Demolition supplies the evidence for the claim
The Home Insurance Building is demolished and its structure examined during the process. Much of what is known about how the frame actually worked - which members were cast iron, which wrought iron, where Bessemer steel was used, how much the masonry still carried - comes from that examination rather than from the original drawings. The building had to be taken apart before its historical claim could be assessed.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Home Insurance Building, Chicago · site · United States
- The steel skeleton frame · technology system · North America, then worldwide · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
The Chicago School of Architecture: A History of Commercial and Public Building in the Chicago Area, 1875-1925
Standard structural history of Chicago commercial building, including the composition of the Home Insurance Building frame as established when the building was demolished in 1931, and the qualifications attached to the "first skyscraper" claim. V55 verification basis: real and standard, not consulted in this session.
University of Chicago Press, Carl W. Condit · 1964 · Partly verified
Condit, C.W., The Chicago School of Architecture, University of Chicago Press, 1964
Recorded on Home Insurance Building, Chicago
- The Home Insurance Building is completed in Chicago
- Demolition supplies the evidence for the claim
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.