from Vermont in 1818. In 1834, Hubbard became the Chicago agent for the Aetna Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut, and this successful venture made him one of the city's most prominent midcentury businessmen. The Illinois Insurance Company, chartered in 1839, was the first insurance company to operate out of Chicago.
The Home Life Insurance Building: A Landmark Of Ingenuity
As of this writing, the home insurance building in Chicago is still standing. However, it is unknown how much longer it will remain standing, as it is in a state of disrepair. The building has been vacant for many years, and it is unclear if there are any plans to renovate or demolish it. There is no one answer to this question as different home insurance policies have different coverage levels and therefore are made of different materials. Some home insurance policies may only cover the bare minimum, while others may offer comprehensive coverage. Steel-girder construction was introduced to Chicago in the late nineteenth century as a result of William Le Baron Jenney’s 10-story Home Insurance Company Building (1884–1955).
It had 10 stories and rose to a height of 138 ft (42.1 m); two additional floors were added in 1891, bring the total to 12 floors, an unprecedent height at the time. He trained and taught many of the great architects and builders of America, was professor of architecture of the Unbiversity of Michigan—and died a comparatively poor man. Unlike a true skeleton frame, Jenney did not insert an iron spandrel beam at each floor that should have spanned between the columns that would have connected the column sections into a rigid framework. Instead, to support the windows and masonry spandrels between the piers, Jenney detailed four-inch deep, hollow cast-iron lintel pans, that were also filled with concrete like the columns. Note that these were not one, continuous iron member that spanned the entire distance between the piers but were comprised of two halves that each spanned only the distance between a column’s shelf bracket and the intermediate cast iron mullion. The iron pans were not mechanically connected to either of their iron vertical supports, but simply sat on the concrete filling of the lintel pan below it.
building construction
The French engineer in charge was a dandy, always scrupulously dressed, and one day, while he was attired in white, a big sow knocked him over. In his anger he declared he would not remain in that place and, putting Jenney in charge, he left. It was during his years of life in the Latin quarter that he introduced pumpkin pie into Paris. Busque had a little café in the Rue St. Pierre, where the students gathered, and where Jenney was one of the leading spirits.
The building opened in 1885 and was demolished 47 years later in 1931. At this time, it was still conventional construction practice to make the foundations for both the columns and intermediate mullions the same size, independent of the load they carried. The rotation resulted from the heavier-loaded piers settling at a greater rate than the smaller mullions, transferring more and more load to the mullions, and often resulted in severe cracking in and around them. The easiest way to avoid this differential settlement was to transfer the mullion loads over to the main piers before they reached the ground. If this could be done, not with a single transfer beam at the lowest floor, but with a series of transfer beams as Jenney had detailed, the loads in the mullions would be uniform, and therefore the mullions’ cross-section would not have to increase as the piers did, keeping the windows as large as possible.
It was one of the earliest buildings to use an iron frame skeleton and the tallest to ever do so at the time, rising to ten stories; with an additional two stories added. It was the first multistory building in the United States to largely use iron in its exterior to support the masonry since Badger had constructed similar grain elevators between 1860 and 1862. The status of the Home Insurance Building as the first skyscraper had been accorded by the time of its centennial in 1985. William LeBaron Jenney, a Chicago architect, designed the first skyscraper in 1884. Nine stories high, the Home Life Insurance Building was the first structure whose entire weight, including the exterior walls, was supported on an iron frame. But it would not be for another 14 years, when the Equitable Life Assurance Building was constructed in Manhattan that a skyscraper contained all the characteristics of a modern skyscraper, including central heating, elevators, and pressurized plumbing.
While the Ditherington Flax Mill was an earlier fireproof-metal-framed building, it was only five stories tall. The Home Insurence Building had 10 stories and rose to a height of 138 ft . In 1889, the tallest building in the United States was New York's Trinity Church, near Wall 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.
President Herbert Hoover and New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt attended the dedication of the 102-story, 1,250 high building. Erected in just 13 months, the building grew at a rate of more than a story a day, while constructed workers toiled on girders a fifth of a mile above the ground. The building would remain the world's tallest for forty years, before it was overtaken by the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center.
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