Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer , using bricks and mortar . Typically, rows of bricks called courses are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall .
166-511: Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by size. For example, in the UK a brick is defined as a unit having dimensions less than 337.5 mm × 225 mm × 112.5 mm (13.3 in × 8.9 in × 4.4 in) and a block is defined as a unit having one or more dimensions greater than the largest possible brick. Brick is a popular medium for constructing buildings, and examples of brickwork are found through history as far back as
332-611: A carnelian bead identified with the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senusret I , whose reign is dated to 1971–1926 BC. A stela and a statuette of the Egyptian pharaohs Senusret III and Amenemhet III have also been found. However, it is unclear when they first arrived at Ugarit. In the Amarna letters , messages from Ugarit c. 1350 BC written by Ammittamru I , Niqmaddu II , and his queen have been discovered. From
498-464: A lap —at the beginning of a course . In some cases these special shapes or sizes are manufactured. In the diagrams below, some of the cuts most commonly used for generating a lap are coloured as follows: Less frequently used cuts are all coloured as follows: A nearly universal rule in brickwork is that perpends should not be contiguous across courses . Walls, running linearly and extending upwards, can be of varying depth or thickness. Typically,
664-400: A spread footing extending out 11 feet (3.4 m) under the surrounding streets, spreading the weight of the building over a large area of earth. The building was designed to settle 8 inches (200 mm), but by 1905 had settled that much and "several inches more", necessitating reconstruction of the first floor. By 1948, it had settled 20 inches (51 cm), resulting in a step down from
830-636: A "dark period" in ancient Egyptian history, spanned about 100 years after the end of the Old Kingdom from about 2181 to 2055 BC. Very little monumental evidence survives from this period, especially from the early part of it. The First Intermediate Period was a dynamic time when the rule of Egypt was roughly divided between two areas: Heracleopolis in Lower Egypt and Thebes in Upper Egypt. These two kingdoms eventually came into conflict, and
996-422: A "thoroughly puritanical" example of commercial style. European critics were even less approving. In the words of French architect Jacques Hermant, "The Monadnock was no longer the result of an artist responding to particular needs with intelligence and drawing from them all of the possible consequences. It is the work of a laborer who, without the slightest study, super-imposes 15 strictly identical stories to make
1162-578: A 3rd-millennium BC culture postulated based on a collection of artefacts confiscated in 2001. In modern scholarship, the chronology of the Bronze Age Levant is divided into: The term Neo-Syria is used to designate the early Iron Age . The old Syrian period was dominated by the Eblaite first kingdom , Nagar and the Mariote second kingdom . The Akkadians conquered large areas of
1328-404: A Single Flemish bond one and a half bricks thick: Overhead sections of alternate (odd and even) courses of single Flemish bond of one and a half bricks' thickness The colour-coded plans highlight facing bricks in the east–west wall. An elevation for this east–west wall is shown to the right. For a double Flemish bond of one and a half bricks' thickness, facing bricks and the bricks behind
1494-501: A block then stops when he finds the block high enough." Other critics saw this lack of style as "natural" and what made the Monadnock truly modern. New York critic Barr Feree wrote in 1892 that "There are no attempts at facades ... no ornamental appendages, nothing but a succession of windows, frankly stating that the structure is an office building, devoted to business, needing and using every available surface." Other critics praised
1660-513: A building simple yet majestic." In 1973, the Chicago City Council voted unanimously to designate the Monadnock a Chicago Landmark , stating that "The two halves of this building provide a unique perspective for examining the history and development of modern architecture. ... Together, they mark the end of one building tradition and the beginning of another." Critics of the Monadnock's landmark status objected that it would prevent
1826-461: A cavity, load-bearing requirements, expense, and the era during which the architect was or is working. Wall thickness specification has proven considerably various, and while some non-load-bearing brick walls may be as little as half a brick thick, or even less when shiners are laid stretcher bond in partition walls, others brick walls are much thicker. The Monadnock Building in Chicago, for example,
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#17327974507911992-533: A challenging task for the bricklayer to correctly maintain while constructing a wall whose courses are partially obscured by scaffold, and interrupted by door or window openings, or other bond-disrupting obstacles. If the bricklayer frequently stops to check that bricks are correctly arranged, then masonry in a raking monk bond can be expensive to build. Occasionally, brickwork in such a raking monk bond may contain minor errors of header and stretcher alignment some of which may have been silently corrected by incorporating
2158-408: A compensating irregularity into the brickwork in a course further up the wall. In spite of these complexities and their associated costs, the bond has proven a common choice for constructing brickwork in the north of Europe. Raking courses in monk bond may—for instance—be staggered in such a way as to generate the appearance of diagonal lines of stretchers. One method of achieving this effect relies on
2324-434: A course begins with a quoin stretcher, the course will ordinarily terminate with a quoin stretcher at the other end. The next course up will begin with a quoin header. For the course's second brick, a queen closer is laid, generating the lap of the bond. The third brick along is a stretcher, and is—on account of the lap—centred above the header below. This second course then resumes its paired run of stretcher and header, until
2490-432: A decision was forced when the city proposed an ordinance restricting the height of buildings to 150 feet (46 m). To protect future income potential, Aldis sought a permit for a 16-story building immediately. The building commissioner, although "staggered by the sixteen story plan", granted the permit on June 3, 1889. With its 17 stories (16 rentable plus an attic), its 215-foot-high (66 m) load-bearing walls were
2656-407: A fitting aesthetic finish. Despite there being no masonry connection between the leaves, their transverse rigidity still needs to be guaranteed. The device used to satisfy this need is the insertion at regular intervals of wall ties into the cavity wall's mortar beds. Flemish bond has one stretcher between headers, with the headers centred over the stretchers in the courses below. Where
2822-418: A full three bricks thick: Overhead sections of alternate (odd and even) courses of double Flemish bond of three bricks' thickness The colour-coded plans highlight facing bricks in the east–west wall. An elevation for this east–west wall is shown to the right. This bond has two stretchers between every header with the headers centred over the perpend between the two stretchers in the course below in
2988-491: A gentle curve at the base of the building and an outward flare to form an austere parapet at the top. The gentle swelling at base and cornice, observed historian Donald Hoffman, "came very close to the bell-shaped column the Egyptians had derived from papyrus". The corners of the building are gracefully chamfered as they rise to the top and the oriel windows are chamfered at their base. The floor divisions are not marked on
3154-431: A half bricks' thickness The colour-coded plans highlight facing bricks in the east–west wall. An elevation for this east–west wall is shown to the right. For a still more substantial wall, two headers may be laid directly behind the face header, a further two pairs of headers laid at 90° behind the face stretcher, and then finally a stretcher laid to the rear of these four headers. This pattern generates brickwork
3320-503: A half to the left, and one to the right, generates the appearance of lines of stretchers running from the upper left hand side of the wall down to the lower right. Such an example of a raking monk bond layout is shown in the New Malden Library, Kingston upon Thames , Greater London. Bronze Age The Bronze Age ( c. 3300 – c. 1200 BC ) was a historical period characterised principally by
3486-424: A large ornamental copper cornice at the roof line. Massive blocks of red granite, 6 feet (1.8 m) thick, frame the large, two-story entrances. The projecting oriel windows of the original are repeated, but alternate in a pattern of two four-window bays to one recessed strip of windows to create the undulating appearance of the facade that was an early trademark of Holabird & Roche. Carl Condit, historian of
