THE ENIGMA OF BUFFINGTON'S SKYSCRAPER DIMITRIS TSELOS wo questons have perssted n my mnd snce I was ntroduced to the problem of the skyscraper:' frst, why had Buffngton never bult a skyscraper f, as has been reported, he had conceved ts prncples n I88o - earler than anyone else; second, why had no other archtect n Amerca dscovered the germ of skyscraper constructon n the publshed lectures of Vollet-le- Duc, as Buffngton s sad to have done as early as 2 1880. Recently, n revsng my lecture notes on the orgn of the skyscraper, I consulted the now famous passage n the Lectures of Vollet-le-Duc. Ths I found n the two-vol- ume Amercan edton n the Avery Lbrary of Columba Unversty.3 Unconscously I opened the second volume to the ttle page. My eyes were mmedately attracted by a callgraphc nscrpton n the upper rght hand corner: NOTE. The llustratons for ths artcle and the succeedng artcle by Mrs. J. R. Chrstson have been gathered together and placed between the two. Ed.. The present study was practcally complete when I learned through the courtesy of Professor E. M. Upjohn that Buffngton's drawngs could be examned at the Unversty of Mnnesota. Upon arrval there I was nformed by Mrs. J. R. Chrstson that she had reached substantally the same conclusons as my own through her annotaton of Buffngton's Memores and the examnaton of hs drawngs. In order not to nfrnge upon her dscoveres I lmted my bref study of the drawngs to ther connecton wth those problems whch I had solved from materal already publshed. I had no access to the manuscrpt of Buffngton's Memores. I should lke to make the followng acknowledgments: To Mrs. Chrstson, for permsson to see the Buffngton collecton and for the photographs of the drawngs dealng wth the skyscraper problem; for assstance n arrangng to see the Buffngton Collecton of the Unversty of Mnnesota, to Professors Frank K. Walter, Lbraran, Harold Russell, Reference Lbraran, Lawrence Schmeckeber, Head of the Fne Arts Department, and Roy Jones, Dean of the School of Archtecture; to Professors Henry-Russell Htchcock and Hugh Morrson for helpful suggestons. 2. Arthur Woltersdorf, "The Father of the Skeleton Frame Buldng," Western Archtect, xxxiii, 1924, pp. 21-23; Museum of Modern Art, Early Modern Archtecture, Chcago, 1870-191o (Catalogue of an Exhbton held at the Museum n 1933), p. 1 E. M. Upjohn, "Buffngton and the Skyscraper," ART BULLETIN, XVII, I935, PP. 50, 55. 3. The two volumes were publshed separately by Osgood and Company of Boston: Vol. I enttled Dscourses on Archtecture (trans. Henry van Brunt) n 1875; Vol. II enttled Lectures on Archtecture (trans. Benjamn Bucknal) n 188. "M. Schuyler, Oct. 1881." I concluded that the sgnature was that of Montgomery Schuyler, the leadng Amercan archtectural crtc of hs tme, and the date the conventonal ndcaton of the tme the book was acqured. Ths dscovery mmedately rased the queston of why a crtc, whose lfe-lne, so to speak, conssts of books, had acqured hs copy a whole year after Buffngton, a member of a professon not normally addcted to book readng. The ttle page ndcated that the book had been publshed n 1881. One would fnd t hard to explan the presence of the book n Buffngton's hands n 188o. Consequently I looked for more precse nformaton n publshers' catalogues. The ev- dence uncovered n the Publshers' Trade Lst Annual and the Publshers' Weekly was conclusve on one pont, namely, that the book was not publshed untl the autumn of 1881 when Schuyler acqured hs copy.4 A dscrepancy of one year n Buffngton's chronology would not have seemed so crucal f t had not recalled to my attenton hs drawng dated 1882 showng a skeleton wth I-beam grllage foundatons and never satsfactorly explaned by Upjohn, who was the frst to make an extended study of Buffngton's documents connected wth the skyscraper.5 A careful rereadng of Upjohn's artcle n the lght of the anachronsm just noted and of the famous passage n Vollet-le-Duc, quoted below, convnced me that 4. Publshers' Trade Lst Annual, New York, 88. It ncludes the "Autumn Catalogue, 88" of James R. Osgood n whch the book s announced for the frst tme as a new publcaton. The Annual also summarzes the lstngs of the Publshers' Weekly Record of New Books whch covers the perod from July 1881 to June 1882 and ncludes the Lectures as of 88. The book s not ncluded n the trade publcatons for the prevous year. Schuyler's consstency n acqurng hs books promptly upon publcaton s confrmed by hs sgnature and the date "November, I875" on the ttle page of the frst volume. The catalogue of James R. Osgood and Co., ncorporated n the Publshers' Trade Lst Annual for 1875, announces volume I as one of ts Autumn publcatons under the date "October, 1875." 5. Op. ct., pp. 58, 61, 66. Upjohn suspected the apparent anachronsm of the developed grllage footng sgned and dated L.S.B.- 82 but he closed hs dscusson thus: "That ntals and date are here added later s the safer, though by no means certan hypothess." Even f Upjohn had rejected t uncondtonally, the sgnature and the date would pont accusngly at Buffngton.
