Reliance Building
Mostly glass, sixty years early: the slender white tower that pointed the way to the modern skyscraper.
At a glance
The Reliance Building on State Street, completed in 1895, looks ahead to a century it never saw. John Root of Burnham and Root began it; Charles Atwood, of D. H. Burnham and Company, finished the design. Its steel frame is wrapped in wide “Chicago windows” and thin bands of white glazed terracotta, so that the wall seems made almost entirely of glass.
Key facts
- Location: 32 North State Street, Chicago
- Architects: Burnham & Root; design completed by Charles Atwood
- Completed: 1895
- Feature: early glass-and-terracotta curtain wall
- Today: a hotel
History
The ground floor went up first, around the old building’s tenants, and the tower followed once their leases ran out. Root died early in the work; Atwood carried it through with a design far ahead of its time.
It used the wide three-part Chicago window to flood the offices with light, and minimised the masonry to thin terracotta strips. After decades of neglect it was restored around 1999 and reopened as a hotel.
What you see
The front is a grid of glass: big windows in slim white frames, rising in a shimmer to a lightly ornamented cornice. There is almost no solid wall to see. Stand back and it could pass for a building of the 1950s, which is exactly why it matters.
Practical information
- Open: a hotel; lobby accessible
- Cost: free to view from the street
- Best for: the glassy white façade on State Street
- Time needed: 10–20 minutes
Getting there
The building stands on State Street at Washington in the Loop, above the Washington/State transit station and a block from Millennium Park.
Nearby
- Sullivan Center — Louis Sullivan’s ironwork, a block south
- Chicago Cultural Center — with its Tiffany dome, nearby
Sources
- Encyclopædia Britannica / Wikipedia — Reliance Building
- National Park Service — National Historic Landmark record
- Wikimedia Commons — image source and licence
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