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#17327974507913652-400: A model for preservation nationwide." The restored Monadnock is divided into offices of from 250 square feet (23 m ) to 6,000 square feet (560 m ) As of 2008 , it was 98.9 percent leased; the 300 tenants are primarily independent professional firms and entrepreneurs. Rents range from $ 21 to $ 23 per square foot ($ 226 to $ 247 per square meter), plus electricity. The building
3818-562: A pen shop with glass cases, a shoe-shine stand, and other service establishments represented, in Donnell's words, "the kind of small-scale entrepreneurs who occupied those spaces at the turn of the century, the kind of people who bring vitality and life to a building because they have a stake in it." The restoration was a success both critically and commercially. The building was 80 percent occupied when bought in 1979 and rented for $ 5.50 per square foot ($ 59.20 per square meter). By 1982, it
3984-402: A permanence not enjoyed by manuscripts. These inscriptions can commonly be subdivided into four parts: a reference to the date and place, the naming of the event commemorated, the list of gifts given to the artisan in exchange for the bronze, and a dedication. The relative points of reference these vessels provide have enabled historians to place most of the vessels within a certain time frame of
4150-579: A power vacuum in Mesopotamia. At its beginning, Mitanni's major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids . However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni and Egypt allied to protect their mutual interests from the threat of Hittite domination. At the height of its power during the 14th century BC, Mitanni had outposts centred on its capital, Washukanni , which archaeologists have located on
4316-505: A powerful mass became, prophetically, a forerunner of the 'slab skyscraper'—a style not popular until the late 1920s" and that "the two sections ... make, as an ensemble, one of the strongest, yet refined architectural statements in the development of twentieth century architecture." Its nomination as a National Historic Landmark in 1976, as part of the South Dearborn Street – Printing House Row Historic District , included
4482-400: A queen closer on every alternate course: Double Flemish bond of one brick's thickness: overhead sections of alternate (odd and even) courses, and side elevation The colour-coded plans highlight facing bricks in the east–west wall. An elevation for this east–west wall is shown to the right. A simple way to add some width to the wall would be to add stretching bricks at the rear, making
4648-412: A quoin stretcher at the corner of the wall. This fact has no bearing on the appearance of the wall; the choice of brick appears to the spectator like any ordinary header: Overhead plans of alternate (odd and even) courses of double Flemish bond of one and a half bricks' thickness For a more substantial wall, a header may be laid directly behind the face header, a further two headers laid at 90° behind
4814-550: A series of lots in the area on Peter Brooks' behalf, including a 70-by-200-foot (21 by 61 m) site on the corner of Jackson and Dearborn streets. The location was remote, yet attractive for several reasons. The construction of the Chicago Board of Trade Building in 1885 had made nearby LaSalle Street the city's prime financial district, driving up property values, and railroad companies were buying up land further south for new terminal buildings, creating further speculation in
4980-484: A single, double-loaded corridor, which was appointed with a 3-foot-high (0.91 m) wainscot of white Carrara marble, red oak trim, and feather-chipped glass that allowed outside light to filter from the offices on each side into the hallways. Floors were covered with hand-carved marble mosaic tiles. Skylit open staircases were made of bronze-plated cast iron on upper floors. On the ground floor, they were crafted in cast aluminum—an exotic and expensive material at
5146-449: A situation;... [but] projections mean dirt, nor do they add strength to the building;... one great nuisance [is] the lodgment of pigeons and sparrows. While Root was on vacation, Burnham had a draftsman create a "straight up-and-down, uncompromising, unornamented facade ." Objecting at first, Root later threw himself into the design, declaring that the heavy lines of an Egyptian pyramid had captured his imagination and that he would "throw
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5312-481: A slight flaring at the top, divided visually into five sections with a lotus-blossom decorative motif . This design was never approved, as Brooks waited for the real estate market in the south Loop, still mostly warehouses, to improve. Where Root was known for the detailed ornamentation of his designs (as seen in the Rookery Building ), Brooks was known for his stinginess and preference for simplicity. For
5478-481: A small administrative town) appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC. The Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over a century later, it briefly took over the other city-states and formed the short-lived First Babylonian Empire during what is also called the Old Babylonian Period . Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia used
5644-413: Is a very tall masonry building, and has load-bearing brick walls nearly two metres thick at the base. The majority of brick walls are however usually between one and three bricks thick. At these more modest wall thicknesses, distinct patterns have emerged allowing for a structurally sound layout of bricks internal to each particular specified thickness of wall. The advent during the mid twentieth century of
5810-479: Is also given separate names with respect to their position. Mortar placed horizontally below or top of a brick is called a bed , and mortar placed vertically between bricks is called a perpend . A brick made with just rectilinear dimensions is called a solid brick . Bricks might have a depression on both beds or on a single bed. The depression is called a frog , and the bricks are known as frogged bricks . Frogs can be deep or shallow but should never exceed 20% of
5976-639: Is an argument to be made that the Bronze Age never properly ended in China, as there is no recognisable transition to an Iron Age. Together with the jade art that precedes it, bronze was seen as a fine material for ritual art when compared with iron or stone. Bronze metallurgy in China originated in what is referred to as the Erlitou period, which some historians argue places it within the Shang. Others believe
6142-406: Is as thick as the width of one brick, but a wall is said to be one brick thick if it as wide as the length of a brick. Accordingly, a single-leaf wall is a half brick thickness; a wall with the simplest possible masonry transverse bond is said to be one brick thick, and so on. The thickness specified for a wall is determined by such factors as damp proofing considerations, whether or not the wall has
6308-576: Is called the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex . The Kulli culture , similar to that of the Indus Valley Civilisation , was located in southern Balochistan (Gedrosia) c. 2500–2000 BC . The economy was agricultural. Dams were found in several places, providing evidence for a highly developed water management system. Konar Sandal is associated with the hypothesized Jiroft culture ,
6474-662: Is conjectured to have been associated with the sudden arrival of the Sea Peoples , the kingdom disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived into the 8th century BC. Arzawa , in Western Anatolia, during the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, likely extended along southern Anatolia in a belt from near the Turkish Lakes region to the Aegean coast. Arzawa
6640-526: Is further conjectured that the same migrations spread the Uralic group of languages across Europe and Asia, with extant members of the family including Hungarian , Finnish and Estonian . In China, the earliest bronze artefacts have been found in the Majiayao culture site (3100–2700 BC). The term "Bronze Age" has been transferred to the archaeology of China from that of Western Eurasia, and there
6806-485: Is given a classification based on how it is laid, and how the exposed face is oriented relative to the face of the finished wall. The practice of laying uncut full-sized bricks wherever possible gives brickwork its maximum possible strength. In the diagrams below, such uncut full-sized bricks are coloured as follows: Occasionally though a brick must be cut to fit a given space, or to be the right shape for fulfilling some particular purpose such as generating an offset—called
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6972-449: Is here instinctively avoided. An innate feeling for proportion gives this great building inner consistency and logical purity." Modern critics have praised the Monadnock as one of the most important exemplars of the Chicago school, along with Louis Sullivan's Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building . It has been called "a triumph of unified design" comparable to Henry Hobson Richardson 's Marshall Field's Wholesale Store , and "one of
