week 10: The Iron Skeleton Frame

Larson, G.R. (1987). 'The iron skeleton frame: Interactions between Europe and the United States', in Zukowsky, J. (ed). Chicago architecture 1872-1922: Birth of a metropolis. Munich: Prestel-Verlag. pp38-55.

This article by Larson details the history of iron framed buildings and looks at the evolution of these buildings during the mid 19th century to the late 19th century. Larson begins with a theme that I have seen in some of other readings, and this theme is related to Ruskin’s impact on industrialisation in England.   Although a great country of this period and the place where the industrial revolution started, England dropped out of the skyscraper race due to its Parliament passing a bill to toughen the building code in relation to the use of iron in buildings. It was because of this that the French and the Americans went on to become the great innovators in iron frame building construction. Larson details the impact events such as Napoleon's rebuilding of Paris  and the 1845 New York fires, the 1871 Chicago fires  and the rebuilding that followed these events had in the development of building construction. 

Bogardus and Badger were early exponents of iron skeleton structures filled with brick or stone in the spandrels, but it was William Jenney who improved this system with the National Home Insurance building in Chicago. Jenney's method was to fill the iron columns with concrete as well as encasing them with brick or stone. The girders were then supported by brick ledgers in the columns and an exterior masonry facade ran the full height of the building. However it was Leroy Buffington who perfected this system with a method he learnt from the French, specifically the iron structures of Gustav Eiffel using riveted wrought iron plates and lattice cross bracing.

This was a really engaging article by Larson, however it was a little heavy with descriptions of construction techniques and I understand that not everyone knows their mullions from their lintels. One observation I have from this piece is that I don't think Larson pays enough attention to the significance of the statue of liberty and Eiffels iron structure that lay under the copper exterior. My understanding is that this is the first ever example of curtain wall construction.

The rise of the iron skeleton is not unlike many great designs, in that there are usually many contributors to the perfection of a design.