A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least 100 metres (330 ft) or 150 metres (490 ft) in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-rise buildings. Historically, the term first referred to buildings with between 10 and 20 stories when these types of buildings began to be constructed in the 1880s. Skyscrapers may host offices, hotels, residential spaces, and retail spaces.
The year 1891 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
90 West Street is a 23-story residential building in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Located on West Street just south of the World Trade Center, the building was designed by Cass Gilbert, with Gunvald Aus and Burt Harrison as structural engineers, and John Peirce as general contractor. It was erected for the West Street Improvement Corporation, led by transportation magnate Howard Carroll.
William Le Baron Jenney was an American architect and engineer who is known for building the first skyscraper in 1884.
The Second Leiter Building, also known as the Leiter II Building, the Sears Building, One Congress Center, and Robert Morris Center, is located at the southeast corner of South State Street and East Ida B. Wells Drive in Chicago, Illinois. The building is not to be confused with the present Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower, constructed and owned by the famous nationwide mail-order firm Sears, Roebuck & Company. This landmark of the Chicago school of architecture gained fame for being one of the earliest commercial buildings constructed with a metal skeleton frame remaining in the United States.
The Wainwright Building is a 10-story, 41 m (135 ft) terra cotta office building at 709 Chestnut Street in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The Wainwright Building is considered to be one of the first aesthetically fully expressed early skyscrapers. It was designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan and built between 1890 and 1891. It was named for local brewer, building contractor, and financier Ellis Wainwright.
860–880 Lake Shore Drive is a twin pair of glass-and-steel apartment towers on N. Lake Shore Drive along Lake Michigan in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Construction began in 1949 and the project was completed in 1951. The towers were added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 28, 1980, and were designated as Chicago Landmarks on June 10, 1996. The 26-floor, 254-ft tall towers were designed by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and dubbed the "Glass House" apartments. Construction was by the Chicago real estate developer Herbert Greenwald, and the Sumner S. Sollitt Company. The design principles were copied extensively and are now considered characteristic of the modern International Style as well as essential for the development of modern High-tech architecture.
The Monadnock Building is a 16-story skyscraper located at 53 West Jackson Boulevard in the south Loop area of Chicago. The north half of the building was designed by the firm of Burnham & Root and built starting in 1891. The tallest load-bearing brick building ever constructed, it employed the first portal system of wind bracing in America. Its decorative staircases represent the first structural use of aluminum in building construction. The later south half, constructed in 1893, was designed by Holabird & Roche and is similar in color and profile to the original, but the design is more traditionally ornate. When completed, it was the largest office building in the world. The success of the building was the catalyst for an important new business center at the southern end of the Loop.
The Reliance Building is a skyscraper located at 1 W. Washington Street in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The first floor and basement were designed by John Root of the Burnham and Root architectural firm in 1890, with the rest of the building completed by Charles B. Atwood in 1895. It is the first skyscraper to have large plate glass windows make up the majority of its surface area, foreshadowing a design feature that would become dominant in the 20th century.
The Rookery Building is a historic office building located at 209 South LaSalle Street in the Chicago Loop. Completed by architects Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root of Burnham and Root in 1888, it is considered one of their masterpiece buildings, and was once the location of their offices. The building is 181 feet (55 m) in height, twelve stories tall, and is considered the oldest standing high-rise in Chicago. It has a unique construction style featuring exterior load-bearing walls and an interior steel frame, providing a transition between accepted and new building techniques. The lobby was remodeled in 1905 by Frank Lloyd Wright. From 1989 to 1992, the lobby was restored to Wright's design.
The building form most closely associated with New York City is the skyscraper, which has shifted many commercial and residential districts from low-rise to high-rise. Surrounded mostly by water, the city has amassed one of the largest and most varied collection of skyscrapers in the world.
The Marquette Building, completed in 1895, is a Chicago landmark that was built by the George A. Fuller Company and designed by architects Holabird & Roche. The building is currently owned by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. It is located in the community area known as the "Loop" in Cook County, Illinois, United States.
The Chicago Board of Trade Building is a 44-story, 604-foot (184 m) Art Deco skyscraper located in the Chicago Loop, standing at the foot of the LaSalle Street canyon. Built in 1930 for the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), it has served as the primary trading venue of the CBOT and later the CME Group, formed in 2007 by the merger of the CBOT and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In 2012, the CME Group sold the CBOT Building to a consortium of real estate investors, including GlenStar Properties LLC and USAA Real Estate Company.
The Fisher Building is 20-story, 275-foot-tall (84 m) neo-Gothic landmark building located at 343 South Dearborn Street in the Chicago Loop community area of Chicago. Commissioned by paper magnate Lucius Fisher, the original building was completed in 1896 by D.H. Burnham & Company with an addition later added in 1907.
The Printing House Row District is a National Historic Landmark District encompassing four architecturally important buildings on the 300 through 500 blocks of South Dearborn, South Federal and South Plymouth streets in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as South Dearborn Street – Printing House Row Historic District and listed as a National Historic Landmark as South Dearborn Street – Printing House Row North Historic District on January 7, 1976. The district was designated a Chicago Landmark on May 9, 1996. The district includes the Monadnock Building, the Manhattan Building, the Fisher Building, and the Old Colony Building. The district overlaps significantly with the Printers Row neighborhood, and is not the same as South Loop Printing House District.
The Oliver Building is located at 159 N. Dearborn Street in Chicago within the Loop.
The Empire Building is an office skyscraper at 71 Broadway, on the corner of Rector Street, in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It was designed by Kimball & Thompson in the Classical Revival style and built by Marc Eidlitz & Son from 1897 to 1898. The building consists of 21 stories above a full basement story facing Trinity Place at the back of the building and is 293 feet (89 m) tall.
The Lincoln Building, also known as One Union Square West, is a Neo-Romanesque building at 1 Union Square West in the Union Square neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is located at the northwest corner of Union Square West's intersection with 14th Street. Erected in 1889–1890 to a design by R. H. Robertson, it has a facade of masonry with terracotta detailing, and contains an interior structural system made of metal. The Lincoln Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, and is also a New York City Landmark.
The Corbin Building is a historic office building at the northeast corner of John Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It was built in 1888–1889 as a speculative development and was designed by Francis H. Kimball in the Romanesque Revival style with French Gothic detailing. The building was named for Austin Corbin, a president of the Long Island Rail Road who also founded several banks.
The Liberty Tower, formerly the Sinclair Oil Building, is a 33-story residential building in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It is at 55 Liberty Street at the northwest corner with Nassau Street. It was built in 1909–10 as a commercial office building and was designed by Henry Ives Cobb in a Gothic Revival style.
