The Tacoma Building was an

early skyscraper 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 significa ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. Completed in 1889, it was the first major building designed by the architectural firm

Holabird & Roche The architect, architectural firm now known as Holabird & Root was founded in Chicago in 1880. Over the years, the firm has changed its name several times and adapted to the architectural style then current — from Chicago school (architectu ...

. The Tacoma Building was demolished in 1929 to be replaced by One North LaSalle. A pioneering building of the Chicago School, it uses a framework of

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

and

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

constructed by

George A. Fuller George A. Fuller (October 21, 1851 – December 14, 1900) was an American architect often credited as being the "inventor" of modern skyscrapers and the modern contracting system. Early life and career Fuller was born in Templeton, Massachuse ...

with, for the first time, all its members fixed together by

rivets A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed, a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite the head is called the ''tail''. On installation, the deformed end is called the ''sh ...

. While internally still supported by load-bearing walls, the two facades towards

LaSalle Street LaSalle Street is a major north-south street in Chicago named for René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, a 17th century French explorer of the Illinois Country. The portion that runs through the Chicago Loop is considered to be Chicago's f ...

and Madison Street are true curtain walls. With this, Holabird & Roche's structure went beyond

William LeBaron Jenney William Le Baron Jenney (September 25, 1832 – June 14, 1907) was an American architect and engineer known for building the first skyscraper in 1884. In 1998, Jenney was ranked number 89 in the book ''1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking th ...

's solution for his

Home Insurance Building The Home Insurance Building was a skyscraper that stood in Chicago from 1885 to its demolition in 1931. Originally ten stories and tall, it was designed by William Le Baron Jenney in 1884 and completed the next year. Two floors were added in ...

. After investigating the lost Chicago landmark, the National Association of Building Owners and Managers diagnosed the cause of its

obsolescence Obsolescence is the process of becoming antiquated, out of date, old-fashioned, no longer in general use, or no longer useful, or the condition of being in such a state. When used in a biological sense, it means imperfect or rudimentary when comp ...

to be the building's inefficient layout.

Notes

References

*Blaser, Werner. Chicago Architecture: Holabird & Root, 1880-1992. Basel; Boston: Birkhauser Verlag, 1992. *Bruegmann, Robert. Holabird & Roche/Holabird & Root: An Illustrated Catalog of Works, 1880-1940. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991. *Bruegmann, Robert. The Architects and the City: Holabird & Roche of Chicago, 1880-1918. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. {{coord, 41.8820, N, 87.6321, W, source:wikidata, display=title Chicago school architecture in Illinois Projects by Holabird & Root Skyscraper office buildings in Chicago 1889 establishments in Illinois 1929 disestablishments in Illinois Buildings and structures completed in 1889 Buildings and structures demolished in 1929

See also

Notes

References