7138-599: Is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage over the entire length of the period, but especially between 850 and 550 BC. The Mumun period is known for the origins of intensive agriculture and complex societies in both the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago. The Middle Mumun pottery period culture of
7304-523: Is no consensus or universally used convention delimiting the "Bronze Age" in the context of Chinese prehistory . The "Early Bronze Age" in China is sometimes taken to be coterminous with the reign of the Shang dynasty (16th–11th centuries BC), and the Later Bronze Age with the subsequent Zhou dynasty (11th–3rd centuries BC), from the 5th century, called Iron Age China although there
7470-452: Is no reason why", he said, "any well-designed office building need be torn down because of obsolescence." Skidmore & Owings , who had pioneered functional design, were retained to lead a $ 125,000 program ($ 2.71 million in 2023 dollars) to restyle the main entrance, remodel the lobby and ground floor shops, modernize all the public spaces, and progressively modernize office suites as demand required. The modernization included covering
7636-496: Is one of the phenomenal features in the real estate market of this city. The erecting and successful renting of these structures has simply established, in an incredibly short period of time, an important business center at the southwest corner of Jackson and Dearborn streets, a point which was but a short time ago considered too far south for a prosperous business center. Early tenants, according to Rand McNally , included "great corporations, banks, and professional men ... among them
7802-764: Is part of the Printing House Row District , which also includes the Fisher Building , the Manhattan Building , and the Old Colony Building . When it was built, many critics called the building too extreme, and lacking in style. Others found in its lack of ornamentation the natural extension of its commercial purpose and an expression of modern business life. Early 20th-century European architects found inspiration in its attention to purpose and functional expression. It
7968-484: Is similar in color and profile to the original, but the design is more traditionally ornate. When completed, it was the largest office building in the world. The success of the building was the catalyst for an important new business center at the southern end of the Loop. The building was remodeled in 1938 in one of the first major skyscraper renovations ever undertaken—a bid, in part, to revolutionize how building maintenance
8134-502: Is the mortar upon which a brick is laid. A perpend is a vertical joint between any two bricks and is usually—but not always—filled with mortar. A "face brick" is a higher-quality brick, designed for use in visible external surfaces in face-work , as opposed to a "filler brick" for internal parts of the wall, or where the surface is to be covered with stucco or a similar coating, or where the filler bricks will be concealed by other bricks (in structures more than two bricks thick). A brick
8300-725: The Bronze Age . The fired-brick faces of the ziggurat of ancient Dur-Kurigalzu in Iraq date from around 1400 BC, and the brick buildings of ancient Mohenjo-daro in modern day Pakistan were built around 2600 BC. Much older examples of brickwork made with dried (but not fired) bricks may be found in such ancient locations as Jericho in Palestine, Çatal Höyük in Anatolia, and Mehrgarh in Pakistan. These structures have survived from
8466-484: The Chicago Daily Tribune called "the city's largest and most novel modernization job" in a move toward halting the destruction of Chicago's aging skyscrapers. Rejecting the term "modernization", Aldis called his plan "progressive styling", which he believed would revolutionize the way building maintenance was done to preserve millions of dollars worth of buildings that would otherwise be destroyed. "There
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#17327974507918632-532: The Igeum-dong site . Bronze was an important element in ceremonies and for mortuary offerings until 100 BC. Monadnock Building The Monadnock Building (historically the Monadnock Block ; pronounced / m ə ˈ n æ d n ɒ k / mə- NAD -nok ) is a 16-story skyscraper located at 53 West Jackson Boulevard in the south Loop area of Chicago. The north half of the building
8798-754: The Iranian plateau , centred in Anshan . From the mid-2nd millennium BC, Elam was centred in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a crucial role in both the Gutian Empire and the Iranian Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it. The Oxus civilisation was a Bronze Age Central Asian culture dated c. 2300–1700 BC and centred on the upper Amu Darya ( a.k.a. ). In
8964-529: The Kassite period c. 1500 – c. 1155 BC ). The usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used in the context of Mesopotamia. Instead, a division primarily based on art and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people. Ur , Kish , Isin , Larsa , and Nippur in
9130-641: The Kluczynski Federal Building across Jackson Street in 1974. By 1977, operating expenses were high, rents were low, and occupancy had fallen to 80 percent. Struggling to make loan payments, the owners were forced to sell the building to avoid foreclosure. It was purchased by a partnership headed by William S. Donnell in 1979 for $ 5 per square foot ($ 54 per square meter) or approximately $ 2 million ($ 8.4 million in 2023 dollars). The building Donnell purchased in 1979 had declined badly. The Dearborn entrances had been closed in,
9296-586: The Majiayao site in Gansu rather than at Xinjiang . The production of Erlitou represents the earliest large-scale metallurgy industry in the Central Plains of China. The influence of the Saima-Turbino metalworking tradition from the north is supported by a series of recent discoveries in China of many unique perforated spearheads with downward hooks and small loops on the same or opposite side of
9462-931: The Santa Fe , the Michigan Central , and the Chicago & Alton Railroads, and the American Exchange National and Globe Savings Banks". In 1897, the Union Elevated Railroad Company opened the Union Loop line of the Chicago "L" , the last leg of which ran immediately alongside the Van Buren side of the building. Aldis filed suit against the "L" in 1901 for $ 300,000 in damages ($ 11 million in 2023 dollars), complaining that: [the] means of access to
9628-459: The Stone Age to the modern day. Brick dimensions are expressed in construction or technical documents in two ways as co-ordinating dimensions and working dimensions. Brick size may be slightly different due to shrinkage or distortion due to firing, etc. An example of a co-ordinating metric commonly used for bricks in the UK is as follows: In this case the co-ordinating metric works because
9794-429: The cavity wall saw the popularisation and development of another method of strengthening brickwork—the wall tie. A cavity wall comprises two totally discrete walls, separated by an air gap, which serves both as barrier to moisture and heat. Typically the main loads taken by the foundations are carried there by the inner leaf, and the major functions of the external leaf are to protect the whole from weather, and to provide
9960-577: The southern Levant in cities such as Hazor , Jericho , and Beit She'an . The Hittite Empire was established during the 18th century BC in Hattusa , northern Anatolia . At its height in the 14th century BC, the Hittite Kingdom encompassed central Anatolia, southwestern Syria as far as Ugarit , and upper Mesopotamia . After 1180 BC, amid general turmoil in the Levant , which
10126-451: The "L" lines could recover damages if the property had been injured by noise, vibration, or the blocking of light, paving the way for many lawsuits to follow. A boom in new construction after 1926 created stiff competition for older buildings like the Monadnock. Occupancy declined from 87 percent in 1929 to 55 percent in 1937 and the building began to lose money. In 1938, building manager Graham Aldis (Owen's nephew) announced what
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#173279745079110292-515: The 10-story Montauk Building , in 1883, and the 11-story Rookery Building in 1888. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 had destroyed a 4-by-0.5-mile (6.44 km × 0.80 km) swath of the city between the Chicago River and Lake Michigan , and subsequent commercial development expanded into the area far south of the main business district along the river that would come to be known as "the Loop" . Between 1881 and 1885, Aldis bought
10458-422: The 16th to the 13th century BC, Ugarit remained in constant contact with Egypt and Cyprus ( Alashiya ). Mitanni was a loosely organised state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia, emerging c. 1500–1300 BC . Founded by an Indo-Aryan ruling class that governed a predominantly Hurrian population, Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Kassite Babylon created
