138-629: The Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse , commonly referred to as the Dirksen Federal Building , is a skyscraper in the Chicago Loop at 219 South Dearborn Street. It was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1964. The building is 384 feet (117 m) tall with 30 floors; it was named for U.S. Congressman Everett Dirksen . The building houses the United States Court of Appeals for
276-481: A Buttressed core . Trussed tube and X-bracing: Alexander Calder Alexander "Sandy" Calder ( / ˈ k ɔː l d ər / ; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his monumental public sculptures. Calder preferred not to analyze his work, saying, "Theories may be all very well for
414-595: A new workshop , overlooking the valley of the Lower Chevrière to the village of Saché in Indre-et-Loire (France). He donated to the town a sculpture , which since 1974 has been situated in the town square. Throughout his artistic career, Calder named many of his works in French, regardless of where they were destined for eventual display. In 1966, Calder published his Autobiography with Pictures with
552-694: A steel frame that supports curtain walls . This idea was invented by Viollet le Duc in his discourses on architecture. These curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete . Modern skyscraper walls are not load-bearing , and most skyscrapers are characterized by large surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames and curtain walls. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with
690-570: A 1.8-acre, indoor-outdoor center dedicated to Calder's work is set to open on Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway by late 2024. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Calder's works were not highly sought after, and when they sold, it was often for relatively little money. A copy of a Pierre Matisse sales ledger in the foundation's files shows that only a few pieces in the 1941 show found buyers, one of whom, Solomon R. Guggenheim , paid only $ 233.34 (equivalent to $ 4,834 in 2023) for
828-682: A career as an artist. In New York City, Calder enrolled at the Art Students League , studying briefly with George Luks , Boardman Robinson , and John Sloan . While a student, he worked for the National Police Gazette where, in 1925, one of his assignments was sketching the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus . Calder became fascinated with the circus action, a theme that would reappear in his later work. In 1926, Calder moved to Paris, enrolled in
966-407: A choreography due to their rhythmic movement. In addition to sculptures, Calder painted throughout his career, beginning in the early 1920s. He picked up his study of printmaking in 1925, and continued to produce illustrations for books and journals. His projects from this period include pen-and-ink line drawings of animals for a 1931 publication of Aesop 's fables. As Calder's sculpture moved into
1104-541: A city consisting entirely of high-rise housing is the 16th-century city of Shibam in Yemen . Shibam was made up of over 500 tower houses, each one rising 5 to 11 stories high, with each floor being an apartment occupied by a single family. The city was built in this way in order to protect it from Bedouin attacks. Shibam still has the tallest mudbrick buildings in the world, with many of them over 30 m (98 ft) high. An early modern example of high-rise housing
1242-645: A dozen theatrical productions, including Nucléa , Horizon , and most notably, Martha Graham 's Panorama (1935), a production of the Erik Satie symphonic drama Socrate (1936), and later, Works in Progress (1968). Works in Progress was a "ballet" conceived by Calder himself and produced at the Rome Opera House , featuring an array of mobiles, stabiles, and large painted backdrops. Calder would describe some of his stage sets as dancers performing
1380-467: A federal judge ruled that for Rio Nero the burden of proof had not been fulfilled. Despite the decision, the owners of the mobile could not sell it because the recognized expert, Klaus Perls , had declared it a copy. The judge recognized the problem at the time, noting that Perls' pronouncement would make Rio Nero unsellable. In 1994, the Calder Foundation declined to include the mobile in
1518-423: A model of his work, the engineering department would scale it up under Calder's direction, and technicians would complete the actual metalwork — all under Calder's watchful eye. Stabiles were made in steel plate, then painted. An exception was Trois disques , in stainless steel at 24 metres (79 ft) tall, commissioned by International Nickel Company of Canada . In 1958, Calder asked Jean Prouvé to construct
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#17327724876531656-751: A more classical approach came back to global skyscraper design, that remains popular today. Examples are the Wells Fargo Center , NBC Tower , Parkview Square , 30 Park Place , the Messeturm , the iconic Petronas Towers and Jin Mao Tower . Other contemporary styles and movements in skyscraper design include organic , sustainable , neo-futurist , structuralist , high-tech , deconstructivist , blob , digital , streamline , novelty , critical regionalist , vernacular , Neo Art Deco and neohistorist , also known as revivalist . 3 September
1794-474: A new office complex in Chicago's Loop District. The Federal Center consolidated over thirty agencies formerly scattered throughout the city in substandard leased space. Four Chicago architectural firms joined forces for the commission. The world-renowned architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe served as the chief designer with Schmidt, Garden and Erikson; C. F. Murphy Associates; and A. Epstein and Sons all working on
1932-399: A particularly small surface area of what are conventionally thought of as walls. Because the walls are not load-bearing most skyscrapers are characterized by surface areas of windows made possible by the concept of steel frame and curtain wall. However, skyscrapers can also have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls and have a small surface area of windows. The concept of a skyscraper is
2070-742: A preface for the catalogue of Calder's first exhibition of abstract constructions held at the Galerie Percier in 1931. Calder and Louisa returned to America in 1933 to a farmhouse they purchased in Roxbury, Connecticut , where they raised a family (Sandra born 1935, Mary born 1939). During World War II , Calder attempted to join the Marines as a camoufleur (see List of camoufleurs ), but was rejected. In 1955 he and Louisa traveled through India for three months, where Calder produced nine sculptures as well as some jewelry. In 1963, Calder settled into
2208-420: A product of the industrialized age , made possible by cheap fossil fuel derived energy and industrially refined raw materials such as steel and concrete . The construction of skyscrapers was enabled by steel frame construction that surpassed brick and mortar construction starting at the end of the 19th century and finally surpassing it in the 20th century together with reinforced concrete construction as
2346-454: A proto-skyscraper, or to New York's seven-floor Equitable Life Building , built in 1870. Steel skeleton construction has allowed for today's supertall skyscrapers now being built worldwide. The nomination of one structure versus another being the first skyscraper, and why, depends on what factors are stressed. The structural definition of the word skyscraper was refined later by architectural historians, based on engineering developments of
2484-412: A proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line. Some structural engineers define a high-rise as any vertical construction for which wind is a more significant load factor than earthquake or weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high-rises but some other tall structures, such as towers . Different organizations from
