Saturday, June 29, 2013

The Reliance Building


The Reliance Building was one of the first skyscrapers in the world, and was an architectural milestone for it's time.




In 1871, Chicago was victim to a massive fire, known infamously as the Great Chicago Fire. In the years following the fire, Chicago's population swelled, and the inner city and downtown experienced a construction boom. Soon the entire downtown was very crowded and busy, and there was no room anywhere left to build. Within 20 years of the Great Chicago fire, architects had planned to do something about the problem, and decided that since the downtown was surrounded on all 4 sides by development, they would build in one direction, up. While taller and taller buildings had been built in New York City at this time Chicago took the trend to new levels, utilizing steel frames to construct the world's first true steel framed skyscraper The 1885 Home insurance building. Chicago continued to pioneer in both architecture, and engineering with these new skyscrapers. A group of architects known as the Chicago School worked to push the limits with tall buildings, and even helped invent the style of Modern Architecture, by making these new towers often devoid of historical contexts, and to be as functional as possible. 



In 1890, State Street was one of the busiest streets in the world, and William Ellery Hale, who owned the Halle Elevator Company (elevators were necessary in skyscrapers), bought the 4 story  first National Bank building, at Washington, and state streets. Hale wanted to build a modern skyscraper. Since the area was so crowded, and tenants did not want to leave the building the top 3 floors were raised on stilts, where the tenants worked until their leases were up. Meanwhile, the firm Burnham & Root designed and built the building’s first floor. In 1894, work continued on the upper 14 floors by renowned Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, and it opened in 1895. 





The building was one of the greatest examples of Chicago style architecture around, and was ultra modern and functional for its time (it was one of the first skyscrapers to have both electricity, and phone services for all offices). In fact, it gained its name (Reliance) because of how functional of a building it was.  The plate glass windows were made as large as possible (to allow lots of light for the workers inside), resulting in the building being one of the first to have a façade made mostly of windows. Because of this, it can be considered the prototype of the glass box skyscrapers of the mid 20th century. The windows themselves were called “Chicago Windows”. They were divided into 3 parts, a large center glass pane, and 2 sash windows on either side. These windows were very common in Chicago styled buildings at the time. 





The white glazed terra cotta exterior also allowed the building to appear lighter than previous tall structures, and to allow the steel frame behind it to be expressed. Also, the terra cotta was fireproof, and could be much more easily cleaned than other materials. 




In the early decades of the 20th century, the building provided great office space for Merchants, and doctors. However, in the depression, the building began to fall apart, as it became less, and less attractive for business in the mid, to late 20th century. Thankfully, it did not suffer the fate of some other older skyscrapers, such as the Home insurance building (which was demolished in 1931), and the Chicago Stock exchange (which was demolished in 1972). Instead, the building was added to the National Register of Historic places in 1970, and became a historic landmark in 1976. However the building continued to fall into disrepair. Finally in 1994, the McClier Corporation, and the Baldwin Development Company collaborated to restore the building. The restoration was completed in 1999, and the building became the hotel Burnham for 27.65 million dollars. The renovation was championed by preservationists, and the mayor of the time, Richard M Daley, even won the National Trust for Historic Preservation Honor award for the city’s role in preservation of the building, and is considered one of the best hotels in Chicago.