![]() ![]() Corporate commissions, such as the Singer and Met Life buildings, served as physical advertisements for the companies that commissioned them, even if those businesses occupied only a small amount of office space within each structure. ![]() Its successor firm, Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, continued this domination well into the 1910s.Ī typical Beaux-Arts skyscraper consisted of either a simple yet ornamented tower block, such as Burnham’s Flatiron Building (1903) in New York, or a basic office block aggrandized with an elaborate tower, such as Ernest Flagg’s Singer Building (1908) in New York, with its Second Empire mansard roof that was dramatically lit at night, or Napoleon Le Brun’s Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Building (1909) in New York, a direct but much taller copy of the campanile of St. Not surprisingly, the most popular high-rise design firm at the beginning of the century was D.H.Burnham and Company, founded by the man responsible for the plan of the White City. Like the great mercantile princes of the Italian Renaissance, businessmen turned to Beaux-Arts-trained or-inspired architects to construct buildings that, by appropriating a classicized style, implied power and respectability. Ironically, the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, with its gleaming White City image personifying monumentality and strength, prompted this classical interest and, according to Louis Sullivan, set back architectural design by decades. Businesses such as insurance companies and newspapers employed elaborate styles that not only were self-promoting but also galvanized civic pride.Īlthough the Chicago School made an indelible impression on many American cities and especially on European modernists, it was the Beaux-Arts-inspired style popular in New York that dominated skyscraper construction as the 20th century dawned. On the other hand, in New York, corporate commissions had always demanded more ornamentation and more historical references, all in an attempt to present a landmark structure that would elevate and promote its occupants. Speculative commercial construction thrived in Chicago after the devastating fire of 1871 and dictated a simpler, more cost-effective method of exterior articulation as well as making the best use of available land for office space. The Chicago School, with its emphasis on structural rationality and economy, personified what was new about skyscraper design in the United States, breaking from historical ornament or form. Two perceived “schools” of skyscraper design embodied these purposes. When combined with advances in engineering and materials, the skyscraper thus became not only a monument to modern progress but also a symbolic link to the historical past, a past that the United States lacked and sought to evoke or, perhaps, to distance itself from. Post eventually tackled this problem, theoretically and in practice, by considering the nature of skyscraper form itself as a new building type. Designers such as Louis Sullivan, John Wellborn Root, and George B. In the 19th century, the earliest high-rise buildings tended to simply be mere enlargements of traditional forms, such as the tower, progressively adding stories and increasing height without adequately addressing the aesthetic of a tall structure. Mitigating factors such as material and technical innovation, zoning regulations, economic climate, and the client’s purpose for construction affected the skyscraper’s success as much as the designer or engineer did. ![]() Critically successful structures in terms of aesthetics were also not always profitable. Importantly, not every skyscraper was constructed in an attempt to outdo its neighbor, and not every high-rise building exhibited innovation. In addition to concerns for ornamentation, constant competition to create taller structures not only demonstrated the desire of patrons and architects to physically outdo one another in creating a landmark structure but also reflected changing economic conditions and building patterns within particular cities. Historicism and eclecticism moved in and out of fashion throughout the century, interspersed with periods of a new “modern” aesthetic that exploited the pure form created by the steel-frame and glass curtain wall. OVERVIEW / GALLERY / ARCHITECTS / BUILDINGS / MOREĪs the archetypal urban commercial building, the 20th-century skyscraper exhibited continual structural innovation and stylistic exploration. ![]()
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