4 THE ART BULLETIN the clams of Buffngton must be reexamned completely once more n order to assgn credt where t s due. The problem, of course, s to determne whether Buffngton conceved the prncples of skeleton constructon before work was actually begun on the Home Insurance Buldng ( 1883-85) by Jenney n Chcago, generally consdered to have been the frst to ncorporate the essental prncples of such constructon n a tall offce buldng.6 The closely related queston of determnng the place of Buffngton n the hstory of the skyscraper follows from the frst and wll be dealt wth n due course. In a porton of chapter Ix of Buffngton's Memores,' publshed by Upjohn, there s the followng account of hs dscovery of the passage n Vollet-le-Duc whch supposedly gave hm the basc dea:' It was n the wnter of the years 188o and 1881 that there came to my offce from the publsher two volumes of a translaton of Vollet-le-Duc's dscourses on Archtecture and when my team came for me that evenng I took these books home. It was several nghts before I could look at them, for I was very busy throughout the day, and n the evenng I would often drve wth my famly to rest and ponder over my daly busness, so when I pcked them [up] and glanced through them, as s my habt before I start to read any book of real mert, I studed the llustratons, frst n one and then n the other volume, and stopped, by ntuton, luck or mere chance, on page I28, Volume 2, for rght there before me was the word IRON9 starng me n the face and I read: "A practcal archtect mght not unnaturally conceve the dea of erectng a vast edfce whose frame should be entrely of ron, and clothng that frame, preservng t by means of a casng of stone." Ths sentence seemed most remarkable, so I lad the book down and thought of ths large buldng, clothed wth masonry. What could t mean? agan I took up ths volume and further along I read: "But t cannot be too often repeated, Iron should be left n- dependent. It cannot be alled to masonry." Here I was back n the same hole I came out of. I could conceve very clearly of a tower or a brdge per of ron, but the constructon of an ron buldng was entrely dfferent. I had to 6. There s good reason to beleve that the prncple of carryng the enclosng walls upon metal beams was used before the Home Insurance Buldng, but ths structure seems to have been the frst to apply t more extensvely and n more ntegrated fashon n a tall buldng. In any case the queston of prorty n connecton wth the Buffngton clam hnges upon the Insurance Buldng. For evdence of the earler use of the essental prncples of skeleton constructon cf. note 50; also Roger Hale Newton, "New Evdence on the Evoluton of the Skyscraper," Art Quarterly, Iv, 1941, pp. deal wth many wndows and doors, the elevator system and stars, and the archtecture on the exteror. Whle t all seems very clear now, t certanly was a complcated problem then. The lot of an archtect who had to use unseasoned lumber and poor brck was not so rosy as today, when he has steel columns and beams, but here was a chance to fnd somethng better n buldng, and I went at t wth a wll; and many nghts and Sundays at home wth other work forgotten, I sat n my lbrary and puzzled and studed over the vast edfce. I looked through all the data books of the ron and steel rollng mll manufac- turers, and through all the handbooks of the archtects and engneers, and through the Publc Lbrary and other sources of nformaton. I then had a search made n the Unted States Patent Offce and n all foregn countres for any patent, but found nothng pertanng to the supportng shelf or braced skeleton constructon of metal as I have shown. A buldng whose frame should be of ron clothed wth masonry was the problem I set myself to solve. Ths meant the front wall, the sde walls, the rear wall, and the nteror, a skeleton of metal. A skeleton s the prncple [sc] part that supports the rest. Why not use a shelf fastened to the skeleton to carry the masonry? Ths was the fnal lne along whch my reason led me. I made many sketches showng varous constructural desgns for ths buldng, and the studes, collected after so many years seem a waste of tme on so smple an dea. So ths and the next wnter passed. The foregong account seems a reasonable explanaton of the "nventon" but the excerpts from Vollet-le-Duc have another meanng n ther orgnal context. Therefore the complete reproducton of the orgnal paragraph and the accompanyng footnote becomes necessary: Iron possesses very useful propertes and we should make t our object to utlze and manfest these propertes, not to dsguse them. A practcal archtect mght not unnaturally conceve the dea of erectng a vast edfce whose frame would be en- trely of ron and clothng that frame - preservng t - by means of a casng of stone. By means of ron the thrusts of vaultng can be almost entrely counteracted and consderable strength can be gven to slght supports. But t cannot be too often repeated: ron should be left ndependent; t cannot be alled wth masonry n large buldngs. It possesses propertes specal to tself n pont of resstance, elastcty, and expanson, and whch are contrary to the very nature of masonry. Employed as a support, cast-ron s rgd and ncompressble, whle ma- sonry, consstng of layers, always snks a lttle through dryng of the mortar whch flls the jonts. Hence a wall bult behnd a cast ron column wll snk somewhat whle the column wll not yeld.1? 56-70; Edtoral, Amercan Archtect, No. 1643, June zz, 1907, pp. 237 ff. 7. Ths s the ttle gven by Buffngton to hs wrtten remnscences, not Memors, as reported by Upjohn, loc. ct. I owe ths nformaton to Mrs. J. R. Chrstson, who s famlar wth the manuscrpt. 8. Upjohn, op. ct., pp. 55-56. 9. The word "ron" n the Lectures s not n captals. IO. Lectures, p. I z8. The footnote at the bottom of the page was ntended to llustrate the meanng of a "vast edfce": Ths dea s certanly domnant n the constructon of the new church of St. Augustne n Pars. It only wanted workng out to be frankly accepted n all ts consequences. If the archtect of that edfce had taken advantage of the method presented by some of the medeval buldngs whch exemplfy an analogous prncple of structure, he would have realzed effects more sats-
THE ENIGMA OF BUFFINGTON'S SKYSCRAPER 5 factory because they would have been more n accordance wth the means adopted. He would also have somewhat lessened the cost of the buldng - a consderaton never to be despsed. In any case, however, t exhbts a step n advance - a hestatng step, t s true, but one whch n the present condton of our art, deserves to be noted as a symptom of returnng ndependence. It seems clear from the foregong quotatons that Vollet- le-duc was not dscussng a tall stratfed buldng but one n whch the enclosed space was large and contnuous. That Buffngton nterpreted the dscusson to mean a tall commercal buldng wth a skeleton and accordngly conceved such a buldng wth ts skeleton braced, completely clothed, and equpped wth a shelf to carry ts outer cloak, reveals a strange drecton of human magnaton. But let us attrbute the results to those bzarre stuatons where the msreadng of a document germnates a sound, although only a tangental dea, and proceed wth the examnaton of other aspects of the problem. In the account quoted from the Memores, Buffngton makes no references to specfc drawngs whch mght have proceeded from the "studes" he mentons. There are, however, three projects whch correspond approxmately to the