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    The Story of The Skyscraper

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    Pablo Bandeira
    The skyscraper originated in Chicago in the late 19th century as architects developed new techniques using steel frames to allow for taller buildings after a fire destroyed much of downtown Chicago. William Jenney is considered the father of skyscrapers for introducing the steel frame construction, though his buildings were only 10 stories. Later architects like Louis Sullivan and David Burnham built taller skyscrapers in Chicago and New York, with Burnham's Flatiron Building reaching 20 stories and becoming New York's first skyscraper. Skyscrapers provided a way for cities like New York to grow vertically as space became limited, and they have since become symbols of modern urban civilization found in cities worldwide.

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    The Story of The Skyscraper

    Uploaded by

    Pablo Bandeira
    33 views4 pages
    The skyscraper originated in Chicago in the late 19th century as architects developed new techniques using steel frames to allow for taller buildings after a fire destroyed much of downtown Chicago. William Jenney is considered the father of skyscrapers for introducing the steel frame construction, though his buildings were only 10 stories. Later architects like Louis Sullivan and David Burnham built taller skyscrapers in Chicago and New York, with Burnham's Flatiron Building reaching 20 stories and becoming New York's first skyscraper. Skyscrapers provided a way for cities like New York to grow vertically as space became limited, and they have since become symbols of modern urban civilization found in cities worldwide.

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    The skyscraper originated in Chicago in the late 19th century as architects developed new techniques using steel frames to allow for taller buildings after a fire destroyed much of downtown Chicago. William Jenney is considered the father of skyscrapers for introducing the steel frame construction, though his buildings were only 10 stories. Later architects like Louis Sullivan and David Burnham built taller skyscrapers in Chicago and New York, with Burnham's Flatiron Building reaching 20 stories and becoming New York's first skyscraper. Skyscrapers provided a way for cities like New York to grow vertically as space became limited, and they have since become symbols of modern urban civilization found in cities worldwide.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    33 views4 pages

    The Story of The Skyscraper

    Uploaded by

    Pablo Bandeira
    The skyscraper originated in Chicago in the late 19th century as architects developed new techniques using steel frames to allow for taller buildings after a fire destroyed much of downtown Chicago. William Jenney is considered the father of skyscrapers for introducing the steel frame construction, though his buildings were only 10 stories. Later architects like Louis Sullivan and David Burnham built taller skyscrapers in Chicago and New York, with Burnham's Flatiron Building reaching 20 stories and becoming New York's first skyscraper. Skyscrapers provided a way for cities like New York to grow vertically as space became limited, and they have since become symbols of modern urban civilization found in cities worldwide.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Daily Reading with Vocabulary

    The story of the skyscraper


    America has given a lot of things to the world; but in terms of urban lifestyle,
    none is as significant and as visible as the skyscraper
    Tall buildings, their tips sometimes hidden in the clouds, skyscrapers have become the symbol of
    modern urban civilisation, and today they are found worldwide. But until the mid-20th century,
    they were very much a distinctive feature of the American city.

    The skyline of Manhattan

    If you ask a person to describe an American city, the chances are that he will mention the
    word skyscraper. Tall buildings, their tips sometimes hidden in the clouds, have become the symbol of
    the American metropolis, a symbol of twenty-first century urban civilisation. American cities have not
    always had skyscrapers, but it is now almost a century and a half since the first skyscrapers began to
    distinguish their skylines.

    For millions of people coming to America from Europe, the first proof that they had reached a new
    world was the moment when they first caught sight of the skyline of Manhattan. Surrealistic,
    superhuman, the skyline was like nothing they had ever seen in the old world — a concentration of tall
    buildings, their tops scraping the sky, hundreds of feet above the ground. These were New York's
    famous skyscrapers! This was America!
    Daily Reading with Vocabulary

    The Home Insurance building, Chicago: 1884

    The first skyscrapers, however, did not develop in New York, but
    in Chicago, in the late nineteenth century. Chicago at that time was
    the boom town of the United States — New York was just the front
    door. Chicago was at the centre of the new American adventure,
    and the new adventure was the West. Chicago was the point at
    which the West began.

    In the year 1871, a large part of booming Chicago was destroyed as


    a major fire engulfed much of the downtown area. The fire,
    however, was a great stimulus to architects: not only did it show
    them the need to design modern buildings that would not be liable
    to burn very rapidly, but it also gave them plenty of opportunities to
    put their new theories into practice.