2622-612: A shape or line if necessary. In the 1950s, Calder concentrated more on producing monumental sculptures (his agrandissements period), and public commissions increasingly came his way in the 1960s. Notable examples are .125 (1957) for JFK Airport in New York, Spirale (1958) for UNESCO in Paris, and Trois disques , commissioned for Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Calder's largest sculpture, at 25.7 metres (84 ft) high,
2760-571: A skyscraper today, it was record setting. The building of tall buildings in the 1880s gave the skyscraper its first architectural movement, broadly termed the Chicago School , which developed what has been called the Commercial Style. The architect, Major William Le Baron Jenney , created a load-bearing structural frame. In this building, a steel frame supported the entire weight of the walls, instead of load-bearing walls carrying
2898-434: A small group of works from around this period with a hanging base-plate, for example Lily of Force (1945), Baby Flat Top (1946), and Red is Dominant (1947). He also made works such as Seven Horizontal Discs (1946), which, like Lily of Force (1945) and Baby Flat Top (1946), he was able to dismantle and send by mail for his upcoming show at Galerie Louis Carré in Paris, despite the stringent size restrictions imposed by
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#17327724876533036-417: A small surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a tubular structure , and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic, and other lateral loads. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks , which in some cases is also structurally required. As of September 2023 , fifteen cities in
3174-521: A time, the tallest of which is the 97.2 m (319 ft) high Asinelli Tower. A Florentine law of 1251 decreed that all urban buildings be immediately reduced to less than 26 m. Even medium-sized towns of the era are known to have proliferations of towers, such as the 72 towers that ranged up to 51 m height in San Gimignano . The medieval Egyptian city of Fustat housed many high-rise residential buildings, which Al-Muqaddasi in
3312-565: A total price of $ 100,000. Two years later, Braniff asked Calder to design a flagship for their fleet celebrating the U.S. Bicentennial. That piece, a Boeing 727-291 jet N408BN called the Flying Colors of the United States , and nicknamed the 'Sneaky Snake' by its pilots (based on quirky flight tendencies), featured a rippled image of red, white and blue echoing a waving American flag. A third design, to be dubbed Salute to Mexico ,
3450-466: A variety of shapes, and it could be riveted, ensuring strong connections. The simplicity of a steel frame eliminated the inefficient part of a shear wall, the central portion, and consolidated support members in a much stronger fashion by allowing both horizontal and vertical supports throughout. Among steel's drawbacks is that as more material must be supported as height increases, the distance between supporting members must decrease, which in turn increases
3588-469: A vertical tube-like structural system capable of resisting lateral forces in any direction by cantilevering from the foundation". Closely spaced interconnected exterior columns form the tube. Horizontal loads (primarily wind) are supported by the structure as a whole. Framed tubes allow fewer interior columns, and so create more usable floor space, and about half the exterior surface is available for windows. Where larger openings like garage doors are required,
3726-602: A view of works by three generations of Alexander Calders. From the second floor window on the east side of the Great Stair Hall (on the opposite side from the armor collection) there is behind the viewer Calder's own Ghost mobile, ahead on the street is the Swann Memorial Fountain by his father, A. Stirling Calder , and beyond that the statue of William Penn atop City Hall by Calder's grandfather, Alexander Milne Calder . Calder Gardens ,
3864-493: A work. The Museum of Modern Art had bought its first Calder in 1934 for $ 60, after talking Calder down from $ 100. And yet by 1948 Calder nearly sold out an entire solo show in Rio de Janeiro, becoming the first internationally renowned sculptor. Galerie Maeght in Paris became Calder's exclusive Parisian dealer in 1950 and for the rest of Calder's life. After his New York dealer Curt Valentin died unexpectedly in 1954, Calder selected
4002-408: Is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least 100 meters (330 ft) or 150 meters (490 ft) in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise buildings . Skyscrapers may host offices, hotels, residential spaces, and retail spaces. One common feature of skyscrapers is having
4140-402: Is formed of high-tensile bolted steel and concrete. The exterior curtain walls are defined by projecting steel I-beam mullions covered with flat black graphite paint, characteristic of Mies's designs. The balance of the curtain walls are of bronze-tinted glass panes, framed in shiny aluminum, and separated by steel spandrels, also covered with flat black graphite paint. This organization emphasizes
4278-406: Is important in most building design, but particularly for skyscrapers since even a small chance of catastrophic failure is unacceptable given the tremendous damage such failure would cause. This presents a paradox to civil engineers : the only way to assure a lack of failure is to test for all modes of failure, in both the laboratory and the real world. But the only way to know of all modes of failure
Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse - Misplaced Pages Continue
4416-433: Is largely from the force of the building material itself. In most building designs, the weight of the structure is much larger than the weight of the material that it will support beyond its own weight. In technical terms, the dead load , the load of the structure, is larger than the live load , the weight of things in the structure (people, furniture, vehicles, etc.). As such, the amount of structural material required within
4554-562: Is one of the best natured fellows there is." In the summer of 1916, Calder spent five weeks training at the Plattsburgh Civilian Military Training Camp . In 1918, he joined the Student's Army Training Corps, Naval Section, at Stevens and was made guide of the battalion. Calder received a degree from Stevens in 1919. He held a variety of jobs including hydraulic engineer and draughtsman for
4692-717: Is one of three buildings making up the modernist Chicago Federal Center complex designed by van der Rohe, along with Federal Plaza, the U.S. Post Office (Loop Station) and the Kluczynski Federal Building . Separate from the Federal Plaza, but opposite the Kluczynski Building across Jackson Boulevard, is the Metcalfe Federal Building. In 1960, Congress authorized the U.S. General Services Administration to construct
4830-399: Is the global commemorative day for skyscrapers, called "Skyscraper Day". New York City developers competed among themselves, with successively taller buildings claiming the title of "world's tallest" in the 1920s and early 1930s, culminating with the completion of the 318.9 m (1,046 ft) Chrysler Building in 1930 and the 443.2 m (1,454 ft) Empire State Building in 1931,
4968-644: Is the thirty-story Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. The courthouse contains 1.4 million gross square feet of space and is set at a right angle to the Federal Building high-rise across Dearborn Street. The Dirksen courthouse was designed with fifteen, two-story courtrooms located on the top ten stories of the building. Courtrooms were located away from the curtain walls to reduce audio and visual distractions. The simple but elegant book-matched black-walnut paneling and molded-plywood spectator benches are lit by ceiling fixtures covered with an aluminum grid. During