bref descrpton gven n chapter xv of the Memores: "My cloudscraper s 132o0 feet hgh, desgned n 1882. My skyscraper s 6oo feet hgh, desgned n 1882. My twentyeght story buldng, ncludng the slantng roof, s 425 feet hgh, desgned n 1881"" (cf. Fgs. I, 3). At frst readng ths descrpton appears coherent but soon ts nternal contradctons emerge. The text begns logcally and properly wth the most fantastc of Buffngton's "dreams," the 1320-foot "cloudscraper," then passes to the 6oo-foot "skyscraper" and ends wth the 28-story 425- foot buldng - the most practcal of all. But ths order s contradcted by that of the dates, for the frst two projects are dated 1882, whereas the thrd s dated 188I. The con- tradcton n the order s emphaszed by the fact that the dates n the typewrtten text are nscrbed n nk and there- fore probably were added later.12 These anomales are not clarfed by any closer comparson between the text and the drawngs. The text descrbes the tallest buldng as of 1320 feet but n the draw- ngs t s nscrbed as of 1200 feet and 100oo stores hgh. The 6oo-foot buldng of the text has n the drawng the addtonal label of "50o stores." The thrd drawng, however, gves no measurements but the text descrbes t as of twenty-eght stores and 425 feet hgh. The accuracy of the two latter measurements should be doubted. Of all the drawngs n the Buffngton collecton whch deal wth the skyscraper only some of those prepared between 1886 and I888 show clearly twenty-eght stores.l3 The term. Upjohn, op. ct., p. 55. I2. Noted by Upjohn, loc. ct. 13. The reference to a "slantng-roof" s as anachronstc as that "twenty-eght story" seems therefore anachronstcally appled to ths project. The 425-foot heght seems even more napproprate, for f t s dvded by the number of the stores attrbuted to the buldng the resultant 15-foot heght per story s extravagant even n comparson wth the Ioo- and the 5o-story projects whch average only twelve feet per story. Ths extravagance mght be explaned by the theory of ts beng, as Upjohn beleves, the earlest desgn n the seres and therefore the most fantastc."1 But such an nter- pretaton seems unwarranted for more than one reason. In a normal process of deaton, especally n archtecture the objectves of whch are usually utltaran, one would begn wth the most fantastc and proceed to the most practcal desgn. Buffngton was probably not an excepton to the rule, for that s how he remembered the order of ther evoluton and accordngly summarzed t n the account n queston. It was not untl the dates n the Memores were added n nk that a contradctory sequence was effected. Some lght can be thrown on ths aspect of the problem by referrng to that part of the account gven n chapter Ix of the Memores whch follows the porton already quoted. In the last sentence of that quotaton Buffngton wrote, "So ths and the next wnter passed." Snce he could not have read Vollet-le-Duc n the wnter of 88o-8, he must have meant that the seasons of 1881-82 and 1882-83 passed. The account s resumed wth hs actvty durng the followng wnter: In the wnter of 1883-84 I took up the desgn of the exteror, as a workng bass had to be reached before I could go any further. Fnally, I decded to take a column for my model, a sold base, a plan shaft wth upward lnes lke volutes [sc], and a beautful cap and skylne to fnsh. Ths s the desgn of my 28-story buldng. So pleased was I that I desgned many others; some wth more stores and others wth less, but none seemed so approprate for dsplay as ths one. My frends advsed me to get t patented, so I consulted an attorney, lad the matter before hm and drew up the frst applcaton; but I was very busy and my tme was taken up contnually and another year passed.'" From ths account we should conclude that the external appearance of hs projected skyscraper was consdered for to a "28-story" buldng. The Neo-Romanesque project of "88" has clearly a domed roof. What seems to be the earlest desgn wth a slopng roof s one of only 25 stores, sgned and dated L.S.B.-83 (Fg. 6). 14. Op. ct., p. 57. Mrs. Chrstson has adduced another passage n the Memores whch refers to an early "28-story" buldng desgn whch had 28 stores below the roof-lne and 7 more stores n the slopng roof. Ths normalzes the sze of the ndvdual stores n a 425-foot buldng but there s no drawng that corresponds to such a project, except the very late ones related to the patent (Fgs. 10, 12). I5. Upjohn, ART BULLETIN, XVII, I935, p. 56. Mrs. Chrstson has noted n her accompanyng artcle that the date was altered to "I883-84" read "1881-82" and that Upjohn chose the former. Ths nformaton s nterestng but does not, I thnk, alter the core of the problem.
6 THE ART BULLETIN the frst tme n the wnter of 1883-84 and that the scheme whch he decded upon was one modelled after a column. Ths accords perfectly wth the columnar drawngs n Fgs. I, 2.1" They show not only the rather vague stages of the 6oo-foot skyscraper and of the I200-foot cloud- scraper, but also the results of that fnal decson to develop the larger one because of ts fluted shaft and "skylne," "so approprate for dsplay." It would seem, therefore, that the 425-foot buldng, whch s not mentoned n ths account and whose nterpolated date n the bref account of chapter xv s nconsstent wth the chronologcal order of hs actvtes as ndcated n the text, was made later than the columnar desgns. Let us follow the problem of the columnar project a lttle further. It s evdent that ether the dates on the drawngs are wrong or that Buffngton ntended to wrte that t was n the wnter of 1882-83 that he took up the queston of the exteror and developed the columnar project. Al- though the latter alternatve s unlkely, snce Buffngton was wont to err to hs own advantage," we may assume ts lkelhood for the tme beng, snce t s supported by a dated drawng enttled Elevaton of Iron Constructon (Fg. 2). In addton to the larger scheme whch gves the drawng ts ttle, the sheet contans a fragmentary secton of a roof, a stepped crown for a columnar buldng and an ncomplete dmnutve sketch of a radal plan. Upjohn dd not recognze the affnty between these sketches and the columnar scheme, for he wrote: "It s lkely these projects were never carred further. Even to one wth Buffngton's magnaton the scheme must have seemed chmercal then.""s There s every reason to beleve, however, that these sketches proceeded logcally from the favorte columnar dea. The fragmentary radal plan s vrtually dentcal wth that on the sheet contanng the Ioo- and 5o-story projects and may well have been done at the same tme. Smlarly, the stepped crown seems to be the logcal culmnaton of the roof scheme shown n the three complete versons of the Ioostory scheme."9 The small free-hand sketch of the skeleton wth ts legble labels s a specal study of the constructon of the lowest and largest stratum of the stepped roof whch s also the cornce of the buldng. The larger and more careful drawng, showng the braced skeleton wth shelves and solated foundatons, says even more clearly, through ts narrow ntercolumnatons whch enclose each bay, that t was ntended for the columnar scheme, the pers corre- spondng to the arrses and the wndows to the flutes. I6. Two other drawngs of the oo-story project wth stepped top exst n the Buffngton collecton on paper dentcal wth that used for the other columnar projects, and thus confrm the frst preference of Buffngton for that scheme, as recorded n hs Memores. 17. See Upjohn, op. ct., p. 55. I8. Op. ct., p. 58. 