"This is a serial proposal of 9 primarily commercial buildings in Chicago’s central business district, the “Loop.” The buildings, built over a period of about 20 years starting in the 1880s, exemplify the first generation of “skyscrapers.” Making use of new technologies of the time, particularly internal metal structural systems instead of load-bearing masonry walls, they were able to rise to heights of near 20 stories with large plate-glass windows, the first elevators (lifts) to reach the high floors, and electric lights to make interior spaces usable. The architects active in designing these buildings, including Louis H. Sullivan, William Le Baron Jenney, John Wellborn Root, Charles Atwood and Martin Roche, simultaneously developed a new aesthetic for the building exteriors suited to this new form, consisting of a vertical, tripartite form derived from classical columns and expresing the internal structure and functions of the buildings.
The buildings are:
- Auditorium Building
- Second Leiter Building
- Marquette Building
- Rookery Building
- Monadnock Building
- Old Colony Building
- Fisher Building
- Schlesinger & Mayer Building (later Carson Pirie Scott & Co. department store)
- Ludington Building"
Source: UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List
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