Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century

In several of the great cities of the United States, the last few years have witnessed a novel and characteristic development of the use of iron in architecture. In many structures on the older continent, this material has been frankly and effectively employed, forming the obvious framework of the erection, even when the leading motive was quite other than a display of engineering skill. The Crystal Palace at Sydenham and other erections have been referred to, in which iron has taken its place as the main component of structures designed more or less to fulfil æsthetic requirements: the guiding principle in “tall office buildings” in the cities of the Western continent is, on the contrary, avowedly utilitarian. Iron has, of course, long been used in the form of pillars, beams, etc., in ordinary buildings, and it is only the extraordinary extension of this employment of it, after the lift or elevator had been perfected, and the ground-space in great commercial centres was daily becoming more valuable, that has led to the erection of structures of the “sky-scraper” class in American cities. For a given plot at a stated rent, a building of many stories, let throughout as offices, will obviously bring to its owner a greater return than one of few stories. The elevators now make a tenth story practically as accessible as a third storey, and the tall building readily fills with tenants. No claim for artistic beauty has been advanced for these structures, which aim simply at being places of business, and if provision be made for sufficient floor-space and daylight, and for artificial lighting, heating, and ventilation, together with the ordinary conveniences of modern life, and ready elevator service, nothing more is required by the utilitarian spirit, that seeks only facilities for money-getting. These tall buildings are usually erected on plots disproportionately small, and the architectural effect is apt to be bizarre and incongruous, especially when the structure shoots up skyward in some comparatively narrow street amid more modest surroundings. They are really engineering structures, but invested with features belonging to edifices of quite another order of construction. If they are necessities of the place and period, and are “come to stay,” it cannot be doubted but that decoration of an appropriate 78and harmonious character will, in course of time, be evolved along with them, when the conventionality that clings to architecture shall be broken through, and a new style appear, as consistent, and therefore as beautiful, in relation to the “tall office building,” as were those of the Greek temple and the Gothic minster in their free and natural adaptation. PLATE IV.THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY BUILDING. Fig. 26d.—St. Paul Building, N. Y. Here, apparently, is the opportunity for the advent of a new and characteristic style. There is great ingenuity displayed in the arrangement and internal finish of these buildings. But besides the somewhat novel application of iron, the most notable circumstances regarding them are the tendency to make them of greater and greater height, and the wonderfully short time in which, upon occasion, they can be run up. Chicago has recently been noted for its tall edifices, among which may be named The Reliance Building, erected upon a site only 55 feet in breadth, but rising in fourteen stories to the height of 200 feet, and presenting the appearance of a tower. There are no cast iron pillars, but the whole metal framework is of rolled steel, the columns consisting of eight angle-sections, bolted together in two-story lengths, adjoining columns breaking joint at each floor, and braced together with plate girders, 24 inches deep, bolted to the face of the columns, with which they form a rigid connection. Externally, the edifice shows nothing but white enamelled terra-cotta and plate glass. This building was originally a strongly-built structure of five stories, the lower one being occupied as a bank. The foundations and the first story were taken out, and prepared for the lofty edifice, the superstructure being the while supported on screws. Then the three upper stories were taken down, and the building was continued from the second story, which was filled with tenants while the building was in course of erection above. Fig. 26e.—Manhattan Insurance Co.’s Building, in course of erection. Still more lofty edifices have been going skyward in other places. Already in New York there are a great number of lofty piles due to the introduction of the lifts or elevators, by which an office on the tenth floor is made as convenient as one on the second. These buildings usually receive the name of the owners of the structure, who occupy, perhaps, only one floor. To mention only a few. There is the American Tract Society building, with its twenty-three stories, 285 feet high, which is one of the latest and handsomest of these tall piles in the city. See Plate IV. Still loftier is the St. Paul building, fronting the New York Post-Office at the junction of Park Row and Broadway. This structure is splayed at the angle between Ann Street and Broadway, where its width is 39½ feet, while its loftiest part has frontages of about 30 feet along each of these thoroughfares. The height is no less than 313 feet above the pavement, and the number of stories is twenty-five. This building is faced with light yellow limestone, and although it was commenced only in the summer of 1895, it was expected to be ready for occupation by the autumn of 1896. Even this great height is overtopped by the Manhattan Life Insurance Company’s building, rising 330 feet, and remarkable as perhaps beyond previous record of quickness in building a gigantic structure. Obviously, the foundations of such a building must be most seriously considered, prepared and tested, before the great bulk of the building is begun, and in the New York Engineering Magazine one of the architects has given a full account, with complete illustrations, of all the works, from the rock foundation to the completed edifice. A description of the foundation work, though most interesting for the professional engineer, would probably have little attraction for the general reader; 79but its importance may be inferred from the fact of its having taken nearly six months for its completion, while the huge superstructure required only eight months. The eighteenth tier of beams was reached in “three months from the time the foundations were ready on which to set the first piece of steel, composing the bolsters that support the cantilever system.... The substructure, which starts in bed-rock and continues to the cellar-floor, consists of fifteen piers, varying in size from 9 feet in diameter, to 21 feet 6 inches by 25 feet square.... The number of bricks used in the piers amounted to 1,500,000. From this it may be seen that a good-sized building was sunk out of sight before any part of the superstructure could be begun.” An open court within the main structure, special framing for the arrangements of the company’s offices on the sixth floor, the great height and weight of the tower, and the requisite provision for wind-bracing, delayed in some degree a regular advance of the stories; 80but within three months no less than 5,800 tons were placed in position. There were girders weighing 40 tons, many columns of 10 and 12 tons, and cantilevers of 80 tons weight and 67 feet long. Strange to say, that in a building of this magnitude, where such masses had to be raised 300 feet into the air, there was not a single accident involving loss of life. When four stories of the steel framework had been put up, the bricklayers were set to work, and they followed the frame-setters throughout. After the masons came the pipe-layers, with their ten miles of pipes, followed by electricians, fixing their thirty-five miles of communicating wires. Thirty thousand cubic feet of stone was cut and set on the Broadway front in eighty days. Then craftsmen of the different trades followed each other, or worked in harmony together, story after story upwards: the engineers for boilers, heating, and elevators, the plumbers, the decorators, the carpenters and cabinet-makers, the plasterers, the marble and tile workers, 81the gasmen, etc. In fine, every story was completely finished and ready for occupation in eight months after the start from the foundations. Fig. 26f.—Manhattan Insurance Co.’s Buildings nearly completed. The shortness of the time in which these lofty buildings were run up is not less remarkable than the completeness of their fittings, which comprise everything requisite for communication within the premises and in connection with the outer world. The elevators or lifts are the perfection of mechanism in their way, and act with wonderful smoothness and regularity; of these are usually two at least, as well as an ample staircase. Notwithstanding all these appliances, some disastrous and fatal conflagrations have occurred at buildings erected on the “tall” principle; and as “business premises” of even 380 feet high are projected, the authorities have been considering the desirability of restricting the heights. It has been proposed that offices should not exceed in height 200 feet; hotels, 150 feet; and private houses, 75 feet.