19. See note 6. Havng gone so far wth the columnar project, Buffngton must have seen that he was headng nto an attractve but blnd alley and decded to change drecton. I beleve that the change led to the Neo-Romanesque project whch bears the date "1881" (Fg. 3). The smlarty between ts domed roof and that of the 5o-story project as well as ts greater practcalty suggest such a transton. But when was the change made? One cannot accept ts date as au- thentc, snce t s contradcted by the logcal prorty of the columnar drawngs. Furthermore, ts stylstc unty and orderlness are chronologcally ncompatble wth the eclectc confuson of West Hotel, whch was desgned n 1881 (Fg. 5). It follows wthout queston, therefore, that Buffngton borrowed the Neo-Romanesque motf and that the real date of the desgn should be determned by locatng ts model. Except for the domed roof, whch relates t to the 50- story skyscraper n Fg. I, the Neo-Romanesque scheme has certan elements whch appear consstently n all projects whch followed t and culmnate n the project of 1888 (Fgs. 3, 6, 10, 12, 14). These are the corner towers topped wth small turrets, the double zone of openngs below the rooflne, the tall embracng arches and the horzontal bands accentng the upper and lower dvsons of the structure. These are specal "style-marks" whch were evolved by Rchardson n hs varous works. The horzontal colored bandng whch appears n structures before I88o cannot serve as a crteron of chronology. But the essentals of the remanng features appear for the frst tme together n the tower of the Allegheny County Court House whch was not completed tll 1887 but whch had been publshed n 1884 (Fg. 4)-20 In the absence of any record that Buffngton had hs desgn publshed before ths date or that he had shown t to Rchardson, one s nclned to beleve that the motf was borrowed from Rchardson.21 The spe- cal achevement of Rchardson n the feld of tower desgn makes unlkely the possblty of an earler, parallel and n- dependent nventon of the same scheme by Buffngton. The earlest that Buffngton could have executed the project, then, would be 1884. Ths date also would ft the chronology of the columnar schemes, as revealed n chapter Ix of the Memores, and accords wth our conclusons that the Neo-Romanesque project followed the abandonment of the columnar "cloudscraper." There are, however, 20. Ths publcaton was n the form of an llustrated Descrpton, ssued prvately and probably of very lmted crculaton. 21. Henry-Russell Htchcock, who notes the Descrpton n hs Archtecture of H. H. Rchardson and hs Tmes, New York, 1936, p. 305, and n hs Amercan Archtectural Books, Mddletown, Conn., 1938-39, p. R.4, told me n person that he doubted that anyone outsde of Boston and New York had knowledge of ths publcaton at the tme. In the absence of more defnte nformaton on the queston we can assume the possblty, for the tme beng, that Buffngton knew of t.
THE ENIGMA OF BUFFINGTON'S SKYSCRAPER 7 a number of objectons to such conclusons whch must be met before we can proceed any further. Frst of all, the acceptance of the wnter of 1883-84 as the date of the columnar drawngs mples the rejecton of the date on the drawngs of those projects whch s gven as 1882. In vew of the false date on the drawng of the Neo- Romanesque project, one would be justfed n gnorng the dates of the other drawngs also and n followng the chronology of the Memores concernng the development of the columnar projects. But the Memores s hardly more relable f one s to judge from the tamperng wth the dates and the account of the "dscovery" of Vollet-le-Duc. The prncpal obstacle s the drawng enttled Elevaton of Iron Constructon made upon paper whose manufacture n 1879 s recorded n ts watermark and, accordng to Upjohn, who examned many of Buffngton's drawngs, the date of the drawngs never lags more than three years after the date of the watermark."22 The value of the watermark for ths problem, however, s doubtful because the drawng s the only watermarked example n the skyscraper seres. Moreover, the nature and appearance of the papers upon whch the 5o-story, the Ioo-story and the Neo-Romanesque proj- ects are drawn are dentcal and confrm the stylstc affnty between the 5o-story and the Neo-Romanesque schemes. Snce the latter cannot be earler than 1884, the columnar projects must be dated about 1884. From ths follows the concluson that the Elevaton of Iron Constructon, whch shows advanced stages of the columnar scheme, could not have been made long before that approxmate date, despte the testmony of the dated watermark. The provsonal date, about 1884, may, therefore, be suffcent untl after the examnaton of the other projects whch follow the Neo- Romanesque scheme. Snce the dates of the drawngs examned so far were found to be unrelable, we can smplfy our procedure by gnorng the dates of the rest unless they are supported by external evdence. The frst serous elaboraton of the Rchardsonan tower s found n a combnaton drawng whch shows a 25-story buldng n half-elevaton, half-secton, a ground plan and two typcal floor plans (Fg. 6). The buldng obvously was ntended to be a completely solated structure occupy- ng a whole block and entered through four equally mportant entrances. In ths respect, t follows the concepton of the earler "425-foot" scheme whch seems smlarly solated (Fg. 3). The real date of the drawng may be estab- lshed by the testmony of the Memores and by external evdence. At the end of the paragraph contanng the report on the wnter season of 1883-84, Buffngton wrote 22. Op. ct., pp. 58, 62 ff. Mrs. Chrstson, lke Upjohn, dscovered other drawngs wth dated watermarks but these appear to belong to the developed stages nearng the patent project of 1886-87. that hs frends advsed hm "to get t [the column skyscraper] patented..." but hs tme was "taken up con- tnually and another year passed." Ths would mean that both the wnter of 1883-84 and 1884-85 passed wthout any work on the skyscraper problem. We would expect, therefore, the next porton of the account to report on the actvty of the 1885-86 wnter season. Instead, ths season s omtted entrely and the account contnues as follows: In Aprl, 1886, the buldng n whch I had my offce was damaged by fre. Then ths problem was brought face to face, and I decded that as soon as I was agan settled, I would attend to t. So n the summer of that year I prepared for the patent and used for ts llustraton and constructon my "twenty-eght story buldng." My fnal applcaton for Unted States patent was fled November 14, 1887. The patent was ssued May 22, 888. My foregn patents, Brtsh, German and French, bear the same date. My attorney made fve sheets of drawngs contanng twenty fgures and n the specfcaton descrbed each fgure and the relaton to each other, showng that I clamed the veneer supported on shelves carred by angle plates fastened to a braced skeleton of ron, protected and preserved from dsntegraton and corrodng. The columns or posts are smaller at the top wth one plate on each sde and more plates added as the weght ncreased toward the bottom, wth lattce tes connectng them. I showed n the study drawngs three dfferent posts one usng the channel, one as per the patent, and one braced wth ron rods. These columns formed the supportng vertcal elements and the horzontal tes and braces formed the braced skeleton of metal. Each buldng may show a dfferent detal of constructon as requred, but these essental elements, or equvalents, of my patent are used n all steel constructon of today.. 