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 * ​Brittany & Ava**

Skyscrapers and the "Chicago School"



The term “Chicago School” developed in the late 19th century when describing architects who use steel when constructing buildings. The architects most commonly included in the “Chicago School” is Dankmar Alder, Daniel H. Burnham, William Holabird, William Le Baron Jenney, Martin Roche and, most important, Louis Sullivan. The buildings that these architects built during the 19th century are called the “Chicago Construction”. This term originated when William Le Baron Jenney first used iron and steel to make buildings more heat resistant. The reason for using steel during the 19th century was due to the Great Fire in 1871. Most of the architects in the “Chicago School” focused on using steel to prevent collapsing buildings during fires. There were two ways to identify the “Chicago Construction”. “Chicago Construction” focused more on using red bricks and terracotta, but you would rarely see the two with one another. However, Sullivan’s and Adler’s skyscrapers are one of the masterpieces that use both characteristics. (Van Zanten) These skyscrapers were made possible because of the indrustrilization of the 19th century.

A skyscraper is typically defined, as a multi-story building that is very tall rather than wide with skeletal steel frames and glass-curtain walls. As the population grew with limited space in urban areas, architects had to construct these buildings upwards. This allowed more people to live and work inside the cities. The first building to be named a skyscraper was Queen Anne’s Mansions in London, England.The advent of the skyscraper brought with it advancements such as indoor plumbing, steam heat, lighting, and air conditioning because without such amenities, no one would be able to inhabit these tall buildings. In fact, iron and steel framing were developed in place of the traditional construction of a non-skyscraper (Condit and Neumann, screen 5). In addition, elevators were essential to skyscrapers so that inhabitants could easily get to different stories of the building without having to ascend numerous flights of stairs which, if not for the elevator, could be a daunting task. 1887 found the invention of electrically powered elevators and by 1929 during the Great Depression; skyscrapers were built all over the US. These technological advances brought nineteenth century America straight to the top.

Queen Anne's Mansions (the first skyscraper)