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 buildings and architecture of Chicago reflect the city's history and multicultural heritage, featuring prominent buildings in a variety of styles. Most structures downtown were destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.
The Two Prudential Plaza is a 64-story skyscraper located in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. At 995 feet (303 m) tall, it is currently the sixth-tallest building in Chicago and the 28th-tallest in the U.S., being only five feet from 1,000 feet, making it the closest of any building under 1,000. Built in 1990, the building was designed by the firm Loebl Schlossman & Hackl, with Stephen T. Wright as the principal in charge of design. It has received 8 awards, including winning the Best Structure Award from the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois in 1995.
Chase Tower, located in the Chicago Loop area of Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois at 10 South Dearborn Street, is a 60-story skyscraper completed in 1969. At 850 feet tall, it is the eleventh-tallest building in Chicago and the tallest building inside the Chicago 'L' Loop elevated tracks, and, as of May 2022, the 66th-tallest in the United States. Chase Bank has its U.S. and Canada commercial and retail banking headquarters here. The building is also the headquarters of Exelon. The building and its plaza occupy the entire block bounded by Clark, Dearborn, Madison, and Monroe streets.
Lakeshore East is a master-planned mixed use urban development being built by the Magellan Development Group in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located in the northeastern part of the Loop, which, along with Illinois Center, is called the New Eastside. The development is bordered by Wacker Drive to the north, Columbus Drive to the west, Lake Shore Drive to the east, and East Randolph Street to the south. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill created the master plan for the area. The development, which had been scheduled for completion in 2011, was set for completion in 2013 by 2008. Development continued with revised plans for more buildings in 2018 and continuing construction of the Vista Tower in 2019.
First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple is a church located at the base and in the utmost floors of the Chicago Temple Building, a skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. The top of the building is at a height of 173 metres (568 feet).
The Detroit Masonic Temple is the world's largest Masonic Temple. Located in the Cass Corridor of Detroit, Michigan, at 500 Temple Street, the building serves as a home to various masonic organizations including the York Rite Sovereign College of North America. The building contains a variety of public spaces including three theaters, three ballrooms and banquet halls, and a 160 by 100 feet clear-span drill hall.
Aqua is an 82-story mixed-use, primarily residential skyscraper in the Lakeshore East development in downtown Chicago, Illinois. Designed by a team led by Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects, with James Loewenberg of Loewenberg & Associates as the Architect of Record, it includes five levels of parking below ground. The building's eighty-story, 140,000 sq ft (13,000 m2) base is topped by a 82,550 sq ft (7,669 m2) terrace with gardens, gazebos, pools, hot tubs, a walking/running track and a fire pit. Each floor covers approximately 16,000 sq ft (1,500 m2).
Transamerica Tower and originally built as the USF&G Building, serving as headquarters of the United States Fidelity and Guarantee Company, a specialized insurance company founded in Baltimore in 1896, and relocated here from its former complex of three adjoining early 20th Century masonry structures at the southwest corner of South Calvert and Redwood Streets. Later occupied by and known as the Legg-Mason Building, it is a 40-story, 161 m (528 ft) skyscraper completed in 1973 in downtown Baltimore, Maryland at 100 Light Street on the city block bounded by South Charles, East Lombard, Light and East Pratt Streets, facing the former "The Basin" of the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore on the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River and the newly iconic Inner Harbor downtown business waterfront redevelopment of the 1970s–1980s.
Central Tower is a 91 m (299 ft) 21-story office building at Market and Third Streets in San Francisco, California. The building has undergone numerous renovations since its completion in 1898 as the Call Building. It was later known as the Spreckels Building.
U.S. Bank Building, formerly 190 South LaSalle Street, is a 573 feet (175 m) tall skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. It was completed in 1987 and has 40 floors. Johnson/Burgee Architects designed the building, which is the 57th tallest building in Chicago. From 1988-2016 the lobby of the building featured a tapestry by Helena Hernmarck titled "The 1909 Plan of Chicago" depicting the Civic Center Plaza proposed in the Burnham Plan of Chicago.
The earliest stage of skyscraper design encompasses buildings built between 1884 and 1945, predominantly in the American cities of New York and Chicago. Cities in the United States were traditionally made up of low-rise buildings, but significant economic growth after the Civil War and increasingly intensive use of urban land encouraged the development of taller buildings beginning in the 1870s. Technological improvements enabled the construction of fireproofed iron-framed structures with deep foundations, equipped with new inventions such as the elevator and electric lighting. These made it both technically and commercially viable to build a new class of taller buildings, the first of which, Chicago's 138-foot (42 m) tall Home Insurance Building, opened in 1885. Their numbers grew rapidly, and by 1888 they were being labelled skyscrapers.
The Unity Building in Chicago, Illinois, at 127 North Dearborn Street in the Chicago Loop, was a 17-story building that was once the tallest skyscraper in Chicago. Gustave Loehr had an office in this building, and it was in his office that Rotary Club of Chicago, held its first club meeting, on February 23, 1905.