    By the late 1800's architects and engineers had made great steps
    forwards. Until the nineteenth century, the height of buildings had
    been limited to a maximum of about ten stories as a result of the
    building materials used — wood, brick or stone. With the exception of churches and cathedrals, few
    earlier buildings went higher than this, because they could not do so. And even the great churches of
    mediaeval Europe had to respect basic mechanical constraints. The walls needed to be terribly thick at
    the bottom, and often supported by complicated systems of buttresses and flying buttresses, to stop
    them falling down.

    In the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution resulted in the development of new techniques,
    notably the use of iron. This allowed the building of much bigger buildings, in particular railway
    stations, the "cathedrals of the Industrial Revolution", and exhibition buildings. Opened in 1889, the
    nineteenth century's most famous iron and steel structure reached unheard-of new heights. The Eiffel
    Tower, 1010 feet high, pointed the way to the future: upwards!

    Yet plain iron and steel structures had their limitations. They were not really suitable for the design of
    human habitations or offices — and in the event of fire, they could collapse very rapidly.

    It was in fact the combination of the old and the new that allowed the development of the skyscraper: the
    combination of metal frames and masonry cladding. The metal frame allowed much greater strength
    and height, without the enormous mass and weight of stone-built structures; the masonry cladding
    allowed traditional features, such as rooms and partitions, to be included in the design with relatively
    Daily Reading with Vocabulary

    few problems. The man generally considered as the father of this new technique was the Chicago
    architect William Jenney.

    Though Jenney was the father of the metal-frame building, his own buildings did not go any higher than
    contemporary brick or stone buildings already going up in Chicago, New York, and elsewhere. Jenney's
    "Home Insurance Building" in Chicago (photo above) was only ten stories high, and stylistically similar
    to other buildings which did not use a metal frame.

    It was left to Jenney's successors, notably Lewis Sullivan and David Burnham, working in Chicago and
    New York, to go further. Burnham's "Flat-iron Building" in New York, erected in 1902, reached new
    heights for an office building, with 20 stories; and at 290 feet (about 90 metres), it is known as New
    York's first skyscraper.

    The reasons for building skyscrapers were clear, particularly in a city like New York,
    whose downtown district, Manhattan, could not expand very easily on a horizontal plane, limited as it
    was by the Hudson and East rivers. Apart from upwards, there were not many directions in which
    Manhattan could grow. And once the building techniques had been mastered, vertical expansion became
    the most desirable solution for the city's businessmen.

    Since those early days, and in particular since the Second World War, skyscrapers have mushroomed in
    all the world's big cities; and they keep getting higher and higher. Before the First World War, New
    York's "Woolworth Building" had reached 792 feet (241 metres); and by the Second World War, the
    Empire State Building —for many years the world's tallest — had actually passed the Eiffel Tower. In
    the 1970s, the enormous twin towers of the World Trade Center, 107 stories high, went even further. But
    did they go too far? As bold icons of modern America, they became the target of terrorism when radical
    Islamic terrorists used passenger jets to destroy them, in the terrible events of 9/11 - the 11th of
    September 2001.

    Architectural dreamers of a hundred years ago or more imagined cities in the sky, giant buildings where
    people lived thousands of feet above the ground, above the clouds, above the pollution. Today, although
    some people believe that modern skyscrapers are too high, they now characterise cities all over the
    world; and they keep getting higher. Fires in a few tall buildings, for instance in Dubai, have led to
    further questions being asked; but in spite of the occasional disaster, skyscrapers are here to stay — at
    least for offices and city hotels. Symbols of our civilisation, they are not likely to be replaced.
    Daily Reading with Vocabulary

    WORDS :

    - metropolis: very big city - masonry: stone, bricks or concrete


    - catch sight of: start to see - cladding: exterior
    - skyline: profile - partitions: non-stress-bearing walls
    (stress: weight, force)
    - stories: levels
    - downtown: central
    - constraints: limitations
    - to mushroom: to appear in lots of different
    - buttresses and flying
    places
    buttresses: architectural supports used to hold
    up tall buildings, especially in Gothic - giant: enormous
    architecture
    - in the event of: if there is

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