Inland Steel Building

Modernism is associated with an observance to structural innovation, logical use of new materials, methodical approach to the function of buildings and the rejection of ornamentation. The Inland Steel Building clearly demonstrated how American architecture had changed during those decades and attested to the influence of both the international style and the work of Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe and their basic principals of design. The Inland Steel Building was the first high-rise in the Chicago Loop after the construction hiatus created by The Great Depression and World War II. The elegant combination of steel and glass were innovative due to the mass amount of brick and stone structures currently in Chicago. This building created an idea that
In the wake of the establishment of price controls and labor regulations, steel producers turned to marketing and client relations to distinguish their companies from competitors. Over time, the company had its share of successes and failures eventually becoming a fully integrated steel manufacturer.2 Inland continued to expand; by the mid-1950s annual steelmaking capacity had increased to more than 6,500,000 tons, making it the nation's eighth largest steel manufacturer. It was the only major steel manufacturer in Chicago, which would soon displace Pittsburgh as the center of American steel production.3 The international style was given its name by two American architectural historians, Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Phillip Johnson who introduced the style to an American audience in an exhibit they organized at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1932.4 According to Hitchcock and Johnson, three characteristics distinguish the
Skidmore, a former student at M.I.T., met his wife during an excursion in Europe. Her brother, Nathaniel Owings, a graduate of Cornell, was then introduced to one another leading to their partnership in 1936. 7 The two partners decided that the firm would only design in the "contemporary" style based on the work of the proponents of the International Style. They also agreed to employ a specialist in a variety of fields so that the firm could offer clients broad design expertise. They also decided to hire an architectural engineer in order to realize the firms’ professional goals later expressed by