10624-619: The 1975 Kluczynski Federal Building, Mies's last project, considered to mark the apex of his career. The triangular, 27-story Metropolitan Correctional Center , a detention center serving the Federal courts in the Dirksen Building and nearby Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building , is southwest of the Monadnock at Clark and LaSalle. The south leg of the Chicago Transit Authority elevated rail loop runs next to
10790-430: The 3rd millennium BC. The Bronze Age is characterised by the widespread use of bronze , though the introduction and development of bronze technology were not universally synchronous. Tin bronze technology requires systematic techniques: tin must be mined (mainly as the tin ore cassiterite ) and smelted separately, then added to hot copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of extensive use of metals and
10956-776: The 6th century BC attests to knowledge of iron smelting, yet bronze continues to occupy the seat of significance in the archaeological and historical record for some time after this. W. C. White argues that iron did not supplant bronze "at any period before the end of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC)" and that bronze vessels make up the majority of metal vessels through the Eastern Han period , or to 221 BC. The Chinese bronze artefacts generally are either utilitarian, like spear points or adze heads, or "ritual bronzes" , which are more elaborate versions in precious materials of everyday vessels, as well as tools and weapons. Examples are
11122-510: The BMAC had close international relations with the Indus Valley , the Iranian plateau , and possibly even indirectly with Mesopotamia. All civilisations were familiar with lost wax casting . According to a 2019 study, the BMAC was not a primary contributor to later South-Asian genetics. The Altai Mountains , in what is now southern Russia and central Mongolia , have been identified as
11288-666: The Bronze Age began in the Protodynastic Period c. 3150 BC . The archaic Early Bronze Age of Egypt , known as the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt , immediately followed the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt, c. 3100 BC . It is generally taken to include the First and Second dynasties, lasting from the Protodynastic Period until c. 2686 BC , or
11454-663: The Bronze Age in the Mediterranean basin are often characterised as a period of widespread societal collapse known as the Late Bronze Age collapse ( c. 1200 – c. 1150 BC ), although its severity and scope is debated among scholars. An ancient civilisation is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age if it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin , arsenic , or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from producing areas elsewhere. Bronze Age cultures were
11620-521: The Chicago firm of Carter, Drake, and Wight in 1872 and left to form Burnham & Root the following year. At Aldis's urging, the Brooks brothers had retained the then-fledgling firm to design the Grannis Block, which was their first major commission. Burnham and Root would become the architects of choice for the Brooks family, for whom they would complete the first high-rise building in Chicago,
11786-416: The Chicago school, has commented that: The general appearance of the Monadnock almost belies its masonry construction. The projecting bays with their large glass areas give the structure a light and open appearance in spite of its great mass. ... Stripped of every vestige of ornament, its rigorous geometry softened only by the slight inward curve of the wall at the top of the first story, the outward flare of
11952-599: The Early Bronze Age, the culture of the Kopet Dag oases and Altyndepe developed a proto-urban society. This corresponds to level IV at Namazga-Tepe . Altyndepe was a major centre even then. Pottery was wheel-turned. Grapes were grown. The height of this urban development was reached in the Middle Bronze Age c. 2300 BC , corresponding to level V at Namazga-Depe. This Bronze Age culture
12118-533: The Erlitou sites belong to the preceding Xia dynasty . The United States National Gallery of Art defines the Chinese Bronze Age as c. 2000 – c. 771 BC , a period that begins with the Erlitou culture and ends abruptly with the disintegration of Western Zhou rule. There is reason to believe that bronze work developed inside of China apart from outside influence. However,
12284-641: The Levant and were followed by the Amorite kingdoms , c. 2000–1600 BC , which arose in Mari , Yamhad , Qatna , and Assyria . From the 15th century BC onward, the term Amurru is usually applied to the region extending north of Canaan as far as Kadesh on the Orontes River . The earliest-known contact of Ugarit with Egypt (and the first exact dating of Ugaritic civilisation) comes from
12450-730: The Middle Bronze Age and Babylon , Calah , and Assur in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The Akkadian Empire (2335–2154 BC) became the dominant power in the region. After its fall, the Sumerians enjoyed a renaissance with the Neo-Sumerian Empire . Assyria , along with the Old Assyrian Empire ( c. 1800–1600 BC ), became a regional power under the Amorite king Shamshi-Adad I . The earliest mention of Babylon (then
12616-846: The Middle Kingdom. During the Second Intermediate Period , Ancient Egypt fell into disarray a second time between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom, best known for the Hyksos , whose reign comprised the Fifteenth and Sixteenth dynasties. The Hyksos first appeared in Egypt during the Eleventh Dynasty, began their climb to power in the Thirteenth Dynasty, and emerged from
12782-419: The Monadnock on Jackson Boulevard there was nothing on the south side of the street between State Street and the river but cheap one-story shacks, mere hovels. Every one thought Mr. Aldis was insane to build way out there on the ragged edge of the city. Later when he carried the building on through Van Buren Street they were sure he was. Early sketches show a 13-story building with Egyptian Revival ornament and
12948-481: The Monadnock to its original condition in painstaking detail. The project was, according to historian Donald Miller, the most comprehensive skyscraper restoration ever attempted at the time; it took thirteen years to complete. Working from original drawings discovered at the Art Institute of Chicago , and two old photographs, Donnell and John Vinci , one of the nation's leading preservation architects, restored
13114-445: The Monadnock, Brooks insisted that the architects refrain from elaborate ornamentation and produce instead "the effect of solidity and strength, or a design that will produce that effect, rather than ornament for a notable appearance." In an 1884 letter to Aldis, he wrote: My notion is to have no projecting surfaces or indentations, but to have everything flush. ... So tall and narrow a building must have some ornament in so conspicuous
13280-564: The Osiris funerary cult rose to dominate popular Ancient Egyptian religion . The period comprises two phases: the Eleventh Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes, and the Twelfth and Thirteenth dynasties, centred on el-Lisht . The unified kingdom was previously considered to comprise the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, but historians now consider part of the Thirteenth Dynasty to have belonged to
13446-836: The Second Intermediate Period in control of Avaris and the Nile Delta . By the Fifteenth Dynasty, they ruled lower Egypt. They were expelled at the end of the Seventeenth Dynasty . The New Kingdom of Egypt , also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, existed during the 16th–11th centuries BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period . It
13612-755: The Theban kings conquered the north, reunifying Egypt under a single ruler during the second part of the Eleventh Dynasty . The Bronze Age in Nubia started as early as 2300 BC. Egyptians introduced copper smelting to the Nubian city of Meroë in present-day Sudan c. 2600 BC . A furnace for bronze casting found in Kerma has been dated to 2300–1900 BC. The Middle Kingdom of Egypt spanned between 2055 and 1650 BC. During this period,
13778-620: The Western Zhou period, allowing them to trace the evolution of the vessels and the events they record. The Japanese archipelago saw the introduction of bronze during the early Yayoi period ( c. 300 BC ), which saw the introduction of metalworking and agricultural practices brought by settlers arriving from the continent. Bronze and iron smelting spread to the Japanese archipelago through contact with other ancient East Asian civilisations, particularly immigration and trade from
13944-445: The ancient Korean peninsula, and ancient mainland China. Iron was mainly used for agricultural and other tools, whereas ritual and ceremonial artefacts were mainly made of bronze. On the Korean Peninsula, the Bronze Age began c. 1000–800 BC . Initially centred around Liaoning and southern Manchuria, Korean Bronze Age culture exhibits unique typology and styles, especially in ritual objects. The Mumun pottery period
