The Reliance Building: The Glass Tower That Foreshadowed the Modern Skyscraper

At 32 N State Street in the Loop, a building completed in 1895 marks one of the key turning points in the history of modern architecture. The Reliance Building, designed by Burnham and Root and completed by Charles Atwood after Root's death, was one of the first buildings in the world to realize the idea that a skyscraper's skin could be a curtain — a non-structural glass membrane hung from a steel frame, with glazed white terra cotta reduced to thin panels between the windows. The structural weight is carried entirely by the steel skeleton. The walls contribute nothing to holding the building up. Historians have long regarded it as a forerunner of the glass curtain walls that followed — the Lever House and the Seagram Building in New York, and the glass office towers that now fill skylines worldwide. The building fell into disrepair in the late 20th century, was restored in the 1990s, and now operates as a boutique hotel. Guests sleep inside one of the earliest ancestors of the glass tower.