23 It seems, then, from ths report that the serous work whch preceded the patent was not undertaken untl the summer of I886 and that the perod between the summer of 1886 and the autumn of 1887 must have produced the number of careful drawngs whch belong to the Neo- Romanesque seres. Consequently the combnaton draw- ng whch occuped our attenton above belongs to ths perod. Ths broad date (1886-87) s further confrmed by a drawng showng a 7-story secton of a skyscraper skele- ton (Fg. 9). The hghly developed "raft" or "grllage" footng whch t represents was probably unknown to Buff- ngton before I886. J. K. Fretag shows that steel beams such as those used n such footng were not rolled n the Unted States untl I 885.24 Ths precludes an earler use of cast-ron beams for such purpose because of ther low ten- sle strength. Furthermore, accordng to Fretag, the earlest known "raft" footng was used n the Rookery Buldng of Burnham and Root n 1885-86. The pror 23. See Unted States Patent 383,I70; Specfcatons of Patents, Unted States Patent Offce, May 22-29, 1888, part 21, pp. 1931-32; Drawngs of Patents, Unted States Patent Offce, May 22-29, 1888, part 22, pp. 503-4. 24. Archtectural Engneerng, 2nd ed., New York, 1912, pp. 4-7-
8 THE ART BULLETIN development n Chcago of ths and the pyramdal footng whch appears n the Elevaton of Iron Constructon (Fg. 2) cannot be questoned. Both devces were developed there n order to "float" the buldngs at a small depth rather than undergo the dffculty and expense of restng the foundatons on "bed-rock" about a hundred feet below the ground surface. Consequently ther "nventon" n Mnneapols by Buffngton n "1882," as hs ntals and date ndcate, would be doubly suspect.25 Upjohn rghtly dentfed the 7-story skeleton wth the raft footngs as a scheme for the "28-story" buldng, although he dd not specfy whch verson of t. Hs further concluson was that although the mpled contnuaton of the pers presumes addtonal stores above, ther marked dmnuton n sze above the thrd floor precludes the possblty of many stores and that "t s extremely probable that Buffngton merely ntended to show on ths one sheet how such contracton of the pers could be ntroduced when necessary, rather than that t would be adapted defntely at the fourth-floor level."'2 It happens, however, that the scheme corresponds exactly wth that ndcated n the half-secton of Fg. 6, whatever the theoretcal nadequaces n the great dmnuton of the pers above the thrd floor. Both gve the same proportonate heght to ther correspondng floors, both show the batter from the sdewalk to the base of the fourth floor. It was probably ntended, therefore, for the 25-story buldng or another smlar verson of the later "28-story" scheme. Its nadequaces may be attrbuted as much to Buffngton's unfamlarty wth "Chcago constructon" as to the theory that t was merely a prelmnary study. There- fore, the proxmty of the real dates of the two drawngs n queston can be assumed. Snce the grllage foundaton s ncompatble wth a date before 1886, the same date should be ascrbed to the 25-story project.26a Addtonal confrma- 25. The dervatve nature of Buffngton's pyramdal footng s further confrmed by hs nave belef that such small bases would serve a oo-story, I200-foot buldng! The typcal pyramdal footng n "Chcago constructon" of the early eghtes, as llustrated by the old foundatons of the Women's Temple, conssted of a slab of concrete 6Y/2 feet square and 7 thck courses of masonry between t and the metal foot of the column proper (Fretag, op. ct., p. 316). The footngs of the Home Insurance Buldng were of the same type only slghtly lghter (cf. note 43). Note that for hs patented project Buffngton does not use ether the pyramdal or the raft footngs: Fg. 12. 26. Op. ct., p. 61. 26a. These conclusons were reached wthout havng seen the orgnal drawngs. After havng seen the drawng for the grllage foundaton, I added to the precedng footnote that the "freshness of the paper and the character of the drawng suggest that even 1886-88 may be too early for t." Mrs. Chrstson beleves that ths belongs to a separate group of drawngs and that t was ncluded n the group for the "2 8-story" buldng by mstake. Whatever ts real date and afflaton t stll remans an mportant document on the veracty of Buffngton, for t rases three mportant questons: Frst, why dd Buffngton sgn and date t as he dd; second, why dd he make such an elaborate drawng of a "Chcago foundaton" ton of ths concluson appears n two buldngs, one by Rchardson and another by Buffngton, whch are closely related to the 25-story project. The entrance of ths projected structure s made up of three low arches restng on clustered pers and surrounded by a checkerboard pattern. Its frst appearance n vrtually dentcal form occurs n Rchardson's Austn Hall at Cambrdge, Mass., bult be- tween 1881 and 1883 (cf. Fgs. 6 and 8). I know of no publcaton of ths buldng before 1885 whch could have suppled Buffngton wth the motf.27 Whle t s possble that he had some unpublshed representaton of the Cam- brdge structure, I feel certan that he dd not use t before I886. Moreover, Pllsbury Hall of the Unversty of Mnnesota, nscrbed and dated L. S. Buffngton, 1887, bears vrtually the same crownng motf as the 25-story project and argues strongly for a proxmate datng of the latter (cf. Fgs. 6 and 7)-28 I now come to what seem to be the last four drawngs n the Neo-Romanesque sequence. Ther close relatonshp s obvous but ther exact order n relaton to the 25-story project at frst seems somewhat unclear. Its clarfcaton may be begun by an examnaton of the ground plan n Fg. 21. Ths plan, whch s dated "1882" and thus suggests a poston anteror to the 25-story project of "1883," was accepted as such by Upjohn.29 But to me the reverse order seems the more probable. As noted before, the 25-story project has four entrances and was therefore ntended to occupy a completely solated area. In ths respect t s nearer the most prmtve Neo-Romanesque scheme (Fg. 3). The ground plan of "1882" (Fg. 21), however, has only two entrances n front and merely wndows on the correspondng sdes n the rear. Ths arrangement suggests that the buldng was to occupy a corner lot whch was flanked by two wde streets on the entrances and by two alleys on the others. In these respects ts stuaton s dentcal wth the last project of 1888 (Fg. 14). The smlarty s confrmed by the dfferences between ths plan and that of the 25-story project and by the analoges between the plan of "1882" and the project of 1888, as shown n the followng analyss. In the frst place, the unrealstc dea that any buldng n the eghtes could occupy an area so that t could have four when he had no commsson to desgn a buldng n Chcago; thrd, f ths Elevaton of Iron Constructon was made after hs patent had been secured, why dd he relate t so closely to hs 25- and 28- story projects? 27. See H. H. Rchardson, Austn Hall, Harvard Law School, Cambrdge, Mlass., Boston, 1885; also Monographs of Amercan Archtecture, Boston, 1886: Vol. I, Austn Hall. 28. The stars whch accent the spandrels n the Rchardson and Buffngton arcades are also used on the fagade of Pllsbury Hall, and show agan the preference for Rchardsonan vocabulary at ths tme. For the llustraton of ths buldng I am ndebted-to Mss Vncent of the Department of Fne Arts of the Unversty of Mnnesota. 29. Op. ct., p. 58.
