Abstract
A POINT of considerable interest in the history of architecture has just been settled by a joint committee of the American Institute of Architects and the Illinois Society of Architects, which, having watched the demolition of the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, has declared it to be “the first tall structure of metal construction”. The essential feature of a ‘sky-scraper’ is the metal skeleton, defined as “a type of construction in which a metal frame or cage, composed of girders, beams, and columns, supports all internal and external loads and carries all stresses to the foundations”. Claims had been set up that the Tacoma Building of 1888 was the first tall metal skeleton building, but the committee states that in the Home Insurance Building there was “a complete skeleton framework, floor loads were carried by both interior and exterior columns, wall loads were transferred to columns, and columns were supported on independent footings”. The Home Insurance Building was designed by William Le Baron Jenney and was erected in 1885. It has now been removed to make room for the gigantic Field Building in which 25,000 tons of steel will be used, but it will henceforth have its place in history as the first ‘sky-scraper’.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
The First ‘Sky-scraper’. Nature 129, 431 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129431d0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129431d0