5106-419: Is to learn from previous failures. Thus, no engineer can be absolutely sure that a given structure will resist all loadings that could cause failure; instead, one can only have large enough margins of safety such that a failure is acceptably unlikely. When buildings do fail, engineers question whether the failure was due to some lack of foresight or due to some unknowable factor. The load a skyscraper experiences
5244-641: The Académie de la Grande Chaumière , and established a studio at 22 rue Daguerre in the Montparnasse Quarter . In June 1929, while traveling by boat from Paris to New York, Calder met his future wife, Louisa James (1905–1996), a daughter of Edward Holton James and grandniece of author Henry James and philosopher William James . They married in 1931. While in Paris, Calder befriended a number of avant-garde artists, including Joan Miró , Fernand Léger , Jean Arp , and Marcel Duchamp . Leger wrote
5382-599: The New York Edison Company . In June 1922, Calder took a mechanic position on the passenger ship H. F. Alexander . While sailing from San Francisco to New York City, Calder slept on deck and awoke one early morning off the Guatemalan Coast and witnessed both the sun rising and the full moon setting on opposite horizons. He described in his autobiography, "It was early one morning on a calm sea, off Guatemala, when over my couch—a coil of rope—I saw
5520-466: The Perls Galleries in New York as his new American dealer, and this alliance lasted until Calder's death. In 2010, his metal mobile Untitled (Autumn Leaves) , sold at Sotheby's New York for $ 3.7 million. Another mobile brought $ 6.35 million at Christie's later that year. Also at Christie's, a standing mobile called Lily of Force (1945), which was expected to sell for $ 8 to $ 12 million,
5658-532: The Railway Mail Service . The Federal Center extends over two blocks; a one-block site, bounded by Jackson, Clark, Adams, and Dearborn streets, contains the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building and U.S. Post Office Loop Station, while a parcel on an adjacent block to the east contains the courthouse. A glass-enclosed great hall, 100 feet (30 m) wide and 25 feet (7.6 m) high, spans the center of
Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse - Misplaced Pages Continue
5796-577: The Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, where he observed a four-horse-chariot race. This style of event later became the finale of Calder's miniature circus performances. In late 1909 the family returned to Philadelphia, where Calder briefly attended Germantown Academy , then they moved to Croton-on-Hudson, New York . That Christmas, he sculpted a dog and a duck out of sheet brass as gifts for his parents. The sculptures are three-dimensional and
5934-643: The " Seven Sisters ", were built between 1947 and 1953; and one, the Main building of Moscow State University , was the tallest building in Europe for nearly four decades (1953–1990). Other skyscrapers in the style of Socialist Classicism were erected in East Germany ( Frankfurter Tor ), Poland ( PKiN ), Ukraine ( Hotel Moscow ), Latvia ( Academy of Sciences ), and other Eastern Bloc countries. Western European countries also began to permit taller skyscrapers during
6072-460: The 10th century described as resembling minarets . Nasir Khusraw in the early 11th century described some of them rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top floor complete with ox-drawn water wheels for irrigating them. Cairo in the 16th century had high-rise apartment buildings where the two lower floors were for commercial and storage purposes and the multiple stories above them were rented out to tenants . An early example of
6210-465: The 1880s that had enabled construction of tall multi-story buildings. This definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry , which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicago's Monadnock Building . What is the chief characteristic of the tall office building? It is lofty. It must be tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch
6348-600: The 1960s now use a tube design derived from Khan's structural engineering principles, examples including the construction of the World Trade Center , Aon Center , Petronas Towers , Jin Mao Building , and most other supertall skyscrapers since the 1960s. The strong influence of tube structure design is also evident in the construction of the current tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa , which uses
6486-603: The 1960s, according to the CTBUH, the skyscraper has been reoriented away from a symbol for North American corporate power to instead communicate a city or nation's place in the world. Skyscraper construction entered a three-decades-long era of stagnation in 1930 due to the Great Depression and then World War II . Shortly after the war ended, Russia began construction on a series of skyscrapers in Moscow . Seven, dubbed
6624-479: The 1990s, additional courtrooms were created within the building in a style complementing the original details; Mies's initial design planned for future expansion of this nature. The simple and well-proportioned steel-and-glass design of the Chicago Federal Center epitomizes the minimalist architectural approach favored by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The structural framing of the buildings
6762-807: The 26th century BC. It was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 160 m (520 ft) Lincoln Cathedral having exceeded it in 1311–1549, before its central spire collapsed. The latter in turn was not surpassed until the 555-foot (169 m) Washington Monument in 1884. However, being uninhabited, none of these structures actually comply with the modern definition of a skyscraper. High-rise apartments flourished in classical antiquity . Ancient Roman insulae in imperial cities reached 10 and more stories. Beginning with Augustus (r. 30 BC-14 AD), several emperors attempted to establish limits of 20–25 m for multi-stories buildings, but were met with only limited success. Lower floors were typically occupied by shops or wealthy families, with
6900-690: The 57 m (187 ft) tall 1924 Marx House in Düsseldorf , the 65 m (213 ft) tall Borsigturm in Berlin , built in 1924, the 65 m (213 ft) tall Hansahochhaus in Cologne , Germany, built in 1925; the 61 m (200 ft) Kungstornen (Kings' Towers) in Stockholm , Sweden, which were built 1924–25; the 77 m (253 ft) Ullsteinhaus in Berlin, Germany, built in 1927;
7038-613: The 89 m (292 ft) Edificio Telefónica in Madrid , Spain, built in 1929; the 87.5 m (287 ft) Boerentoren in Antwerp, Belgium, built in 1932; the 66 m (217 ft) Prudential Building in Warsaw , Poland, built in 1934; and the 108 m (354 ft) Torre Piacentini in Genoa , Italy, built in 1940. After an early competition between New York City and Chicago for
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#17327724876537176-621: The Arts . In 1971, Calder created his Bent Propeller which was installed at the entrance of the World Trade Center 's North Tower in New York City. When Battery Park City opened, the sculpture was moved to Vesey and Church Streets. The sculpture stood in front of 7 World Trade Center until it was destroyed on September 11, 2001 . In 1973, the 63-foot tall (19 m) vermillion-colored public art sculpture Four Arches
7314-503: The CTBUH, is the distance between the highest floor and its architectural top (excluding antennae, flagpole or other functional extensions). Vanity height first appeared in New York City skyscrapers as early as the 1920s and 1930s but supertall buildings have relied on such uninhabitable extensions for on average 30% of their height, raising potential definitional and sustainability issues. The current era of skyscrapers focuses on sustainability , its built and natural environments, including
