TALLEST -- Load-Bearing Masonry Structure - Philadelphia, PA
N 39° 57.165 W 075° 09.799
18S E 486049 N 4422525
Welcome to City Hall. For a few years at the beginning of the 20th century, this amazing, building was the tallest thing on earth! Today, its artwork is a marvel and its engineering is still pioneering and a landmark for engineers around the world.
Waymark Code: WM9EVA
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 08/10/2010
Views: 17
In 2006, City Hall was designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark as it is the world's tallest masonry load-bearing structure. Philadelphia's City Hall, completed in 1901, still holds claim as the world's tallest load-bearing masonry structure at 167 m (548 ft). The steel frame developed in stages of increasing self-sufficiency, with several buildings in Chicago and New York advancing the technology that allowed the steel frame to carry a building on its own. Today, however, many of the tallest skyscrapers are built almost entirely with reinforced concrete. The building was also added to the National Register of Historic Places.
From my previous waymark:
There are only five buildings in Philadelphia that are higher than Billy Penn's hat. The statue of William Penn (which is 37 feet (11 m) tall) which sits high atop the clock tower is probably the most well-known and recognized statue in Philadelphia. At one time law decree that no building be built higher than the Statue's Hat. There was a big stink when this law was challenged. Ultimately progress won and Billy looks up not to others.
Beneath William are other statues as well, attached to a cornice or some other thing holding them up. There are also statues scattered about the various courtyards at the bottom of the building. The clock can also be seen forever it seems, at least in Center City Philadelphia. There is also a tribute to Alexander Milne Calder, who constructed the William Penn statue.
From my pals at Wikipedia: The building was designed by Scottish-born architect John McArthur, Jr., in the Second Empire style, and was constructed from 1871 until 1901 at a cost of $24 million. Originally designed to be the world's tallest building, by the time it was completed it had already been surpassed by the Washington Monument and the Eiffel Tower, though it was indeed the world's tallest habitable building at the time of opening. It also was the first modern building (excluding the Eiffel Tower, see above) to hold the record for world's tallest and also was the first secular habitable building to hold this honor: all previous holders of the position of world's tallest were religious structures, whether European cathedrals or, for the previous 3,800 years, the Great Pyramid of Giza.