THE ENIGMA OF BUFFINGTON'S SKYSCRAPER 9 equally mportant entrances fts the 25-story project (Fg. 6). Its ground plan shows other "unrealstc" features of plannng. The space wthn the corner towers s solated n pear-shaped unts whch receve all ther llumnaton ndrectly through wndows openng on the vestbules and whch could serve only as glorfed closets or storerooms. In these features t s nferor and less developed than the ground plan of Fg. 21 I. Asde from the fact that ths plan s more practcal, snce t s ntended for a corner lot, ts space s more logcally and more usefully organzed. The spaces of the corner towers are smplfed and ncorporated nto larger areas whch are more adequately and drectly llumnated by havng wndows nserted n the body of the towers themselves. In so far as we can correlate ths plan and the perspectve renderng of 1888 (Fg. 14), the two seem to agree perfectly and, consequently, were probably made at about the same tme, durng the 1886-88 perod. The poston of the ncomplete study n Fg. Io s ev- dently that of a prelmnary sketch whch probably preceded the patented project of 1887 (Fg. 12) as s shown by the close smlarty of ther larger features."s The affnty of both to the "425-foot" project (Fg. 3) and to the 25- story desgn (Fg. 6) s evdent n the double zone of arches at the top, the character of the turrets, the sngle monumental dormer wndows, the promnent nclnaton of the lower part of the walls, the trple portal and the ground plan.31 These smlartes confrm once more the probable contemporanety of the several desgns wthn the 1886-88 perod. The perod n queston was apparently a very productve one for Buffngton, as seen n the skyscraper studes and n the many commssons whose renderngs enrch the Buffngton portfolo of drawngs for those years. It concdes wth a number of mportant events n the archtectural world. The most mportant for Buffngton's practce was the acquston as chef desgner of Harvey Ells, whose masterful pen and nk renderngs earned hm envable epthets.32 The other events are connected wth Henry Hobson Rchardson, whom Ells knew at Albany and whom he admred unreservedly, f we but judge from the fact that he called hm "magnfcent bg brute" and assmlated hs Neo-Romanesque style better than most arch- 30. That s, the uppermost zones of wndows, number of bays, etc. Ths ncomplete desgn s sgned L.S.B. 1886 and there s lttle reason to dspute ts date. 31. Stll another verson, slghtly dfferent from ether of these, appears n Francsco Mujca, Hstory of the Skyscraper, Pars, 1929, pl. XXIV. 32. Ftzpatrck, hs predecessor n the Buffngton offce, descrbed hm as the "cleverest desgner of hs day" (see note 41 and also Claude Bragdon, "Harvey Ells: a Portrat Sketch," Archtectural Revec, xv, 1908, pp. 173-83; Francs Swales, "Master Draftsmen, III: Harvey Ells, 1852-1907," [sc] Pencl Ponts, v, 49 ff.). 1924, pp. tects west of Chcago.33 The year 1886 saw also the death of Rchardson, the consequent publcty gven to hs achevement and the publcaton of some of hs most mportant structures.3" The next two years encompassed the completon of hs two great monuments, the Marshall Feld Store n Chcago and the Allegheny County Court House and Jal n Pttsburgh. Undoubtedly Rchardson must have been much n the mnd of the survvng members of hs professon. Hs works were certanly n the mnd of Buffngton - and Ells - as demonstrated by the further assmlaton of Rchardsonan motfs n the schemes whch preceded the publcaton of the project of 1888 (Fg. 14). The double zone of openngs at the top of Fg. Io seems to have been adapted from the frst Ames Store n Boston (Fg. I I).3- The two agree n the coupled wndows n the upper regster and the arcade of 2-story embracng arches below. The turrets wth ther graceful swellng, narrow wndows and ogee roofs seem very smlar to ther earler equvalents n the Crane Memoral Lbrary, the Bllngs Memoral Lbrary and the Ames Gardener's Cottage.36 Even the last skyscraper project (Fg. 14) s surrounded by structures whch provde a congenal Rchardsonan settng. The buldng on the left recalls easly the second Ames Store whereas that on the rght follows the pattern establshed by the Marshall Feld Store.37 It s evdent then that the second and domnant sequence of the skyscraper projects was almost entrely dependent on Rchardson's works. There remans the more precse defnton of the poston of the West Hotel n whch Buffngton clamed to have used the embryo of the column and the supportng shelf of the skeleton of steel constructon; the chronology of the columnar schemes; and the resoluton of the varous contradctons found n the drawngs and Memores. The West Hotel (Fg. 5) can be dsmssed smply by pontng out that there s nothng n the descrpton of the lobby or n the drawng publshed by Upjohn whch dffers from the common practce of carryng floors on I-beams supported by cast-ron columns (Fg. 5a)." One wonders then whether Buffngton knew anythng about the prncple of carryng the enclosng walls of a buldng on spandrel 33. Swales, loc. ct. 34. Rchardson ded Aprl 27. Some of the publcatons of that year were: Monograpths of Amercan Archtecture, Boston, 1886: Vol. I: Austn Hall; Vol. III: The Ames Memoral Buldng; Vol. v: Trnty Church; see also "Illustratons of the Work of H. H. Rchardson," Amercan Archtect, xx, September, 1886, pl. 559. 35. The reference here s to the store at Kngston and Bedford Streets, 1882-83. 36. H. R. Htchcock, The Archtecture of H. H. Rchardson and Hs Tmes, fgs. 74, o6, 125 respectvely. 37. Cf. Htchcock, bd., fgs. 138, 127. 38. The ART BULLETIN, XVII, 1935, PP. 53-54, fg. 3. Photographs of the buldng (Fg. 5a) taken by Mrs. J. R. Chrstson durng ts recent demolton prove ths conclusvely.