7452-557: The Calder Foundation is now focusing on organizing global exhibitions for the artist. One of Calder's grandsons, Alexander S. C. "Sandy" Rower, is the president of the foundation and other family members are on the board of trustees. The Calder Foundation does not authenticate artworks; rather, owners can submit their works for registration in the Foundation's archive and for examination. The committee that performs examinations includes experts, scholars, museum curators, and members of
7590-596: The Calder family. The Calder Foundation's website provides details on the current policies and guidelines governing examination procedures. In 1993, the owners of Rio Nero (1959), a sheet-metal and steel-wire mobile ostensibly by Calder, went to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia charging that it was not by Alexander Calder, as claimed by its seller. That same year,
7728-726: The Calders moved to Spuyten Duyvil to be closer to New York City, where Stirling Calder rented a studio. While living in Spuyten Duyvil, Calder attended high school in nearby Yonkers . In 1912, Calder's father was appointed acting chief of the Department of Sculpture of the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California, and began work on sculptures for the exposition that
7866-628: The Federal Center buildings. In 1998, the stabile was conserved and lighting was added. In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, Chicago Federal Plaza was selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places by the American Institute of Architects Illinois component (AIA Illinois). 41°52′44″N 87°37′44″W / 41.8788°N 87.6290°W / 41.8788; -87.6290 Skyscraper A skyscraper
8004-710: The Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France (1969), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1974). In addition, both of Calder's dealers, Galerie Maeght in Paris and the Perls Galleries in New York, averaged about one Calder show each per year. Calder's work is in many permanent collections across the world. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, has the largest body of work by Alexander Calder. Other museum collections include
8142-529: The Museum of Modern Art, and was one of three Americans to be included in Alfred H. Barr Jr. 's 1936 exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art . Calder's first retrospective was held in 1938 at George Walter Vincent Smith Gallery in Springfield, Massachusetts . In 1943, the Museum of Modern Art hosted a Calder retrospective, curated by James Johnson Sweeney and Marcel Duchamp ; the show had to be extended due to
8280-830: The Seventh Circuit , the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois , the United States Bankruptcy Court , the United States Marshal for the Northern District of Illinois, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and local offices for various court-related federal agencies, such as the Federal Public Defender , United States Probation Service , United States Trustee , and National Labor Relations Board . It
8418-866: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía , Madrid; the Seattle Art Museum ; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. There are two pieces on display in the Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection in Albany, NY. The Philadelphia Museum of Art offers
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#17327724876538556-408: The Spanish pavilion included Calder's sculpture Mercury Fountain . During World War II , Calder continued to sculpt, adapting to a scarcity of aluminum during the war by returning to carved wood in a new open form of sculpture called "constellations". Postwar, Calder began to cut shapes from sheet metal into evocative forms and hand-paint them in his characteristically bold hues. Calder created
8694-407: The United States and Europe define skyscrapers as buildings at least 150 m (490 ft) in height or taller, with " supertall " skyscrapers for buildings higher than 300 m (984 ft) and " megatall " skyscrapers for those taller than 600 m (1,969 ft). The tallest structure in ancient times was the 146 m (479 ft) Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt , built in
8832-410: The age of eight for his sister's dolls using copper wire that he found in the street. For his lifelong friend Joan Miró , Calder set a shard of a broken porcelain vessel in a brass ring. Peggy Guggenheim received enormous silver mobile earrings and later commissioned a hammered silver headboard that shimmered with dangling fish. In 1942, Guggenheim wore one Calder earring and one by Yves Tanguy to
8970-497: The amount of material that must be supported. This becomes inefficient and uneconomic for buildings above 40 stories tall as usable floor spaces are reduced for supporting column and due to more usage of steel. A new structural system of framed tubes was developed by Fazlur Rahman Khan in 1963. The framed tube structure is defined as "a three dimensional space structure composed of three, four, or possibly more frames, braced frames, or shear walls, joined at or near their edges to form
9108-517: The art and archives of Alexander Calder and [is] charged with an unmatched collection of his works". The foundation has large holdings, with some works owned by family members and others by foundation supporters. The art includes more than 600 sculptures including mobiles, stabiles, standing mobiles, and wire sculptures, and 22 monumental outdoor works, as well as thousands of oil paintings, works on paper, toys, pieces of jewelry, and domestic objects. After having worked mainly on cataloging Calder's works,
9246-404: The artist himself, but they shouldn't be broadcast to other people." Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania . His birthdate remains a source of confusion. According to Calder's mother, Nanette (née Lederer), Calder was born on August 22, yet his birth certificate at Philadelphia City Hall, based on a hand-written ledger, stated July 22. When Calder's family learned of
9384-442: The artist was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the United States' highest civilian honor, by President Gerald Ford . However, representatives of the Calder family boycotted the January 10, 1977, ceremony "to make a statement favoring amnesty for Vietnam War draft resisters ". In 1987, the Calder Foundation was established by Calder's family, "dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, preserving, and interpreting
9522-611: The artist's wire sculpture. The painter Jules Pascin , a friend from the cafes of Montparnasse , wrote the preface to the catalog. A visit to Piet Mondrian 's studio in 1930, where he was impressed by the environment-as-installation, "shocked" him into fully embracing abstract art , toward which he had already been tending. It was the mixture of his experiments to develop purely abstract sculpture following his visit with Mondrian that led to his first truly kinetic sculptures, actuated by motors, that would become his signature artworks. Calder's kinetic sculptures are regarded as being among
9660-457: The beginning of a fiery red sunrise on one side and the moon looking like a silver coin on the other." The H.F. Alexander docked in San Francisco and Calder traveled to Aberdeen, Washington , where his sister and her husband, Kenneth Hayes resided. Calder took a job as a timekeeper at a logging camp. The mountain scenery inspired him to write home to request paints and brushes. Shortly after this, Calder decided to move back to New York to pursue
9798-514: The birth certificate, they asserted with certainty that city officials had made a mistake. His mother was Jewish and of German descent and his father was Calvinist and of Scottish descent, but Calder never practiced a religion and rejected nationalism. Calder's grandfather, sculptor Alexander Milne Calder , was born in Scotland, had immigrated to Philadelphia in 1868, and is best known for the colossal statue of William Penn on Philadelphia City Hall 's tower. His father, Alexander Stirling Calder ,
