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Title details for Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871-1934 by Thomas Leslie - Available

Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871-1934

by Thomas Leslie
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A detailed tour, inside and out, of Chicago's distinctive towers from an earlier age

For more than a century, Chicago's skyline has included some of the world's most distinctive and inspiring buildings. This history of the Windy City's skyscrapers begins in the key period of reconstruction after the Great Fire of 1871 and concludes in 1934 with the onset of the Great Depression, which brought architectural progress to a standstill. During this time, such iconic landmarks as the Chicago Tribune Tower, the Wrigley Building, the Marshall Field and Company Building, the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Palmolive Building, the Masonic Temple, the City Opera, Merchandise Mart, and many others rose to impressive new heights, thanks to innovations in building methods and materials. Solid, earthbound edifices of iron, brick, and stone made way for towers of steel and plate glass, imparting a striking new look to Chicago's growing urban landscape. Thomas Leslie reveals the daily struggles, technical breakthroughs, and negotiations that produced these magnificent buildings. He also considers how the city's infamous political climate contributed to its architecture, as building and zoning codes were often disputed by shifting networks of rivals, labor unions, professional organizations, and municipal bodies. Featuring more than a hundred photographs and illustrations of the city's physically impressive and beautifully diverse architecture, Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871–1934 highlights an exceptionally dynamic, energetic period of architectural progress in Chicago. | Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Preface Acknowledgments Chapter 1. October 1871 Chapter 2. "Built Mostly of Itself": Chicago and Clay, 1874–1891 Chapter 3. Iron and Light: The "Great Architectural Problem" and the Skeleton Frame, 1879–1892 Chapter 4. Steel and Wind: The Braced Frame, 1890–1897 Chapter 6. Steel, Clay, and Glass: The Expressed Frame, 1897–1910 Chapter 7. Steel, Light, and Style: The Concealed Frame, 1905–1918 Chapter 8. Power and Height: The Electric Skyscraper, 1920–1934 Chapter 9. Chicago, 1934 Appendix: Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871–1934 Notes Bibliography Index | "Chicago Skyscrapers goes well beyond the many glossy, superficial coffee-table books that celebrate the city's architecture. Leslie instead provides a sophisticated examination of his subject, educating readers who are interested and willing to dig deeper."—Chicago Book Review

"How often does one read the proclamation by Windy City journalists that Chicago was the cradle of modern architecture? In this book, Leslie reshapes that history with deep scholarship, immaculate prose, highly informative graphics, and the rare understanding of buildings that comes from being both a practitioner and an academic. Essential."—Choice
"Sure to become the new standard work on the subject."—Journal of Illinois History
| Thomas Leslie, AIA, is the Pickard Chilton Professor of Architecture at Iowa State University and the author of Louis I. Kahn: Building Art, Building Science.

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  • English

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