Work in Progress: Construction History in New York and Chicago, 1870-1930
How does the process of building advance? Is progress driven by theory, or practice? How did builders, engineers, and architects continuously improve the technology of construction from the 1870s forward to enable buildings to grow ever taller?
The Skyscraper Museum’s spring semester takes up the topic of construction history and examines 19th-century building materials and techniques to understand how they were applied to the problem and challenge of the high-rise in New York and Chicago. We examine the two major – and often different – crucibles of skyscraper construction, New York and Chicago, to see what practices and innovations characterize each place. To manage the work, we further divide the subject into parts: Foundations; Frames; Facades; and Fire.
How does the process of building advance? Is progress driven by theory, or practice? How did builders, engineers, and architects continuously improve the technology of construction from the 1870s forward to enable buildings to grow ever taller?
The Museum’s spring semester takes up the topic of construction history and examines 19th-century building materials and techniques to understand how they were applied to the problem and challenge of the high-rise in New York and Chicago. We examine the two major – and often different – crucibles of skyscraper construction, New York and Chicago, to see what practices and innovations characterize each place. To manage the work, we further divide the subject into parts: Foundations; Frames; Facades; and Fire.
Presenting case studies that lay the foundation for a two-city comparative analysis are Tom Leslie and Donald Friedman, authors of multiple and definitive books on skyscrapers in Chicago and New York, respectively. Tom and Don bring an intimate understanding of the details and methods of construction in each city, as well as a broad view of the art history scholarship that for too long focused on questions of which city “invented” the skyscraper or what style best expressed its nature. In each of the webinars, their individual presentations will be followed by a dialogue that explores any contrasts in building practice and what those differences reveal about the two cities. Each session will also be joined by another specialist in construction history of the period.
The focus of the talks will be on the first half-century of high-rise history, the 1870s-1920s. Technologies of steam power, steel production, and railroad and bridge engineering modernized methods of construction, replacing masonry traditions and labor practices. Yet the adoption of new technologies could sometimes be slow, as Friedman and Leslie explain, and each city’s development, building culture, and codes dealt with local conditions and constraints. In the triad of materials, technology, and labor, how much did each affect the evolution of construction?