9936-571: The children in the care of family friends for a year. The children were reunited with their parents in March 1906 and stayed at the Arizona ranch during that summer. The Calder family moved from Arizona to Pasadena, California . The windowed cellar of the family home became Calder's first studio and he received his first set of tools. He used scraps of copper wire to make jewelry for his sister's dolls. On January 1, 1907, Nanette Calder took her son to
10074-651: The circus was presented on both sides of the Atlantic. Soon, his Cirque Calder (on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art at present) became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. He also invented wire sculpture , or "drawing in space", and in 1929 had his first solo show of these sculptures in Paris at Galerie Billiet. Hi! , in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art , is an early example of
10212-678: The class of 1915. Alexander Calder's parents did not want him to be an artist, so he decided to study mechanical engineering. An intuitive engineer since childhood, Calder did not even know what mechanical engineering was. "I was not very sure what this term meant, but I thought I'd better adopt it," he later wrote. He enrolled at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey , in 1915. When asked why he decided to study mechanical engineering instead of art Calder said, "I wanted to be an engineer because some guy I rather liked
10350-424: The classical designs of the early skyscrapers , instead embracing the uniform international style ; many older skyscrapers were redesigned to suit contemporary tastes or even demolished—such as New York's Singer Building , once the world's tallest skyscraper. German -American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became one of the world's most renowned architects in the second half of the 20th century. He conceived
10488-462: The courthouse, serving as a visual gateway through the complex. From State Street on the east, one can look west down Quincy Street, through the courthouse, across Dearborn Street to the central plaza and post office beyond. To its northwest is the freestanding Loop Station post office, which is one story with two workroom levels below grade. Directly across the street from the Kluczynski building
10626-648: The creation of a significant number of early skyscrapers, though none of these were steel reinforced and few remain today. Height limits and fire restrictions were later introduced. In the late 1800s, London builders found building heights limited due to issues with existing buildings. High-rise development in London is restricted at certain sites if it would obstruct protected views of St Paul's Cathedral and other historic buildings. This policy, 'St Paul's Heights', has officially been in operation since 1927. Concerns about aesthetics and fire safety had likewise hampered
10764-651: The development of skyscrapers across continental Europe for the first half of the 20th century. By 1940, there were around 100 high-rise buildings in Europe ( List of early skyscrapers ). Some examples of these are the 43 m (141 ft) tall 1898 Witte Huis (White House) in Rotterdam ; the 51.5 m (169 ft) tall PAST Building (1906–1908) in Warsaw ; the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool, completed in 1911 and 90 m (300 ft) high;
10902-423: The duck is kinetic because it rocks when gently tapped. In Croton, during his high school years, Calder was befriended by his father's painter friend Everett Shinn with whom he built a gravity-powered system of mechanical trains. Calder described it, "We ran the train on wooden rails held by spikes; a chunk of iron racing down the incline speeded the cars. We even lit up some cars with candle lights". After Croton,
11040-420: The earliest manifestations of an art that consciously departed from the traditional notion of the art work as a static object and integrated the ideas of gesture and immateriality as aesthetic factors. Dating from 1931, Calder's abstract sculptures of discrete movable parts powered by motors were christened "mobiles" by Marcel Duchamp , a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive". However, Calder found that
11178-402: The early 1960s Bangladeshi-American structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan , considered the "father of tubular designs " for high-rises, discovered that the dominating rigid steel frame structure was not the only system apt for tall buildings, marking a new era of skyscraper construction in terms of multiple structural systems . His central innovation in skyscraper design and construction
11316-416: The environment and loaded structures with decorative elements and extravagant finishes. This approach to design was opposed by Fazlur Khan and he considered the designs to be whimsical rather than rational. Moreover, he considered the work to be a waste of precious natural resources. Khan's work promoted structures integrated with architecture and the least use of material resulting in the smallest impact on
11454-454: The environment. The next era of skyscrapers will focus on the environment including performance of structures, types of material, construction practices, absolute minimal use of materials/natural resources, embodied energy within the structures, and more importantly, a holistically integrated building systems approach. Modern building practices regarding supertall structures have led to the study of "vanity height". Vanity height, according to
11592-473: The first building in the world to feature a metal-framed glass curtain wall , a design element which creates light, airy interiors and has since been used the world over as a defining feature of skyscrapers". Further developments led to what many individuals and organizations consider the world's first skyscraper, the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, built in 1884–1885. While its original height of 42.1 m (138 ft) does not even qualify as
11730-429: The first step in the production of a monumental sculpture, was considered by Calder a sculpture in its own right. Larger works used the classic enlargement techniques of traditional sculptors, including his father and grandfather. Drawing his designs on craft paper, he enlarged them using a grid. His large-scale works were created according to his exact specifications, while also allowing him the liberty to adjust or correct
11868-479: The glass façade skyscraper and, along with Norwegian Fred Severud , designed the Seagram Building in 1958, a skyscraper that is often regarded as the pinnacle of modernist high-rise architecture. Skyscraper construction surged throughout the 1960s. The impetus behind the upswing was a series of transformative innovations which made it possible for people to live and work in "cities in the sky". In
12006-418: The granite-paved plaza into the ground-floor lobbies of the two towers, where the floors and elevator lobby walls are also granite. The lines of the grid continue vertically up the buildings, integrating each component of the complex. The 42-story, John C. Kluczynski Federal Building is the tallest of the three buildings. Both the Kluczynski and Dirksen buildings are elevated on open colonnades, called pilotis, at
12144-549: The help of his son-in-law, Jean Davidson. Calder died unexpectedly in November 1976 of a heart attack , shortly after the opening of a major retrospective show at the Whitney Museum in New York. In Paris in 1926, Calder began to create his Cirque Calder , a miniature circus fashioned from wire, cloth, string, rubber, cork, and other found objects. Designed to be transportable (it grew to fill five large suitcases),
