The Manhattan Building is a 16-story building at 431 South Dearborn Street in Chicago, Illinois. It was designed by architect William Le Baron Jenney and constructed from 1889 to 1891.Manhattan Building. Chicago Landmarks (URL accessed 9 July 2006). It is the oldest surviving skyscraper in the world to use a purely skeletal supporting structure. Emporis Buildings (URL accessed 9 July 2006).Manhattan Building, 431 South Dearborn Street, Chicago, Cook County, IL. American Memory from the Library of Congress (URL accessed 9 July 2006). It is the sixth oldest surviving building in the city. The building was the first home of the Paymaster Corporation, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 16, 1976, and designated a Chicago Landmark on July 7, 1978.
Architecture The distinctive bow windows provide light into the building's interior spaces, and the combination of a granite facade for the lower floors and brick facade for the upper stories helps lighten the load placed on the internal steel framework. The north and south walls of tile are supported on steel cantilevers that carry the load back to the internal supporting structure.
The versatility and strength of metal frame construction made the skyscraper possible, as evidenced by this structure, which reached the then-astounding height of 16 stories in 1891. It was the first building to do so in America. Its architect, William LeBaron Jenney, was a pioneer in the development of tall buildings.
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See also Chicago architecture
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