14110-617: The beginning of the Old Kingdom . With the First Dynasty, the capital moved from Abydos to Memphis with a unified Egypt ruled by an Egyptian god-king. Abydos remained the major holy land in the south. The hallmarks of ancient Egyptian civilisation, such as art, architecture and religion, took shape in the Early Dynastic Period. Memphis , in the Early Bronze Age, was the largest city of the time. The Old Kingdom of
14276-484: The bond's most symmetric form. The great variety of monk bond patterns allow for many possible layouts at the quoins, and many possible arrangements for generating a lap. A quoin brick may be a stretcher, a three-quarter bat, or a header. Queen closers may be used next to the quoins, but the practice is not mandatory. Monk bond may however take any of a number of arrangements for course staggering. The disposal of bricks in these often highly irregular raking patterns can be
14442-423: The bricks are laid also running linearly and extending upwards, forming wythes or leafs . It is as important as with the perpends to bond these leaves together. Historically, the dominant method for consolidating the leaves together was to lay bricks across them, rather than running linearly. Brickwork observing either or both of these two conventions is described as being laid in one or another bond . A leaf
14608-763: The building on Van Buren Street; the CTA's Brown , Orange , Pink , and Purple Lines are served by the Library-State/Van Buren stop one block to the east. The Jackson street subway station, serving the Blue Line, is on the Dearborn Street side of the building. Contemporary Chicago critics considered the building too radical a departure from Burnham & Root's previous designs and too extreme in its stark simplicity and disregard for prevailing aesthetic norms, calling it an "engineer's house" and
14774-479: The building to its condition when first constructed, before any modernizations, working piecemeal as offices became vacant. The color of the shellac was matched to closets where the wood had not been darkened by exposure to light. The mosaic floors were recreated by Italian craftsmen at a cost of $ 50 per square foot ($ 538 per square meter). A local firm was found that could reproduce the complicated process of sandblasting and hide glue application used to create
14940-414: The corridor through to the street. Fluorescent lighting was prohibited and only gold leaf lettering on the glass was permitted for signage. Shops, all individually owned, were selected to fit the architectural character of the building. A florist, for example, was chosen that evoked a turn-of-the-century atmosphere, as well as a barbershop with vintage fixtures and decor. A tobacconist with oak furnishings,
15106-530: The development of trade networks. A 2013 report suggests that the earliest tin-alloy bronze was a foil dated to the mid-5th millennium BC from a Vinča culture site in Pločnik , Serbia , although this culture is not conventionally considered part of the Bronze Age; however, the dating of the foil has been disputed. West Asia and the Near East were the first regions to enter the Bronze Age, beginning with
15272-733: The discovery of the Europoid Tarim mummies in Xinjiang has caused some archaeologists such as Johan Gunnar Andersson , Jan Romgard, and An Zhimin to suggest a possible route of transmission from the West eastwards. According to An Zhimin, "It can be imagined that initially, bronze and iron technology took its rise in West Asia, first influenced the Xinjiang region, and then reached the Yellow River valley, providing external impetus for
15438-422: The exterior; the unbroken edifice is interrupted only by a series of oriel windows , separated by rows of single thin silled windows set into the vertical face. The entryways are small, single-height portals topped with plain stone lintels. The south half preserves the lines and color of the older building, but is vertically divided by a string course over the second story, emphasizing the building's base, and
15604-478: The face stretcher, and then finally a stretcher laid to the rear of these two headers. This pattern generates brickwork a full two bricks thick: Overhead sections of alternate (odd and even) courses of double Flemish bond of two bricks' thickness The colour-coded plans highlight facing bricks in the east–west wall. An elevation for this east–west wall is shown to the right. Overhead sections of alternate (odd and even) courses of double Flemish bond of two and
15770-401: The facing bricks may be laid in groups of four bricks and a half-bat. The half-bat sits at the centre of the group and the four bricks are placed about the half-bat, in a square formation. These groups are laid next to each other for the length of a course, making brickwork one and a half bricks thick. To preserve the bond, it is necessary to lay a three-quarter bat instead of a header following
15936-651: The fall of the monarchy. The name "Israel" first appears c. 1209 BC , at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the very beginning of the Iron Age, on the Merneptah Stele raised by the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah . The Arameans were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic pastoral people who originated in what is now modern Syria (Biblical Aram ) during the Late Bronze and early Iron Age. Large groups migrated to Mesopotamia, where they intermingled with
16102-414: The final design. The Monadnock's final height was calculated to be the highest economically viable for a load-bearing wall design, requiring walls 6 feet (1.8 m) thick at the bottom and 18 inches (46 cm) thick at the top. Greater height would have required walls of such thickness that they would have reduced the rentable space too greatly. The final height was much dithered over by the owners, but
16268-412: The final pair is reached, whereupon a second and final queen closer is inserted as the penultimate brick, mirroring the arrangement at the beginning of the course, and duly closing the bond. Some examples of Flemish bond incorporate stretchers of one colour and headers of another. This effect is commonly a product of treating the header face of the heading bricks while the bricks are being baked as part of
16434-474: The first to develop writing . According to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia , which used cuneiform script, and Egypt , which used hieroglyphs , developed the earliest practical writing systems. Bronze Age civilisations gained a technological advantage due to bronze's harder and more durable properties than other metals available at the time. While terrestrial iron is naturally abundant,
16600-414: The front and rear duplication of the pattern. If the wall is arranged such that the bricks at the rear do not have this pattern, then the brickwork is said to be single Flemish bond . Flemish bond brickwork with a thickness of one brick is the repeating pattern of a stretcher laid immediately to the rear of the face stretcher, and then next along the course, a header. A lap (correct overlap) is generated by
16766-466: The ground floor had been "defaced by garish signs", and the brick had been painted and was peeling. Inside, the marble wainscoting had been painted over and many of the original oak doors had been replaced with cheaper mahogany. The decorative stair rails had been enclosed, and some stairways and corridors had been closed off completely. Much of the original mosaic tile had been demolished—some floors were carpeted, others tiled in vinyl or terrazzo. Half of
16932-685: The headwaters of the Khabur River . Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to the Hittites and later Assyrian attacks, eventually being reduced to a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire . The Israelites were an ancient Semitic-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods (15th–6th centuries BC), and lived in the region in smaller numbers after
17098-636: The higher temperature required for smelting, 1,250 °C (2,280 °F), in addition to the greater difficulty of working with it, placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Tin's lower melting point of 232 °C (450 °F) and copper's moderate melting point of 1,085 °C (1,985 °F) placed both these metals within the capabilities of Neolithic pottery kilns , which date to 6000 BC and were able to produce temperatures of at least 900 °C (1,650 °F). Copper and tin ores are rare since there were no tin bronzes in West Asia before trading in bronze began in
17264-402: The length of a single brick (215 mm) is equal to the total of the width of a brick (102.5 mm) plus a perpend (10 mm) plus the width of a second brick (102.5 mm). There are many other brick sizes worldwide, and many of them use this same co-ordinating principle. As the most common bricks are rectangular prisms, six surfaces are named as follows: Mortar placed between bricks