12282-405: The hundred-story John Hancock Center and the massive 442 m (1,450 ft) Willis Tower . Other pioneers of this field include Hal Iyengar , William LeMessurier , and Minoru Yamasaki , the architect of the World Trade Center . Many buildings designed in the 70s lacked a particular style and recalled ornamentation from earlier buildings designed before the 50s. These design plans ignored
12420-438: The impressive height of the sleek towers. Franz Schulze, a scholar of Mies's work, has praised "Mies's uncompromising devotion to principle, together with his vaunted sensitivity to proportion and structural detail and the organizational scale, [that] combine to give the complex a monumental urban presence." The entire complex is organized on a 28-foot grid pattern subdivided into six 4-foot, 8-inch modules. This pattern extends from
12558-454: The lower levels of a skyscraper will be much larger than the material required within higher levels. This is not always visually apparent. The Empire State Building 's setbacks are actually a result of the building code at the time ( 1916 Zoning Resolution ), and were not structurally required. On the other hand, John Hancock Center 's shape is uniquely the result of how it supports loads. Vertical supports can come in several types, among which
12696-731: The mobile also marked an abandonment of Modernism's larger goal of a rapprochement with science and engineering, and with unfortunate long-term implications for contemporary art. In 1934, Calder made his first outdoor works in his Roxbury, Connecticut studio, using the same techniques and materials as his smaller works. Exhibited outside, Calder's initial standing mobiles moved elegantly in the breeze, bobbing and swirling in natural, spontaneous rhythms. The first few outdoor works were too delicate for strong winds, which forced Calder to rethink his fabrication process. By 1936 he changed his working methods and began to create smaller-scale maquettes that he then enlarged to monumental size. The small maquette,
12834-674: The most common for skyscrapers can be categorized as steel frames, concrete cores, tube within tube design, and shear walls. The wind loading on a skyscraper is also considerable. In fact, the lateral wind load imposed on supertall structures is generally the governing factor in the structural design. Wind pressure increases with height, so for very tall buildings, the loads associated with wind are larger than dead or live loads. Other vertical and horizontal loading factors come from varied, unpredictable sources, such as earthquakes. By 1895, steel had replaced cast iron as skyscrapers' structural material. Its malleability allowed it to be formed into
12972-435: The most complex encountered given the balances required between economics , engineering , and construction management. One common feature of skyscrapers is a steel framework from which curtain walls are suspended, rather than load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Most skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables them to be built taller than typical load-bearing walls of reinforced concrete. Skyscrapers usually have
13110-423: The motorized works sometimes became monotonous in their prescribed movements. His solution, arrived at by 1932, was hanging sculptures that derived their motion from touch or air currents. The earliest of these were made of wire, found objects, and wood, a material that Calder used since the 1920s. The hanging mobiles were followed in 1934 by outdoor standing mobiles in industrial materials, which were set in motion by
13248-488: The number of visitors. Calder was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of 1949. His mobile, International Mobile was the centerpiece of the exhibition. Calder also participated in documentas I (1955), II (1959), III (1964). Major retrospectives of his work were held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1964),
13386-455: The open air. The wind mobiles featured abstract shapes delicately balanced on pivoting rods that moved with the slightest current of air, allowing for a natural shifting play of forms and spatial relationships. Calder was also experimenting with self-supporting, static, abstract sculptures, dubbed "stabiles" by Jean Arp in 1932 to differentiate them from mobiles. At Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937),
13524-459: The opening of her New York gallery, The Art of This Century , to demonstrate her equal loyalty to Surrealist and abstract art, examples of which she displayed in separate galleries. Others who were presented with Calder's pieces were the artist's close friend, Georgia O'Keeffe ; Teeny Duchamp , wife of Marcel Duchamp ; Jeanne Rucar, wife of the filmmaker Luis Buñuel ; and Bella Rosenfeld , wife of Marc Chagall . Calder's first solo exhibition
13662-548: The openness of the plaza between the two buildings. Upon further study, Mies designed a separate post office building with its own, below-grade vehicular access. The site for the new Federal Center included the block occupied by the Beaux-Arts style U.S. Post Office and Courthouse (1898–1905) designed by Henry Ives Cobb , which replaced an 1879 government building in the same location. It was in Cobb's domed building where Al Capone
13800-406: The performance of structures, types of materials, construction practices, absolute minimal use of materials and natural resources, energy within the structure, and a holistically integrated building systems approach. LEED is a current green building standard. Architecturally, with the movements of Postmodernism , New Urbanism and New Classical Architecture , that established since the 1980s,
13938-505: The plaza level. In the early 1970s, the U.S. General Services Administration, under its Art in Architecture program, commissioned a steel sculpture for the plaza from the celebrated artist Alexander Calder . His creation, entitled Flamingo , was unveiled on October 25, 1974. The 53-foot-tall steel stabile, with its bright red color and graceful curves, provides a striking contrast to the dark, angular steel and glass curtain walls of
14076-435: The postal service at the time. His 1946 show at Carré, which was organized by Duchamp, was composed mainly of hanging and standing mobiles, and it made a huge impact, as did the essay for the catalogue by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre . In 1951, Calder devised a new kind of sculpture, related structurally to his constellations. These "towers", affixed to the wall with a nail, consist of wire struts and beams that jut from
14214-728: The price of steel decreased and labor costs increased. The steel frames become inefficient and uneconomic for supertall buildings as usable floor space is reduced for progressively larger supporting columns. Since about 1960, tubular designs have been used for high rises. This reduces the usage of material (more efficient in economic terms – Willis Tower uses a third less steel than the Empire State Building) yet allows greater height. It allows fewer interior columns, and so creates more usable floor space. It further enables buildings to take on various shapes. Elevators are characteristic to skyscrapers. In 1852 Elisha Otis introduced
14352-459: The project. The original plan for the Chicago Federal Center called for two towers, the first to house federal agencies including the U.S. Department of the Treasury and U.S. Department of Defense , and the second for the courts, U.S. Department of Justice , and U.S. Postal Service . However, vehicular access for the post office required a street-level loading dock that would have intruded on