Io THE ART BULLETIN beams or on "shelves" before the erecton of the Home In- surance Buldng n Chcago between 1883 and 1885. The most nterestng sdelghts on ths queston and on Buffngton's career and personalty are evdent n personal testmones. One of these s quoted by Buffngton n hs Memores, where he recounts how Eugene F. Osborne, engneer and mechancal expert from Chcago, had sad to hm, "I saw many of your studes n 1882, before the patent was ssued.""9 There s no ndcaton, however, as to when and under what crcumstances the statement was made. The other testmony comes from Professor F. M. Mann, of the School of Archtecture of the Unversty of Mnnesota. In a letter publshed n the Mnneapols Journal he related how Buffngton had told hm n 1929 that he had "perfected the dea of the skeleton form n 1882 and made a desgn of a 28-story buldng to llustrate the possbltes of such constructon." Mann further reported that Buffngton had sad that Jenney of Chcago had vsted hm n Mnneapols durng the wnter of 1882-83, that Buffngton showed hm the West Hotel, then under constructon, and hs sketches for hs skyscraper projects, and explaned hs deas for a skeleton constructon. Then, upon hs return to Chcago, contnues the report, Jenney bult hs Home Insurance Buldng, n whch he ncorporated Buffngton's deas.40 The evdence already adduced from other sectons of the Memores and from the drawngs themselves makes the purported relatonshp to Jenney completely unrelable. As far as we know, Buffngton made no such clam upon Jenney whle the Chcago archtect was stll alve. In ths connecton t s nterestng to quote some passages from a letter wrtten by F. W. Ftzpatrck, former desgner assocated wth Buffngton, publshed n the Amercan Archtect.41 I know that Colonel Jenney's Home Lfe Insurance Buldng n Chcago was the frst skeleton structure n the country. I dd not even know that Mr. Glbert had clams to antedatng t but t never seemed to me that Buffngton's or any other patent n that lne of constructon amounted to a row of pns. The whole thng was rather the result of sometmes slow, sometmes rapd, evoluton and the fertlty of the Amercan mnd to grapple wth exstent condtons. The Buffngton patent always seemed more or less a joke to me. In 1883 I was employed by hm as a desgner. Prevous to that tme I had a lot to do wth hgh church towers and had often thought over some scheme or other of dong away wth the excessve weght and thckness of ther supportng walls. The steel skeleton dd not present tself to me then as a fullgrown flower, but rather n the shape of a seed deposted n not unfertle sol. My dea was to renforce the walls wth ron 39. Upjohn, loc. ct. Woltersdorf's story accordng to whch Adler credts Buffngton wth a crude but effectve skeleton constructon s not justfed by any supported facts. See note 2. 40. Upjohn, op. ct., p. 54, note 2. 41. xcii, July 13, 1907, pp. 15-16. beams placed vertcally. Well n '83 Mr. Buffngton had as you may remember the cream of the work of the West. The frst thng I had to tackle was some trouble n the West Hotel then under constructon. One of the bay-wndows had fallen down or somethng or other, and I "flashed" my beam-renforcement, but was pooh-poohed for my pans. But a lttle whle later [1885] the Trbune Buldng and several other bg commercal structures were on the taps. There the seed had taken root and was actually pushng up sprouts. I wanted to get the Trbune people nto the noton of buldng a twelve story structure and made the sketches showng cast-ron columns, bedded n a thn outer wall, wth grders at each story, and the next story's thn outer wall carred on that lne of grders, and so on up. Ths was termed "crazy constructon" by Buffngton. But at that tme there was rather a skllful engneer there (who also later nvented the tubular tunnel that has been so much nfrnged n subsequent tmes) named Strom, who fgured up ths constructon very carefully, proposed a substtuton of wrought ron members for the cast columns and declared that such a buldng could be carred up and safeguarded aganst wnd, etc. easly to twenty or twenty-two stores. In 1886 I severed my connectons wth Mr. Buffngton and was succeeded by probably the cleverest desgner of hs day, Harvey Ells. Strom was stll there. In due course there appeared n the Amercan Archtect, I beleve, or n another techncal publcaton, a splendd pcture of a twentyfve story buldng "desgned" by Buffngton. People generally looked upon t as a wld eyed scheme, and even I felt a bt tcklsh about the twenty-fve stores, but gave t no partcular thought, treatng t merely as a "project" but knew nothng of ts beng patented. Some years later I was surprsed to see that suts had been fled by Mr. Buffngton aganst several owners and archtects n Chcago for nfrngng hs "patent." Nothng came of the suts. Upjohn thought that Buffngton had dscouraged Ftz- patrck's suggestons because he was thnkng of patentng hs own scheme and was merely concealng hs own deas.42 Ths hypothess, however, must be ruled out. To beleve that Buffngton was hdng hs deas from hs desgner n 1883 and that he revealed them completely to Jenney, hs rval, n "1882-83" so that he could use them n hs Home Insurance Buldng s to volate the boundares of cred- blty. The reverse course of the dea from Jenney to Buffngton s probably closer to the truth. Ftzpatrck's letter re- veals qute clearly that Buffngton knew lttle, f anythng, of "skyscraper constructon" before 1886. It was probably the erecton of the Home Insurance Buldng and the de- scrpton of ts constructon by Jenney n the Santary Engneer for December - Io, I8854" not the Lectures of Vol- 42. Op. ct., p. 55. 43. "Constructon of a Heavy Freproof Buldng on Compressble Sol," Santary Engneer, xiii, pp. 32-33. In addton to the dscusson of fre proofng, Jenney descrbes and llustrates wth dagrams the pyramdal solated footngs, the attachment of the I-beams to the columns by means of brackets fastened to them, and a plan of the metal network made up of "pers, ron columns, grders, etc."
