ATDTDA (2): "the skyscrapers of Chicago" (37.35)

[Tim Strzechowski]

He fled in among the skyscrapers of Chicago, leaving a note at work suggesting he'd be back shortly (p. 37).



Photos of Chicago skyscrapers at the time of the novel:

Louis Sullivan

Born in Boston, studied briefly at MIT. Moved to Chicago in 1873 and 
began working in the studio of William Lebaron Jenney. Later joined the 
office of Dankmar Adler, a German engineer, and they developed the 
established the firm of Adler & Sullivan in 1881. Together these two men and 
their firm became integral to defining the Chicago School. Sullivan 
designed the Transportation building for the Chicago Columbian Exposition 
of 1893. After 1900, Sullivan lost much of his popularity.

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/sullivan.html


Scroll down about halfway for more Chicago skyscrapers:

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/19_sky.html


The City of Chicago is called by some the "birthplace" of the modern 
tall building. Initially iron, and later, steel framing was the trademark 
of architects like William Le Baron Jenney, Burham and Root, and Louis 
Sullivan, who were part of the post Chicago 1871 fire building boom. 
Dense construction started in the area known as "The Loop", before 
expanding northward across the river along Michigan Avenue. The use initially 
of iron, then of steel framing allowed for the birth of curtain wall 
buildings. Although the Bessemer converter was invented in 1867, around 
the time of the Chicago building boom (1891), a mix of both iron and 
steel framing could be found. 

Up to the invention of the steel frame, high rise buildings were 
reliant on load bearing masonry walls, such as those used in the 16 storey 
Monadnock Building built in 1891 by Burnham and Root. Since much of this 
construction was "post fire", fire protective methods of encasement 
were normally used around the steel framing. Floor systems were normally 
made of clay tiles within a steel/iron framework, although some of the 
earlier buildings used flat brick vaults to make the floors. To this day 
steel framing is favoured over cast in place concrete in Chicago high 
rise construction.

http://www.architecture.uwaterloo.ca/faculty_projects/terri/steel/skyscraper_chicago.html


[...] Daniel Burnham and his partners, John Welborn Root and Charles 
Atwood, designed technically advanced steel frames with glass and terra 
cotta skins in the mid-1890s; these were made possible by professional 
engineers, in particular E. C. Shankland, and modern contractors, in 
particular George A. Fuller. Louis Sullivan was the city's most 
philosophical architect. Realizing that the skyscraper represented a new form of 
architecture, he discarded historical precedent and designed buildings 
that emphasized their vertical nature. This new form of architecture, 
by Jenney, Burnham, Sullivan, and others, became known as the 
"Commercial Style," but it was called the "Chicago School" by later historians. 
[...]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_architecture