14490-709: The realm of pure abstraction in the early 1930s, so did his prints. The thin lines used to define figures in the earlier prints and drawings began delineating groups of geometric shapes, often in motion. Calder also used prints for advocacy, as in poster prints from 1967 and 1969 protesting the Vietnam War . As Calder's professional reputation expanded in the late 1940s and 1950s, so did his production of prints. Masses of lithographs based on his gouache paintings were marketed, and deluxe editions of plays, poems, and short stories illustrated with fine art prints by Calder became available. One of Calder's more unusual undertakings
14628-484: The safety elevator at the E. V. Haughwout Building in New York City, allowing convenient and safe transport to buildings' upper floors. Otis later introduced the first commercial passenger elevators to the Equitable Life Building in 1870, considered by some architectural historians to be the first skyscraper. Another crucial development was the use of a steel frame instead of stone or brick, otherwise
14766-643: The safety elevator, allowing convenient and safe passenger movement to upper floors. Another crucial development was the use of a steel frame instead of stone or brick, otherwise the walls on the lower floors on a tall building would be too thick to be practical. Today major manufacturers of elevators include Otis , ThyssenKrupp , Schindler , and KONE . Advances in construction techniques have allowed skyscrapers to narrow in width, while increasing in height. Some of these new techniques include mass dampers to reduce vibrations and swaying, and gaps to allow air to pass through, reducing wind shear. Good structural design
14904-698: The steel base of Spirale in France, a monumental mobile for the UNESCO site in Paris, while the top was fabricated in Connecticut. In June 1969, Calder attended the dedication of his monumental "stabile" sculpture La Grande Vitesse in Grand Rapids, Michigan . This sculpture is notable for being the first civic sculpture in the United States to receive funding from the National Endowment for
15042-438: The title for six years. The design and construction of skyscrapers involves creating safe, habitable spaces in very tall buildings. The buildings must support their weight, resist wind and earthquakes, and protect occupants from fire. Yet they must also be conveniently accessible, even on the upper floors, and provide utilities and a comfortable climate for the occupants. The problems posed in skyscraper design are considered among
15180-715: The tube frame must be interrupted, with transfer girders used to maintain structural integrity. Tube structures cut down costs, at the same time allowing buildings to reach greater heights. Concrete tube-frame construction was first used in the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartment Building , completed in Chicago in 1963, and soon after in the John Hancock Center and World Trade Center . The tubular systems are fundamental to tall building design. Most buildings over 40 stories constructed since
15318-482: The tube structure was the Chestnut De-Witt apartment building, considered to be a major development in modern architecture. These new designs opened an economic door for contractors, engineers, architects, and investors, providing vast amounts of real estate space on minimal plots of land. Over the next fifteen years, many towers were built by Fazlur Rahman Khan and the " Second Chicago School ", including
15456-661: The unveiling of the sculptures. Originally meant to be constructed in 1977 for the Hart Senate Office Building, Mountains and Clouds was not built until 1985 due to government budget cuts. The massive sheet-metal project, weighing 35 tons, spans the nine-story height of the building's atrium in Washington, D.C. Calder designed the maquette for the United States Senate in the last year of his life. Calder created stage sets for more than
15594-478: The upper rented to the lower classes. Surviving Oxyrhynchus Papyri indicate that seven-stories buildings existed in provincial towns such as in 3rd century AD Hermopolis in Roman Egypt . The skylines of many important medieval cities had large numbers of high-rise urban towers, built by the wealthy for defense and status. The residential Towers of 12th century Bologna numbered between 80 and 100 at
15732-538: The wall, with moving objects suspended from their armatures. While not denying Calder's power as a sculptor, an alternate view of the history of twentieth-century art cites Calder's turning away in the early 1930s from his motor-powered works in favor of the wind-driven mobile as marking a decisive moment in Modernism's abandonment of its earlier commitment to the machine as a critical and potentially expressive new element in human affairs. According to this viewpoint,
15870-465: The walls on the lower floors on a tall building would be too thick to be practical. An early development in this area was Oriel Chambers in Liverpool , England, built in 1864. It was only five floors high. The Royal Academy of Arts states, "critics at the time were horrified by its 'large agglomerations of protruding plate glass bubbles'. In fact, it was a precursor to Modernist architecture, being
16008-617: The weight of the building. This development led to the "Chicago skeleton" form of construction. In addition to the steel frame, the Home Insurance Building also utilized fireproofing, elevators, and electrical wiring, key elements in most skyscrapers today. Burnham and Root 's 45 m (148 ft) Rand McNally Building in Chicago, 1889, was the first all-steel framed skyscraper, while Louis Sullivan 's 41 m (135 ft) Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri, 1891,
16146-814: The world have more than 100 skyscrapers that are 150 m (492 ft) or taller: Hong Kong with 552 skyscrapers; Shenzhen , China with 373 skyscrapers; New York City , US with 314 skyscrapers; Dubai , UAE with 252 skyscrapers; Guangzhou , China with 188 skyscrapers; Shanghai , China with 183 skyscrapers; Tokyo , Japan with 168 skyscrapers; Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia with 156 skyscrapers; Wuhan , China with 149 skyscrapers; Chongqing , China, with 144 skyscrapers; Chicago , US, with 137 skyscrapers; Chengdu , China with 117 skyscrapers; Jakarta , Indonesia , with 112 skyscrapers; Bangkok , Thailand , with 111 skyscrapers, and Mumbai , India with 102. As of 2024, there are over 7 thousand skyscrapers over 150 m (492 ft) in height worldwide. The term "skyscraper"
16284-664: The world's tallest building for forty years. The first completed 417 m (1,368 ft) tall World Trade Center tower became the world's tallest building in 1972. However, it was overtaken by the Sears Tower (now Willis Tower ) in Chicago within two years. The 442 m (1,450 ft) tall Sears Tower stood as the world's tallest building for 24 years, from 1974 until 1998, until it was edged out by 452 m (1,483 ft) Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, which held
16422-432: The world's tallest building, New York took the lead by 1895 with the completion of the 103 m (338 ft) tall American Surety Building , leaving New York with the title of the world's tallest building for many years. Modern skyscrapers are built with steel or reinforced concrete frameworks and curtain walls of glass or polished stone . They use mechanical equipment such as water pumps and elevators . Since
16560-476: The world, although only partially iron framed, is The Flaxmill in Shrewsbury , England. Built in 1797, it is seen as the "grandfather of skyscrapers", since its fireproof combination of cast iron columns and cast iron beams developed into the modern steel frame that made modern skyscrapers possible. In 2013 funding was confirmed to convert the derelict building into offices. In 1857, Elisha Otis introduced
16698-671: The years immediately following World War II. Early examples include Edificio España (Spain) and Torre Breda (Italy). From the 1930s onward, skyscrapers began to appear in various cities in East and Southeast Asia as well as in Latin America . Finally, they also began to be constructed in cities in Africa , the Middle East , South Asia , and Oceania from the late 1950s. Skyscraper projects after World War II typically rejected
