Home Insurance Building

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Information
Home Insurance Building

Location	Chicago, USA
Status	Destroyed
Constructed	1885
Destroyed	1931
Use	Office
Height
Antenna/Spire	none
Roof	138 feet(42 meters)
Top floor	After addition of the final two floors-180 feet(54.9 meters)
Technical Details
Floor count	9 (later 11)
Floor area	n/a
Companies
Architect	William LeBaron Jenney

The Home Insurance Building was built in 1885 in Chicago, Illinois and demolished in 1931 to make way for the Field Building (now the LaSalle Bank Building). It was the first building entirely supported by a steel frame in the United States. Due to the building's unique architecture and unique weight bearing frame, it is considered the first skyscraper in the world. It had 10 stories and rose to a height of 138 feet (42 m) high. The steel frame liberated the exterior walls from supporting the building, the walls were instead thin curtain walls. The architect was William LeBaron Jenney, an engineer. In fact the building weighed only one-third as much as a stone building would have; city officials were so concerned that they halted construction while they investigated its safety. The Home Insurance Building is an example of the Chicago School in architecture.

In 1890, two additional floors were built on top of the original 10-story building.

[edit] See also

Chicago architecture

[edit] External links

Information and Pictures at Emporis(English)
Information and Drawings at SkyscraperPage(English)
Information and links at Structurae(German)

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