17430-435: The lobby walls and ceilings. The Dearborn Street entrances were reopened and their massive granite lintels and surrounds cleared of layers of black paint or replaced. A source was found for the molded bricks needed to repair or replace the curved corners. Large plate glass windows at the entrance were removed and smaller double-hung windows were replaced that conformed to the original design. Fiberglass shades resembling
17596-441: The manufacturing process. Some of the header faces are exposed to wood smoke, generating a grey-blue colour, while other simply vitrified until they reach a deeper blue colour. Some headers have a glazed face, caused by using salt in the firing. Sometimes Staffordshire Blue bricks are used for the heading bricks. Brickwork that appears as Flemish bond from both the front and the rear is double Flemish bond , so called on account of
17762-418: The mosaic floors with rubber tile and terrazzo , enclosing the elevators and ornamental stairways, and replacing the marble and oak finishes in the corridors and offices with modern materials. By the end of 1938, 35 new tenants had signed leases and 11 existing tenants had leased additional space in the building. In 1966, Aldis & Co., which had managed the building for the Brooks estate for 75 years,
17928-517: The most exciting aesthetic experiences our commercial architecture has ever produced". The building was one of the first five selected by the Chicago Commission on Architectural Landmarks in 1958, "in recognition of its original design and its historical interest as the highest wall-bearing structure in Chicago". The commission went on to note that the "restrained use of brick, soaring massive walls, omission of ornamental forms, unite in
18094-541: The most prolific in the city and the acknowledged leader of the Chicago school of architecture. The north half had struggled with cost overruns and Holabird & Roche presented a more cost-effective design. The design, for two buildings called the Katahdin and Wachusett (also named for New England mountains), connected them to the north half as a single structure at an estimated cost of $ 800,000 ($ 27.1 million in 2023 dollars). Construction began in 1892, under
18260-559: The native Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) population. The Aramaeans never had a unified empire; they were divided into independent kingdoms all across the Near East. After the Bronze Age collapse, their political influence was confined to Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the 8th century BC. The Mesopotamian Bronze Age began c. 3500 BC and ended with
18426-436: The necessary demolition of the building, which was "an excellent example of a building that is ... no longer fulfilling the functions it was designed to fulfill" and "a wasting asset" that underperformed the market and was far less valuable than the land on which it stood would be. The National Register of Historic Places , to which the Monadnock was added in 1970, noted that "the sheer, unadorned walls of this building forming
18592-401: The north half. Connected on every floor except the top one and sharing a common basement, each of the four component buildings was equipped with its own heating system, elevators, stairs, and plumbing to facilitate a separate sale if required. The combined final cost in 1893 was $ 2.5 million ($ 84.8 million in 2023 dollars). When complete, the Monadnock was the largest office building in
18758-408: The numerous large sacrificial tripods known as dings ; there are many other distinct shapes. Surviving identified Chinese ritual bronzes tend to be highly decorated, often with the taotie motif, which involves stylised animal faces. These appear in three main motif types: those of demons, symbolic animals, and abstract symbols. Many large bronzes also bear cast inscriptions that are the bulk of
18924-408: The open stairwells. The north half corridors are 20 feet (6.1 m) wide and the south half corridors are 11 feet 6 inches (3.51 m). In the north half, there are two open stairs in the center at the one third points, with perforated risers , white marble treads, and decorative steel railings. There are two banks of four elevators on the west side of the corridor, one for passengers and
19090-560: The original linen versions were installed to preserve the appearance of the facade. The average cost of the restoration work was $ 1 million per floor ($ 2.46 million in 2023 dollars) in 1989, or $ 47 per square foot ($ 506 per square meter). Donnell's goal was that the Monadnock would "not only look as it originally did, it [would] also live as it used to", and he sought tenants for the street-level shops that were similar to their 19th-century occupants. Shop windows were cleared of all signs and obstructions to preserve intended view from
19256-451: The original feather chipped glass. This reproduced glass was used to restore the partitions and naturally lit corridors of Root's design. To recreate the doors and wood trim, Donnell purchased the firm that had created the original oak woodwork—and still used the same 19th century machinery. Perfect replicas of the original aluminum light fixtures were fabricated from early photographs and carbon filament light bulbs were obtained to recreate
19422-427: The original lighting effect. A single surviving aluminum staircase was discovered behind a wall, restored, and used as a model to rebuild the lobby stairways and metalwork. The wainscoting on the upper floors was restored with marble salvaged from the recently modernized, nearby 19 LaSalle and Manhattan Buildings . Marble was purchased from the same Italian quarry that supplied Root's original construction to restore
19588-698: The origins of agriculture. Foothill regions and glacial melt streams supported Bronze Age agro-pastoralists who developed complex east–west trade routes between Central Asia and China that introduced wheat and barley to China and millet to Central Asia. The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), also known as the Oxus civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in Central Asia, dated c. 2400 – c. 1600 BC , located in present-day northern Afghanistan , eastern Turkmenistan , southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan , centred on
19754-447: The other for freight. In the south half, there is a single bank of elevators on the north half of the length. The southern bank was abandoned and slabbed over on each floor. There is a flight of stairs behind each of these shafts with marble treads, closed cast iron risers, and ornamental balusters. The basic office suite is 600 square feet (56 m ), consisting of one outer office and two or more inner offices. Heavy internal walls at
19920-532: The parapet, and the progressive rounding of the corners from bottom to top, subtly proportioned and scaled, the Monadnock is a severe yet powerfully expressive composition in horizontal and vertical lines. The Monadnock rests on the floating foundation system invented by Root for the Montauk Building that revolutionized the way tall buildings were built on Chicago's spongy soil. A 2-foot (0.61 m) layer of concrete, reinforced with steel beams, forms
20086-588: The point of origin of a cultural enigma termed the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon . It is conjectured that changes in climate in this region c. 2000 BC }}, and the ensuing ecological, economic, and political changes, triggered a rapid and massive migration westward into northeast Europe, eastward into China, and southward into Vietnam and Thailand across a frontier of some 4,000 mi (6,000 km). This migration took place in just five to six generations and led to peoples from Finland in
20252-513: The quarter and halfway points, the arches of which manifest Root's innovative wind bracing, mark the boundaries of the four original buildings. The Monadnock belongs to the Printing House Row District , a National Historic Landmark which includes the Manhattan Building, the Old Colony Building , and the Fisher Building , some of Chicago's seminal early skyscrapers . The Manhattan Building, built by William LeBaron Jenney in 1890,
20418-531: The region laid the foundations for astronomy , mathematics, and astrology . The following dates are approximate. The Bronze Age in the Near East can be divided into Early, Middle and Late periods. The dates and phases below apply solely to the Near East, not universally. However, some archaeologists propose a "high chronology", which extends periods such as the Intermediate Bronze Age by 300 to 500–600 years, based on material analysis of
20584-473: The regional Bronze Age is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egyptian civilisation attained its first continuous peak of complexity and achievement—the first of three "Kingdom" periods which marked the high points of civilisation in the lower Nile Valley (the others being the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom ). The First Intermediate Period of Egypt , often described as