16836-770: Was El Sol Rojo , constructed outside the Estadio Azteca for the 1968 Summer Olympics "Cultural Olympiad" events in Mexico City . Many of his public art works were commissioned by renowned architects; for example, I.M. Pei commissioned La Grande Voile , a 25-ton, 40-foot high (12 m) stabile sculpture for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1966. Most of Calder's monumental stationary and mobile sculptures were made after 1962 at Etablissements Biémont in Tours , France. He would create
16974-403: Was a commission from Dallas-based Braniff International Airways to paint a full-size Douglas DC-8 -62 four-engined jet as a "flying canvas". George Stanley Gordon , founder of the New York City advertising agency Gordon and Shortt, approached Calder with the idea of painting a jet in 1972, but Calder responded that he did not paint toys. When Gordon told him it was a real, full-sized airliner he
17112-489: Was a mechanical engineer, that's all". At Stevens, Calder was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity and excelled in mathematics. He was well-liked and the class yearbook contained the following description, "Sandy is evidently always happy, or perhaps up to some joke, for his face is always wrapped up in that same mischievous, juvenile grin. This is certainly the index to the man's character in this case, for he
17250-779: Was a well-known sculptor who created many public installations, a majority of them in Philadelphia. Calder's mother was a professional portrait artist , who had studied at the Académie Julian and the Sorbonne in Paris from around 1888 until 1893. She moved to Philadelphia, where she met Stirling Calder while studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts . Calder's parents married on February 22, 1895. Alexander Calder's sister, Margaret Calder Hayes,
17388-484: Was bought for $ 18.5 million in 2012. Calder's 7.5-foot-long hanging mobile Poisson volant (Flying Fish) (1957) fetched $ 25.9 million, setting an auction record for the sculptor at Christie's New York in 2014. Beginning in 1966, winners of the National Magazine Awards are awarded an "Ellie", a copper-colored stabile resembling an elephant, which was designed by Calder. Two months after his death,
17526-723: Was commissioned but went uncompleted following his death. In 1975 Calder was commissioned to paint a BMW 3.0 CSL automobile, which would be the first vehicle in the BMW Art Car Project. Calder created over 2,000 pieces of jewelry over the course of his career, many as gifts for friends. Several pieces reflect his fascination with art from Africa and other continents. They were mostly made of brass and steel, with bits of ceramic, wood and glass. Calder rarely used solder; when he needed to join strips of metal, he linked them with loops, bound them with snippets of wire or fashioned rivets. Calder created his first pieces in 1906 at
17664-621: Was first applied to buildings of steel-framed construction of at least 10 stories in the late 19th century, a result of public amazement at the tall buildings being built in major American cities like New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Chicago , Detroit , and St. Louis . The first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building , originally 10 stories with a height of 42 m or 138 ft, in Chicago in 1885; two additional stories were added. Some point to Philadelphia's 10-story Jayne Building (1849–50) as
17802-489: Was held in 1915. During Calder's high school years (1912–1915), the family moved back and forth between New York and California. In each new location, Calder's parents reserved cellar space as a studio for their son. Near the end of this period, Calder stayed with friends in California while his parents moved back to New York, so that he could graduate from Lowell High School in San Francisco . Calder graduated with
17940-424: Was in 17th-century Edinburgh , Scotland, where a defensive city wall defined the boundaries of the city. Due to the restricted land area available for development, the houses increased in height instead. Buildings of 11 stories were common, and there are records of buildings as high as 14 stories. Many of the stone-built structures can still be seen today in the old town of Edinburgh. The oldest iron framed building in
18078-659: Was in 1927 at the Gallery of Jacques Seligmann in Paris. His first solo show in a US commercial gallery was in 1928 at the Weyhe Gallery in New York City. He exhibited with the Abstraction-Création group in Paris in 1933. In 1935, he had his first solo museum exhibition in the United States at The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago . In New York, he was championed from the early 1930s by
18216-445: Was installed on Bunker Hill, Los Angeles to serve as "a distinctive landmark". The plaza site was designed in tiers to maximize the sculpture's visual effects. In 1974, Calder unveiled two sculptures, Flamingo at Federal Plaza and Universe at Sears Tower , in Chicago, Illinois, accompanied by the exhibition Alexander Calder: A Retrospective Exhibition, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago which opened simultaneously with
18354-596: Was instrumental in the development of the UC Berkeley Art Museum . Four-year-old Calder posed nude for his father's sculpture The Man Cub , a cast of which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In 1902 he also completed his earliest sculpture, a clay elephant. In 1905 his father contracted tuberculosis , and Calder's parents moved to a ranch in Oracle, Arizona , leaving
18492-409: Was proposing, the artist immediately gave his approval. Gordon felt that Braniff, known for melding the worlds of fashion and design with the world of aviation, would be the perfect company to carry out the idea. Braniff Chairman Harding Lawrence was highly receptive and a contract was drawn up in 1973 calling for the painting of one Douglas DC-8-62 jet liner, dubbed Flying Colors , and 50 gouaches for
18630-438: Was renamed for Everett Dirksen to honor the longtime Illinois Senator after his death in 1969. The Federal Building was renamed in 1975 to honor John C. Kluczynski , U.S. Representative from Illinois from 1951 until his death in 1975. The Post Office remains unnamed for an individual, but features a large bust and monument to 19th century Chicago Post Office manager George B. Armstrong, the founder and original superintendent of
18768-454: Was the concept of the "tube" structural system , including the "framed tube", "trussed tube", and "bundled tube". His "tube concept", using all the exterior wall perimeter structure of a building to simulate a thin-walled tube, revolutionized tall building design. These systems allow greater economic efficiency, and also allow skyscrapers to take on various shapes, no longer needing to be rectangular and box-shaped. The first building to employ
18906-613: Was the first steel-framed building with soaring vertical bands to emphasize the height of the building and is therefore considered to be the first early skyscraper. In 1889, the Mole Antonelliana in Italy was 197 m (549 ft) tall. Most early skyscrapers emerged in the land-strapped areas of New York City and Chicago toward the end of the 19th century. A land boom in Melbourne , Australia between 1888 and 1891 spurred
19044-560: Was tried for tax evasion in 1931. The Palmer House hotel garage, Majestic hotel, and the Great Northern Office building were demolished in 1961. Tenants occupied the new U.S. Courthouse, the first of the complex's three buildings to be completed, in 1964. The government began demolition of the old post office in 1965 to clear the site for the two remaining buildings. The Loop Station Post Office and new Federal Building were completed in 1973 and 1974 respectively. The courthouse
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