The virtually unlimited increase in glass area, up to 100 per cent of coverage, allowed the maximum admission of light.

The steel necessary to carry a tall building weighs only one-third as much as bearing masonry for an equal number of stories. First was the possibility of getting rid of a supporting wall, with a consequent reduction in weight and an immense increase in height. The utilitarian advantages of steel framing were enormous and immediately obvious to architects, builders and owners. Later buildings would use pure steel frames, or skeletons, while the walls were mere “curtains,” only needed to keep the elements out. However, in some sense, Jenney’s structure was a prototype, since the iron beams were embedded in the masonry walls, which also helped carry the load. The higher the building went, the thicker would be the walls on the lower floors, eating into the rentable space and rendering the project unprofitable. But as the need for taller buildings arose in the late-19 th century, this approach was no longer practical. Previously, large buildings used the walls to bear the load of the structure. Most significant is that the architect, William Le Baron Jenney, had the key insight to use iron (later replaced by steel) framing. Why? Because the belief is that it was the one-the iphone of real estate-that fundamentally altered the world by applying the currently-available technology in a new way. The most popular answer is that the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, completed in 1885, was the first true skyscraper. After the Civil War, there were many buildings that incorporated some innovation, and thus we can point to any one of those structures to suggest it was the Original Skyscraper. Is it a relatively tall building, or a building that rises above some threshold (say 80, 90, or 100 meters), or perhaps both?Īlternatively, is it based on the materials and technology used? This definition leads to the second problem. First, there is no universal definition of a skyscraper. Any skyscraper that we claim as the “first” is merely a convenience-a social convention to provide a simple answer to a complicated question.īut why would it be wrong? For two reasons. Today, the four clock-faces remain the only memory of the ornate facade, though, the proud tower still d remains a defining element of the midtown skyline.What was the world’s first skyscraper? If you do have an answer, you would be, most assuredly, wrong (sorry). The marble facade was replaced with sheer limestone panels so the Tower would match the modernized base. In 1960-61, the tower was subjected to an aggressive remodeling campaign in which most of the classical detail was stripped off, including balconies and a prominent cornice. Sheathed in white Tuckahoe Marble, the tower rises above Madison Square at 23rd Street and Madison Avenue where at night the 'light that never fails' glows from its lantern, flashing the hour and quarter-hour. First planned to be 658 feet, the final height stretched to 700 feet. With its slender shaft, high-pitched roof and lantern, the tower of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company evokes the famed bell-tower of San Marco in Venice. Construction began later that same year, and in 1909, the building opened, advertising the company's status as s the largest insurer in the world. In 1907, the president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, John Rogers Hegeman, commissioned the firm Napoleon LeBrun and Sons to design a campanile-style tower for the expansion of the company headquarters. Owners: Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Metropolitan Life Building Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower

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