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    Chicago Skyscrapers in Vintage Postcards
    Chicago Skyscrapers in Vintage Postcards
    Chicago Skyscrapers in Vintage Postcards
    Ebook263 pages1 hour

    Chicago Skyscrapers in Vintage Postcards

    By Leslie A. Hudson

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    The skyscraper has changed the face of urban architecture and it all started in Chicago. Born out of the ashes of Chicago s Great Fire of 1871, the first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building located at the northeast corner of LaSalle and Adams Streets, was completed in 1885. Designed by William Le Baron Jenney, the nine-story building had a metal load-carrying structural frame, the development of which led to steel-frame skeletal construction and the taller skyscrapers that would follow. Much has changed in skyscraper construction since 1885. But Chicago s impressive urban landscape has maintained its important place in architectural history and today boasts the tallest skyscraper in North America, at 110 stories.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateNov 3, 2004
    ISBN9781439615157
    Chicago Skyscrapers in Vintage Postcards
    Author

    Leslie A. Hudson

    Leslie Hudson is a preservationist, author, and avid collector of postcards and ephemera. She is also the author of Hyde Park (Arcadia, 2003).

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      Book preview

      Chicago Skyscrapers in Vintage Postcards - Leslie A. Hudson

      (CT-1943)

      INTRODUCTION

      In 1884, for a site on La Salle Street in downtown Chicago, an architect and engineer by the name of William Le Baron Jenney designed a nine-story office building that used iron and steel in its construction. Supported by an internal metal frame rather than its walls, this building, the Home Insurance Building, is generally considered the first skyscraper ever constructed.

      What is a skyscraper and why did it develop in Chicago? A skyscraper is, quite simply, a very tall building. The term skyscraper was first used in 1888 in a description of Chicago’s tall structures, but more often these early buildings were just called high buildings or tall buildings. Several important technological and social developments coincided in Chicago to make the skyscraper possible and practical. Metal framing techniques like those developed by Jenney in the Home Insurance Building made it possible to erect buildings taller than masonry walls had allowed. The invention of safer, high-speed elevators made it practical to create office space many stories above the ground. Techniques for foundation construction, especially important in Chicago with its soft clay soil and bedrock 125 feet below grade, were devised to support the weight of larger buildings. The invention of the Bessemer steel process and lightweight steel-frame construction made it possible to rapidly erect ever-higher buildings.

      Design developments occurred in tandem with the technological. Once walls no longer needed to provide support, window openings could be enlarged. Eventually entire exteriors were sheathed in glass and terra-cotta, as seen on the Reliance Building (1895). This type of exterior, hung on the structural frame, is called a curtain wall. The Chicago window—a three-part window with a wide fixed pane and narrow movable sash windows on either side—developed at this time. Often the underlying steel frame was revealed by the arrangement of spandrels (space between the window sills and top of windows below) and piers (vertical structural supports) on the façade; this is also characteristic of buildings designed during this period.

      Following the Chicago Fire of 1871 the city rebuilt itself and grew at a phenomenal rate. The pressure of land values in downtown Chicago in the 1880s and demand for modern office space encouraged property owners to maximize the use of the property by building multi-storied structures. Hired by businessmen to design buildings for purely commercial purposes, a group of young Chicago architects that included Jenney, Daniel Burnham, John Root, and Louis Sullivan designed many tall commercial buildings in the 1880s and 1890s. This came to be known as the Chicago School of architecture.

      The public’s reaction to these new structures was usually amazement. The Manhattan Building (1891) was called Hercules by visitors to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The Montgomery Wards & Company Building (1899), Masonic Temple (1891-92), Auditorium Building (1887-89), and Majestic Building (1905) all had observation towers that allowed visitors to enjoy spectacular views from the sky. The buildings also provoked a range of negative reactions. There was a prejudice that buildings designed for such commercial purposes could not have artistic value. Some critics called the buildings monstrosities that disfigured the city. There was concern about the possible collapsing of one of these monster structures on a crowded street. Complaints that the tall buildings blocked the sky and darkened the streets persisted, with some justification, and led to city zoning ordinances that limited building height. A zoning law passed in 1923 required setbacks above the 22nd floor (and inadvertently helped to create the distinctive Art Deco skyscraper forms built during the next decade).

      In the 1890s and early 1900s, Chicago’s visitors and residents did what people throughout the country were doing—they sent and collected postcards. This postcard craze, beginning with the introduction of picture postcards at Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, has left us with a wealth of images and messages that provide clues to the public’s reaction to the city and its architecture.

      I tried to see you from the top, nothing doin.—1906.

      Montgomery Ward & Co. Tower.

      This is a beautiful bld. inside. Has paintings on the walls & marble floors. Just an office bldg too.—1905.

      Marquette Building.

      Chicago, the birthplace of the skyscraper, has never stopped building. The city’s skyline and streetscape remain in a perpetual state of change. Although Chicago has changed greatly since William Le Baron Jenney’s Home Insurance Building was erected in 1885, with these postcards we are able to glimpse views of a Chicago long gone, when the ideas of skyscrapers were first being explored.

      ABOUT THIS BOOK

      Most of the buildings discussed in this book are skyscrapers, but the occasional non-skyscraper has been included when it is of historical or architectural interest. The time period covered is 1866 to 1935 (construction dates of buildings depicted); the postcards themselves date from 1900 to 1950. Buildings have been arranged geographically (by street), rather than chronologically, to facilitate walking to the buildings and sites of former buildings. Each chapter includes a map. In the captions, I use the following convention for the main listing of each building:

      Building Name [Building Status (D or E)]. Name of architect(s), date constructed; building address (Map location, e.g., M2).

      Building Status code:

      D=Demolished

      E=Extant

      Map code:

      M=Michigan Avenue (at Grant Park)

      W=Wabash Avenue

      S=State Street

      D=Dearborn Street

      C=Clark Street

      L=La Salle Street

      R=Along the River and North Michigan Avenue

      Occasionally I’ve included something to look for if you visit the building. These suggestions are indicated as follows: (v). Publication information and dates for the postcards are provided, when known, at the end of each caption. For an explanation of this, please see Image Sources on page 126.

      One

      MICHIGAN AVENUE

      Michigan Avenue was originally called Michigan Boulevard (or Boul Mich) and initially extended only southward from the Chicago River. Along Grant Park it developed as a one-sided street, with structures erected on the west side to face Lake Michigan and what was then called Lake Front Park. Following the Great Fire of 1871, Michigan Avenue was redeveloped into a fashionable street lined with hotels, residences, and buildings that housed the city’s cultural institutions. The residences gradually gave way to larger structures but appear in a few of the early postcards included here. Because of their high visibility and premium siting, buildings along Michigan Avenue were among the most expensive and, as these postcards show, the most highlydetailed in the city. Laws enacted to prohibit construction on the east side of Michigan Avenue and the creation of Grant Park have maintained the one-sided character of these blocks that came to be called the Michigan Avenue Cliff or Michigan Avenue Streetwall. In 2002, the stretch of Michigan Avenue between 11th Street and Randolph Street was designated the Historic Michigan Boulevard District, a Chicago Landmark.

      MICHIGAN BOULEVARD AT NIGHT. "... [T]ake your stand on Michigan Ave. between the hours of seven and eight on almost any evening of the week. The attractive shop windows are alive with light and color, while away down at Twelfth St.... twinkle and

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