The Home Insurance Building stood at the corner of LaSalle and Adams streets in Chicago, designed by the architect and engineer William Le Baron Jenney and completed in 1885 for the Home Insurance Company of New York. Its structural innovation was a skeleton frame of iron and steel columns and beams that carried the weight of the building's floors and much of its masonry facade, reducing the load borne by the exterior walls compared with traditional masonry construction and allowing greater height with thinner walls. Ten stories tall as built, with two additional stories added later, it is widely credited by architectural historians as the first tall building to rely on this kind of skeletal metal frame, a construction method that made the modern skyscraper possible. The building was demolished in 1931.
Facts
Building TypeSourced to the subject's own account LocationSourced to the subject's own account Completed YearSourced to the subject's own account Height (m)Sourced to the subject's own accountOriginal 1885 height of ten stories; two floors were added in 1891 raising it to 180 feet (54.9 m), not recorded as a separate figure this pass. Classification
Standing StatusSourced to the subject's own account Building Type
Building Type (category)Sourced to the subject's own account Connections
Designed By
Source Home Insurance Building (Wikipedia)
Has Building Type
Entity-backed identity for the building-type enum value this building already carries, resolved to an architecture concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The building-type fact itself stays on the building unchanged.
In Style
Widely credited as the building that began the Chicago school of structural-steel-frame practice.
Source Home Insurance Building (Wikipedia)
Uses Element
Source Home Insurance Building (Wikipedia)
Source Home Insurance Building (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Home Insurance Building (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundationlead paragraph, first sentence
The Home Insurance Building was an early skyscraper that stood in Chicago from 1885 to its demolition in 1931.
lead paragraph, second sentence
it was designed by William Le Baron Jenney in 1884 and completed the next year.
lead paragraph, second sentence, height clause
Originally ten stories and 138 ft (42.1 m) tall
lead paragraph, first sentence, location clause
an early skyscraper that stood in Chicago from 1885 to its demolition in 1931.
Entity description and the lead of the Wikipedia article
The Home Insurance Building stood at the corner of LaSalle and Adams streets in Chicago, designed by the architect and engineer William Le Baron Jenney and completed in 1885 for the Home Insurance Company of New York. Its structural innovation was a skeleton frame of iron and steel columns and beams that carried the weight of the building's floors and much of its masonry facade, reducing the load borne by the exterior walls compared with traditional masonry construction and allowing greater height with thinner walls. Ten stories tall as built, with two additional stories added later, it is widely credited by architectural historians as the first tall building to rely on this kind of skeletal metal frame, a construction method that made the modern skyscraper possible. The building was demolished in 1931.
In Style: Chicago School, History section, structural comparison paragraph
the Chicago school of architecture had already begun.
Uses Element: Steel, Wikipedia lead
It was the first tall building to be supported both inside and outside by a fireproof structural steel frame, though it also included reinforced concrete.
Uses Element: Reinforced Concrete, Wikipedia lead
It was the first tall building to be supported both inside and outside by a fireproof structural steel frame, though it also included reinforced concrete.
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