Flatiron Building, New York City.

Great has been the progress in building in the last decade. Time was when a ten-story office building would have been deemed an affront to Providence. But with the invention of the modern elevator and the rapid advance of land values in great cities, architects and contractors began seriously to study out methods for accommodating great numbers of tenants in individual buildings. As long as buildings had to be constructed solely of brick and masonry there was a definite limit to their height, for, as the height grew so grew the weight of the walls and further altitude had to be sacrificed when it became impossible to fit the walls to carry the height without undue expenditure.

At the junction of Fifth avenue, Broadway and Twenty-third street, New York, stands a unique structure, probably the strongest ever erected. It is known as the "flatiron" building, and is the cumulative result of all that is known in the art of building. It is equipped with every convenience that human ingenuity could devise.

Monadnock Building, Chicago, Ill.1

Suddenly there appeared an engineer who solved the problem by propounding the idea of building steel structures after the fashion of gigantic bridges set on end, and to hang the walls on—that is, to make the girders and beams support the floors and walls, instead of making the walls support everything. This was called Chicago construction, because it originated with a Chicago man. Building under this method each floor is absolutely independent so far as the walls and partitions are concerned, for the walls have nothing but their own weight to carry in the height of each story. It is no uncommon thing on "Chicago-construction" buildings for the contractor to begin his exterior work on the third, fifth or ninth story, leaving the first to be enclosed after every other floor has been walled in and plastered. This method of building is diametrically opposed to the old-fashioned solid-masonry construction, which begins at the very bottom with the foundation and rises to the roof, with the piers, exterior walls and partition walls going up together. The contractor, building a skyscraper according to "Chicago construction," shoots the steel frame-work up as rapidly as possible, so as to get the roof on to protect the interior from the weather. With the frame-work up, be puts in the hollow tile partitions or builds the walls to suit his convenience. This method of building set all traditions, rules and time-honored customs of architects and builders at naught, for it ignored massive foundations, heavy piers, the use of thick walls to carry weight, and solid partition walls running from the foundation to the roof.

Masonic Temple, Chicago2

When new tenants moved into old-fashioned buildings, the rearrangement of spaces to meet the tenants' requirements frequently necessitated expensive alterations, for the partitions could not be moved without substituting some other form of supports for the floors above. Chicago's architectural engineers concluded that columns starting from the foundations could carry the floors as well as partitions, and would thus permit any arrangement of a floor without interfering with the construction.

High buildings required monstrous foundations and very thick walls under the solid masonry style of construction. The limited areas in the cramped business districts of the cities made it impossible to build 16-story buildings under old-fashioned methods because the builder could not get "spread" for his foundations, and the original soil of Chicago was not adapted for carrying weights on small areas.

Havemeyer Building, New York City

This style of new building developed a new craft-that of the architectural iron worker-who is a mixture of a bridge builder and a sailor. He must be a rigger as well as an iron worker, and must be able to tread the beams high in the air with the confidence and nerve of a tight-rope dancer. The building up of the great structures in the business center provided another source of wonder and admiration for the gaping crowds that watched the daring workmen riveting together angles and beams hundreds of feet in the air. Many sailors left the lakes and became iron workers, and the craft grew until it became one of the largest and strongest of unions.

In solid masonry construction the foundations are made of heavy stones piled on each other so that they are broad at the base and somewhat pyramidal in form. On the foundation the massive piers rise, well-nigh filling up all the space in a basement. Under present methods of construction a basement, so far as room is concerned, is as valuable as the other floors, for the slender columns shoot up from the foundations, occupying comparatively little space. In "Chicago construction," the foundations are made of steel railroad rails or beams. First a bed of concrete is laid, and on this is placed a layer of rails or beams set side by side. On this bottom layer another layer of rails or beams is laid, crossing the lower members of the foundation at right angles. On top of the rails a cast-iron plate is laid. This is the shoe for the steel column.

The Auditorium, Chicago. Containing the largest auditorium in the world, also Auditorium Hotel.

The column is always made of wrought steel shapes and it is of uniform size for each of two stories, diminishing in size as it nears the roof. The floor beams are carried on the columns and the entire frame-work is riveted together with hot rivets, just as a bridge is. Architectural engineers

By courtesy of the Lawrence Co. Banquet at the Auditorium Hotel, tendered President Mcinley, on his last visit to Chicago.

say that if it were possible to upset a building of the "Chicago-construction" kind, the whole structure would tip over like a box and would not fall into pieces as a solidmasonry building would. An earthquake might rattle down some bricks, or loosen some partitions, but, according to claims made by Chicago builders, it would not throw down a Chicago skyscraper.

By courtesy of the Lawrence Photo Co. Chicago Postoffice

Every piece of exposed steel work is completely surrounded with some fireproof material, such as blocks of tile, terra cotta or brick, and air spaces are left between the fireproofing material and the metal, for dead air is one of the poorest conductors of heat known. The hollow tile arches, placed between floor beams, am covered over with thick concrete, and this concrete is fireproof. The partitions are of hollow tile, which is not only light as compared with brick, but is fireproof as well; and it is said that buildings of "Chicago construction" are as nearly fireproof as it is possible to make them. The average thickness of the walls of a modern skyscraper runs from 16 to 18 inches, the walls carrying about the same thickness from the ground up. This is a radical departure from the old-fashioned construction, for the walls of the lower floors of 15 stories of solid masonry would have to be at least three and a half feet thick, and would drop off about four inches for every two floors above the third. This thinness of walls in Chicago buildings has its disadvantages from the point of view of the architect, for it gives a "skimpy" look to the building, but to the ordinary man they are simply wonders.

²The largest building ever attempted by a charitable or social organization. It is twenty stories in height (265 feet), and has a west frontage of 170 feet and a north frontage of 114 feet. The first three stories are constructed of Wisconsin granite, and above them the material is gray fire-brick. The number of people engaged in the stores and numerous offices of the building is about 7,000.
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MARVELOUS DEVELOPMENT OF PRINTING APPARATUS
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© 1998, 2002 by Lynn Waterman