Reliance Building

Infobox nrhp
name = Reliance Building
nrhp_type = nhl

---

caption = Reliance Building at 20 North State Street.
location = Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, USA
nearest_city =
lat_degrees = 41
lat_minutes = 52
lat_seconds = 58
lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 87
long_minutes = 37
long_seconds = 40
long_direction = W
area =
built = 1890 - 1895 [http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=918&ResourceType=Building Reliance Building] , NHL Database, National Historic Landmarks Program. Retrieved 10 February 2007.]
architect =John Root, Charles A. Atwood
architecture = Chicago School
designated= January 7, 1976cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=918&ResourceType=Building
title=Reliance Building|accessdate=2008-07-22|work=National Historic Landmark summary listing|publisher=National Park Service]
added = October 15, 1970 [http://www.nr.nps.gov/nrloc1.htm NRIS Database] , National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved 9 February 2007.]
visitation_num =
visitation_year =
refnum = 70000237
mpsub =
governing_body = The Reliance Building is the first skyscraper to have large plate glass windows make up the majority of its surface area, foreshadowing a feature of skyscrapers that would become dominant in the 20th century. It is located at 20 North State Street, Chicago, Illinois, and as of 2006 houses the Hotel Burnham. The Reliance building joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and on January 7, 1976, it was designated a National Historic Landmark.

Architecture

facade. Its steel-frame superstructure is built atop concrete caissons sunk as much as 125 feet beneath the footing.

The Reliance Building has been called "proto-Modernist" in its lack of the hierarchy found in Classical facades. Its stacks of projecting bay windows and terra cotta cladding create an effect of extraordinary lightness. [Colquhoun, Alan (2002). "Modern Architecture", pp. 38-39. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192842269.] It was a direct precursor of the all-glass Friedrichstrasse skyscraper proposed by Mies van der Rohe in 1921. [Kidder-Smith, G.E. (2001). "Sourcebook of American Architecture", p. 297. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1568982542.] Richardson's Marshall Field Warehouse, built only eight years earlier, seems in comparison to be heavy, ponderous, and of another era. [Craven, Wayne (2003). "American Art: History and Culture", p. 309. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0071415246.]

The preservation of this building was championed by the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois. [cite web|url=http://www.landmarks.org/about_us.htm|accessdate=2007-05-04|publisher= Landmarks Illinois|date=2006|author=Granacki, Victoria|title=About Us: Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois]

See also

* Chicago architecture

References

External links

* [http://www.burnhamhotel.com/ Hotel Burnham]