Otis's invention of the safety elevator at mid-century heralded the end of this constraint on vertical real estate development" (495). Likewise, Masden notes that the increasingly confident use of the relatively new ' elevators' also fueled demand for more steel frame structures; such new steel-framed buildings were known during this early period as "elevator buildings" instead of skyscrapers, a term that was first coined in 1883 (Marsden 78).
The underlying theory behind steel frame construction during its early use, though, fueled some well-intentioned but misguided efforts that adversely influenced future applications, selection of building materials, site selection and other salient factors involved in construction. In this regard, Mumford (1959) reports that, "Unfortunately, the skyscraper was an almost automatic response to land speculation: mechanization was subservient to the desire to achieve profitable congestion; and the architects as a profession did not oppose with any conception of public interests the private and shortsighted rapacity of the businessman" (20). The fact that most of these early steel frame projects were as effective as they were in their respective settings appears to be a matter of good fortune rather than any predetermined effort by the design team: "The architects of Chicago were technically adventurous, but socially timid: since they cheerfully accepted land speculation and congestion as if they were laws of nature, it was only by a happy accident that their site plans would turn out to be sound" (Mumford 20). By sharp contrast, steel frame applications today must take into account all of these factors as well as many more that have emerged in recent years in support of a unified building code and efforts to minimize new construction's impact on the environment continue to gain momentum and some of these initiatives are described further below.
Applications.
According to Montgomery (2003) "A revolution in building techniques was under way due to steel-frame construction methods, new fire-resistant technologies, and related innovations, paving the way for the construction of far taller buildings" (495). The development of new technologies for the construction of steel frame buildings resulted in a number of such structures in various sections of the city. Over the years, higher steel-frame buildings were built with many in Chicago; for example, the Masonic Temple (1892) of Daniel Burnham and John Root in Chicago reached 22 stories (91 meters or 302 feet); however, New York City also sported a 26-story Manhattan Life Building by 1894 (Swenson and Chang 82). The Singer Building (1907) designed by architect Ernest Flagg reached 47 stories (184 meters or 612 feet), and Cass Gilbert's Woolworth Building (1913) reached a height of 238 meters (792 feet) at 55 stories (Swenson and Chang 82). Relegated to the second-tallest building in New York until 2001, Shreve, Lamb & Harmon's 102-story steel-frame Empire State Building (1931) was an enormous 381 meters (1,250 feet) (Swenson and Chang 82). The Great Depression and World War II, though, stopped most efforts at steel frame construction until the late 1940s (Swenson and Chang 82).
Thereafter, steel frame construction applications took on some alternative configurations that no longer focused strictly on height that changed many of the structural and building component requirements. For example, in Volume 2 of his work, Encyclopedia of 20th Century Architecture, Stennott (2004) reports that the first work commissioned to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) in the United States was the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. According to Stennott, this building.".. represents the fullest embodiment of modernist planning principles applied to the renovation of the city at mid-century. The campus is also notable as a site for Mies' development of industrial building techniques in the service of modernist spatial principles. Ultimately, IIT's most enduring significance is as a site for the direct architectural expression of steel-frame construction applied across scales from the individual structural member to the overall urban plan" (667). This author suggests that the entire campus and accompanying 22 original structures completed by Mies between 1939 and 1956 represent the seminal works of 20th-century architecture and planning in the Western Hemisphere (Stennott 667).
Mies' final plans for the larger campus as partially implemented by 1940 used a 24-by-24-foot steel frame planning module as an organizing element for the entire site (Stennott 667). According to Stennott, "The 24-foot dimension was selected for its economy and utility as a structural spanning dimension in steel-frame construction as well as its flexibility as an interior-planning dimension for classrooms, offices, and labs. This modular dimension system related interior and exterior spaces and ensured the integration of individual building components, such as columns and beams, with the...
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