20750-654: The rise of the Mesopotamian civilisation of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC. Cultures in the ancient Near East practised intensive year-round agriculture; developed writing systems ; invented the potter's wheel , created centralised governments (usually in the form of hereditary monarchies ), formulated written law codes, developed city-states , nation-states and empires; embarked on advanced architectural projects; and introduced social stratification , economic and civil administration, slavery , and practised organised warfare, medicine, and religion. Societies in
20916-539: The rise of the Shang and Zhou civilizations." According to Jan Romgard, "bronze and iron tools seem to have traveled from west to east as well as the use of wheeled wagons and the domestication of the horse." There are also possible links to Seima-Turbino culture , "a transcultural complex across northern Eurasia", the Eurasian steppe, and the Urals. However, the oldest bronze objects found in China so far were discovered at
21082-522: The said building ... had been cut off and the light, air, and view obstructed, and the enjoyment of the property disturbed by the throwing of smoke, dust, cinders, and filth ... by the creating and causing of loud and ominous noises, and by the causing of the ground to shake and vibrate ... said building and premises are greatly damaged. Aldis lost the case, but won on appeal, when the Supreme Court of Illinois found that owners of property abutting
21248-457: The same iron framed masonry construction as the original. The Wachusett was entirely steel framed . Where the north half required great thicknesses of brick in the load-bearing walls, the addition employed only a thin facing of brick and terracotta trim, affording larger expanses of glass and faster, less expensive construction. The south half cost 15 percent less, weighed 15 percent less, and had 15 percent more rentable space than
21414-466: The sixteen elevators were still manually operated. "It was as if it had been partly updated every ten years throughout its history", said Donnell, "it was never done over in its entirety." Donnell, who had studied architecture at Harvard , planned to gut the building and construct a new, modern office complex inside the historic shell. Failing to obtain financing for the remodeling, he embarked instead on an incremental, "pay as you go" project to restore
21580-706: The socket, which could be associated with the Seima-Turbino visual vocabulary of southern Siberia. The metallurgical centres of northwestern China, especially the Qijia culture in Gansu and Longshan culture in Shaanxi , played an intermediary role in this process. Iron use in China dates as early as the Zhou dynasty ( c. 1046 – 256 BC), but remained minimal. Chinese literature authored during
21746-517: The south in 1893 for $ 360,000 ($ 12.2 million in 2023 dollars). Aldis recommended the firm of Holabird & Roche , who had designed the Pontiac Building for Peter Brooks in 1891, to extend the Monadnock south to Van Buren. William Holabird and Martin Roche had trained together in the office of William LeBaron Jenney , and in 1881 formed their own firm, which would become one of
21912-462: The southeastern end of the Loop. Brooks commissioned Burnham & Root to design a building for the site in 1884, and the project was announced in 1885, with a brief trade journal notice that the building would cost $ 850,000 ($ 28.8 million in 2023 dollars). The Chicago building community had little faith in Brooks' choice of location. Architect Edwin Renwick would say: When Owen Aldis put up
22078-517: The southern Korean Peninsula gradually adopted bronze production ( c. 700–600 BC ) after a period when Liaoning-style bronze daggers and other bronze artefacts were exchanged as far as the interior part of the Southern Peninsula ( c. 900–700 BC ). The bronze daggers lent prestige and authority to the personages who wielded and were buried with them in high-status megalithic burials at south-coastal centres such as
22244-444: The street to the ground floor. The entire east wall is supported on caissons sunk to the hardpan , installed when the subway Blue Line was dug under Dearborn Street in 1940. The narrow building allows an external exposure to all of the 300 offices, which pass natural light via double hung outside windows through feather-chipped glass transoms and hallway partitions into the single central corridor. Skylights bring sunlight into
22410-443: The structure so that the metal frame would be protected even if the facing brick were to be destroyed. The Brooks' decision to construct a building of such scale and in such an unlikely location was vindicated by the Monadnock's success—it was the most profitable investment they ever made. The Economist, a Chicago real estate journal, conceded in 1892 that: the rapidity with which the Monadnock and Kearsarge ... have been rented
22576-527: The supervision of Corydon T. Purdy who would later earn accolades as the structural engineer for many famous Chicago and New York skyscrapers. The addition, 17 stories high, preserved the color and vertically massed profile of the original, but was more traditionally ornate in its design, with grander entranceways and more neoclassical touches. The building reflected in its design the transition taking place in skyscraper design from load-bearing walls to steel frame construction. The Katahdin, built first, used
22742-626: The surface to be covered with glass. The district overlaps geographically with the Printer's Row neighborhood, originally the center of Chicago's printing and publishing industry, and now mostly converted to residential housing. The area is also home to the largest public library in the world, the Harold Washington Library , named for Chicago's first African-American mayor, and the Loop campus of Depaul University , America's largest Roman Catholic university. Immediately to
22908-413: The surviving body of early Chinese writing and have helped historians and archaeologists piece together the history of China, especially during the Zhou dynasty. The bronzes of the Western Zhou document large portions of history not found in the extant texts that were often composed by persons of varying rank and possibly even social class. Further, the medium of cast bronze lends the record they preserve
23074-468: The tallest of any commercial structure in the world. To support the towering structure and reinforce against wind, the masonry walls were braced with an interior frame of cast and wrought iron . Root devised for this frame the first attempt at a portal system of wind bracing in America, in which iron struts were riveted between the columns of the frame for reinforcement. The narrow lot allowed only
23240-433: The thing up without a single ornament". In 1889, a new plan was announced for the building: a thick-walled brick tower, 16 stories high, devoid of ornamentation and suggestive of an Egyptian pylon . Brooks insisted that the building have no projections, for which reason the plan did not include oriel windows , but Aldis argued that more rentable space would be created by projecting oriel windows , which were included in
23406-463: The time—representing the first use of aluminum in building construction. The building was constructed by the firm of George A. Fuller , who trained as an architect but made his mark as the creator of the modern contracting system in building construction. His firm had supervised construction of the Rookery, and later built New York's Flatiron Building with Burnham in 1902. The Monadnock Block
23572-412: The total volume of the brick. Cellular bricks have depressions exceeding 20% of the volume of the brick. Perforated bricks have holes through the brick from bed to bed, cutting it all the way. Most of the building standards and good construction practices recommend the volume of holes should not exceed 20% of the total volume of the brick. Parts of brickwork include bricks , beds and perpends . The bed
23738-421: The truthfulness of the building to the ideals of business, which, while "not necessarily the highest to which we might aspire to in art ... are the only ideals the business building ought to express". Montgomery Schuyler , one of the Monadnock's most enthusiastic defenders, argued that the Monadnock's lack of ornament was not a lack of art, but rather "radiated the gravity of modern business life". The Monadnock
23904-570: The upper Amu Darya (Oxus River). Its sites were discovered and named by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi (1976). Bactria was the Greek name for the area of Bactra (modern Balkh ), in what is now northern Afghanistan, and Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian satrapy of Marguš , the capital of which was Merv in present-day Turkmenistan. A wealth of information indicates that
24070-584: The use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of the three-age system , following the Stone Age and preceding the Iron Age . Conceived as a global era, the Bronze Age follows the Neolithic , with a transition period between the two known as the Chalcolithic . The final decades of
