Reliance Building - Chicago, IL
Posted by: 
adgorn
N 41° 52.956 W 087° 37.668
16T E 447911 N 4636932
The Reliance Building is the first skyscraper to have large plate glass windows make up the majority of its surface area, foreshadowing a feature of skyscrapers that would become dominant in the 20th century.
Waymark Code: WM7CXN
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 10/06/2009
Views: 5
From wikipedia
The Reliance building joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and on January 7, 1976, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in the USA.
The building was designed by Charles B. Atwood of Daniel H. Burnham's architectural firm, with E.C. Shankland as engineer. Its basement and ground floor, designed by John Wellborn Root, were constructed in 1890, while the upper three stories of the building previously on the site remained suspended above on jackscrews. The addition of the remaining floors in 1894–1895 completed the building and marked the "first comprehensive achievement" of the Chicago construction method. The building's plate glass windows are set within a tiled facade. Its steel-frame superstructure is built atop concrete caissons sunk as much as 125 feet beneath the footing.
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To Chicagoans of the 1890s, the glass-covered exterior of this building seemed to almost defy gravity. A century later, it is internationally recognized as the direct ancestor of today's glass-and-steel skyscrapers. Extremely narrow piers, mullions, and spandrels, all covered with cream-colored terra cotta decorated with Gothic-style tracery, divide wide expanses of glass and clearly delineate the interior steel framework that supports the building. The light and airy facade is almost entirely windows--both flat and projecting bays--of the type known as a "Chicago window:" a wide fixed pane with narrow movable sash windows flanking it. A flat cornice tops the 14-story structure. The severely deteriorated exterior was completely restored by the City of Chicago in 1996.
Today the Reliance Building houses the Hotel Burnham - see (
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