24236-443: The use of a repeating sequence of courses with back-and-forth header staggering. In this grouping, a header appears at a given point in the group's first course. In the next course up, a header is offset one and a half stretcher lengths to the left of the header in the course below, and then in the third course, a header is offset one stretcher length to the right of the header in the middle course. This accented swing of headers, one and
24402-473: The west on Jackson Street is the Union League Club of Chicago , founded in 1879 as a civic organization for "upright, law-abiding businessmen". To the north are the three buildings comprising Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 's minimalist Federal Plaza: the 1964 Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse , the only courthouse designed by Mies; the 1973 United States Post Office Loop Station ; and
24568-403: The west to Thailand in the east employing the same metalworking technology and, in some areas, horse breeding and riding. However, recent genetic testings of sites in south Siberia and Kazakhstan ( Andronovo horizon) would rather support spreading of the bronze technology via Indo-European migrations eastwards, as this technology had been well known for quite a while in western regions. It
24734-448: The world, with 1,200 rooms and an occupancy of over 6,000. The Chicago Daily Tribune commented that the population of most Illinois towns in 1896 would fit comfortably in the building. It was a postal district unto itself, with four full-time carriers delivering mail six times a day, six days a week. It was the first building in Chicago wired for electricity, and one of the first to be fire-proofed, with hollow fire clay tiles lining
24900-535: The written East Semitic Akkadian language for official use and as a spoken language. By that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use in Assyria and Babylonia, and would remain so until the 1st century AD. The Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in later Assyrian and Babylonian culture. Despite this, Babylonia, unlike the more militarily powerful Assyria,
25066-475: Was 91 percent occupied and commanded rent of $ 9 per square foot ($ 97 per square meter). The Monadnock was selected as one of top restoration projects in the country by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1987, noting "the outstanding quality of the overall restoration effort", and the precision, detail and faithfulness of the interior restoration, in particular the lobby, which "serves as
25232-442: Was Aldis, one of two men Louis Sullivan credited with being "responsible for the modern office building", who convinced investors such as the Brooks brothers to build new skyscrapers in Chicago. By the end of the century, Aldis would create over 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m ) of new office space and manage nearly one fifth of the office space in the Loop. Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root met as young draftsmen in
25398-513: Was Egypt's most prosperous time and marked the peak of Egypt's power. The later New Kingdom, comprising the Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties (1292–1069 BC), is also known as the Ramesside period , after the eleven pharaohs who took the name of Ramesses. Elam was a pre-Iranian ancient civilisation located east of Mesopotamia. In the Middle Bronze Age, Elam consisted of kingdoms on
25564-558: Was built as a single structure but was legally two buildings, the Monadnock and the Kearsarge, named for Mount Monadnock and Mount Kearsarge in New Hampshire. Work was completed in 1891. The Monadnock, which Root called his "Jumbo", was his last project; he died suddenly while it was under construction. Encouraged by the early success of the building, Shepherd Brooks purchased the 68-by-200-foot (21 by 61 m) lot adjoining to
25730-424: Was commissioned by Boston real estate developers Peter and Shepherd Brooks in the building boom following the Depression of 1873–79 . The Brooks family, which had amassed a fortune in the shipping insurance business and had been investing in Chicago real estate since 1863, had retained Chicago property manager Owen F. Aldis to manage the construction of the seven-story Grannis Block on Dearborn Street in 1880. It
25896-426: Was considered one of the structural masterpieces of its time for its revolutionary portal form of bracing. It is the only survivor of a group of Chicago school buildings with rounded corner bays. The Fisher Building , built by Burnham in 1894, was an engineering miracle—the first tall commercial building to be built almost entirely without bricks. Its steel frame and thin terracotta curtain wall allowed two-thirds of
26062-425: Was designed by the firm of Burnham & Root and built starting in 1891. At 215 feet (66 m), it is the tallest load-bearing brick building ever constructed. It employed the first portal system of wind bracing in the United States. Its decorative staircases represent the first structural use of aluminum in building construction. The later south half, constructed in 1893, was designed by Holabird & Roche and
26228-434: Was dissolved and the Monadnock was sold for $ 2 million ($ 18.8 million in 2023 dollars) to Sudler & Co., owners of the John Hancock Center , the Rookery Building , and the Old Colony Building . The new owners again modernized the interior, installing carpet, fluorescent lights , and new doors, and undertook a major effort to shore up the north wall which had sunk 1.75 inches (44 mm) during construction of
26394-534: Was done and halt the demolition of Chicago's aging skyscrapers . It was sold in 1979 to owners who restored the building to its original condition, in one of the most comprehensive skyscraper restorations attempted as of 1992. The project was recognized as one of the top restoration projects in the US by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1987. The building is divided into offices from 250 square feet (23 m ) to 6,000 square feet (560 m ) in size, and primarily serves independent professional firms. It
26560-411: Was founded by non-native Amorites and often ruled by other non-indigenous peoples such as the Kassites , Aramaeans and Chaldeans , as well as by its Assyrian neighbours. For many decades, scholars made superficial reference to Central Asia as the "pastoral realm" or alternatively, the "nomadic world", in what researchers call the "Central Asian void": a 5,000-year span that was neglected in studies of
26726-458: Was listed for sale in 2007. The north half is an unornamented vertical mass of purple-brown brick, flaring gently out at the base and top, with vertically continuous oriel windows projecting out. The south half is vertically divided by brickwork at the base and rises to a large copper cornice at the roof. Projecting oriel windows in both halves allow large exposures of glass, giving the building an open appearance despite its mass. The Monadnock
26892-402: Was offered for sale in 2007, with an expected price of $ 45 to $ 60 million. A tentative deal was reached at a price of $ 48 million in 2008. Together, the two parts of the building have a frontage of 420 feet (130 m) on Dearborn Street with a depth of 70 feet (21 m). The original northern half presents a plain, unbroken vertical mass of purple-brown brick, which is contoured to create
27058-466: Was one of the first buildings named a Chicago Architectural Landmark in 1958. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and named as part of the National Historic Landmark South Dearborn Street – Printing House Row North Historic District in 1976. Modern critics have called it a "classic", a "triumph of unified design", and "one of the most exciting aesthetic experiences America's commercial architecture produced". The Monadnock
27224-413: Was the first building in Chicago with a complete steel skeleton or "Chicago" construction, an innovation Jenney had introduced in the Home Insurance Building in 1884. The first 16-story building in America, at the time it was "regarded with awe and fear". Jenney's masterpiece, the Manhattan was considered a technical triumph in construction. The 17-story Old Colony, built by Holabird & Roche in 1894,
27390-474: Was the western neighbour of the Middle and New Hittite Kingdoms , at times a rival and, at other times, a vassal. The Assuwa league was a confederation of states in western Anatolia defeated by the Hittites under the earlier Tudhaliya I c. 1400 BC . Arzawa has been associated with the more obscure Assuwa generally located to its north. It probably bordered it, and may have been an alternative term for it during some periods. In Ancient Egypt ,
27556-489: Was widely praised by early twentieth-century German architects, including Mies, who on his arrival in Chicago in 1938 declared that "The Monadnock block is of such vigor and force that I am at once proud and happy to make my home here." These European architects found the building's attention to purpose and functional expression inspiring. Bauhaus architect Ludwig Hilberseimer wrote that "The false solution—unfortunately too common—of applying meaningless and misplaced adornment
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