THE ENIGMA OF BUFFINGTON'S SKYSCRAPER II let-le-duc - whch suggested the pecular modfcatons of the prncples of skyscraper constructon wth "braces" and "shelves" and the fabulous prospects of a patented "nventon.""4 The comng of Harvey Ells to hs offce must have been lke manna from heaven. Snce there are practcally no Neo-Romanesque projects n the Buffngton collecton of drawngs for prvate and publc buldngs datng before 1886 and snce all the outstandng examples bear the stylstc mprnt, and often the sgnature, of Ells as desgner I beleve that t was he who converted hs employer to the Rchardsonan fath."5 In the lght of ths evdence the most prmtve Neo-Romanesque project (Fg. 3) must be attrbuted also to Ells, or to hs nfluence, and assgned to the begnnng of the actve perod 1886-87 whch led to the skyscraper patent."4 The clarty of form, the stylstc consstency and the dstnctve magnatveness of that project are more n consonance wth the work of Ells n the Buffngton offce than wth the earler works of hs employer. Wth ths probablty n mnd, the columnar desgns, whch are dated "1882" and whch we tentatvely assgned to 1883-84 because of the account n the Memores, must be brought closer to the early Neo-Romanesque scheme. As noted before, both the columnar projects and the Rchardsonan tower were drawn on the same knd of paper; they all have certan basc smlartes n ther massve bases, ther tops, horzontal bandng and locaton (Fgs. I, 3). The characterstc analoges between the settng of the 50o-story buldng and the Neo-Romanesque tower already foreshadow the locaton and character of the patented project and that publshed n 1888 (Fgs. 12, 14). Wthout prolongng the argument unnecessarly, one can conclude, therefore, that these schemes were the prelm- 44. I am frmly convnced that t was the readng of Jenney's artcle that sent Buffngton to the lbrares to see f the cage constructon was patented and that subsequently led to hs patentng hs partcular verson of t. Hs attrbutng hs nspraton to Vollet-le- Due seems a convenent subterfuge. The chronology nferred from the sequence of the drawngs and from ther relaton to extant buldngs n Pttsburgh, Chcago and elsewhere harmonzes more wth Jenney's artcle of 1885 than wth Vollet-le-Duc's Lectures of 1881. 45. Mrs. Chrstson holds that the Neo-Romanesque had appeared n Buffngton's offce before the arrval of Ells (Mnnesota Hstory, September, 1942, p. 227). The drawngs whch I examned, however, datng before 1886, show very lttle evdence of t and least of all do they show any of the qualtes whch dstngush the work of hs offce after that date - especally the skyscraper desgns. Accordng to Ftzpatrck, Harvey Ells succeeded hm n the Bufflngton offce n 1886 (see note 41 and letter quoted above). Swales, however, who msdates Ells' death by three years, wrtes that he went west n 1885 but does not mply that he went drectly to Buffngton's offce (op. ct., p. 49). 46. Ths date s confrmed to some extent also by the appearance of the essental characterstcs of the upper porton of the Neo- Romanesque project n another scheme dated 1887-89 and ntended for the tower of the Mnneapols Cty Hall and the Hennepn County Court House. nary steps of the skyscraper venture whch may have orgnated n Buffngton's mnd n the wnter season of 1885-86 after readng Jenney's artcle, but ther magnatve character suggests that they were done after the arrval of Ells. The date corresponds to the evdence already adduced to show that the skeleton constructon and the Neo- Romanesque style were not fully understood by Buffngton before Ells succeeded Ftzpatrck as desgner n 1886. It s thus proved beyond doubt that Buffngton's clams to the prorty of "nventon" or of the development of skeleton constructon cannot be substantated. Any credt whch he mght take for gvng wde publcty to the skyscraper constructon and for the merts of the varous desgns connected wth hs offce must be measured aganst the stature of Har- vey Ells who s stll to be reconsttuted as an artstc personalty.47 In the face of the overwhelmng evdence aganst the clams of Buffngton, the determnaton of when and why the sgnatures and dates n the drawngs were ntroduced wll hardly change, and t should confrm my essental conclusons. If Buffngton ntroduced them, he certanly faled n hs purpose, for n hs Memores he contradcts the mplcatons of the dates n the drawngs. If someone else nterpolated them, the motve behnd the act s not clear and certanly dd not bear frut. Upjohn felt compelled by the obvous anachronsm of the 7-story skeleton elevaton to rase the queston of whether all or some of the sgnatures and dates were false. But hs very summary analyss of Buffngton's sgnatures and dates n the eghtes and nnetes seems to have been further weakened by an underlyng convcton that the dates, wth only one possble excepton, were correct. The anonymous "expert n handwrtng" consulted by Upjohn testfed that the drawng of the Elevaton of Iron Constructon was done at the same tme as the sgnature and the date on t. Ths need not mean that they were done n 1882 but that s what Upjohn understood them to mean and made further comparatve observatons on the wrtng of Buffngton to prove the authentcty of the sgnatures on the other drawngs as well.48 But he dd not provde vsual proof n the form of comparatve materal such as letters, contracts, etc., whch were sgned and dated n the normal course of Buffngton's busness practce and therefore beyond suspcon. In any case Buffngton seems to have had lttle fath n these dated drawngs, for he referred to them n hs Memores only sparngly and ndrectly - and then unwttngly to hs dsadvantage. He may have used them for the purpose of mpressng the prorty of hs clam upon hs personal frends. He certanly could not have used them as evdence n the ltgatons resultng from hs attempt to prove that 47. The few short euloges whch have appeared snce hs death are certanly nadequate (see note 32). 48. Upjohn, op. ct., p. 65.
12 THE ART BULLETIN certan buldngs wth skeleton constructon were an n- frngement of hs patent."9 The reason he added the early dates and thereby clamed prorty of nventon was probably because he had lttle fath n hs patent, especally after hs frst futle lawsut, and he needed somethng to bolster hs ego or hs reputaton. The dea for such a fantastc clam may have oc- curred to hm before 1895, when Ells left hs offce, but there s no evdence that he made hs clam publc before Ells' death n 1904 or Jenney's retrement n Calforna n 1905.50 He certanly dd not allude to the "dated" drawngs as evdence of hs clam whle Ells and Jenney were stll alve. Mrs. J. R. Chrstson has made a specal study of the problem of sgnatures and dates, as related to Buffngton's Memores and drawngs, whch wll undoubtedly round out the dscusson of Buffngton's clam. On the bass of the foregong analyss of vared nternal and external evdence bearng upon the engma of Buffng- 49. Buffngton's Iron Buldng Company was probably organzed n order to grant lcenses to use the patent and to prosecute those who nfrnged t. He spent a great deal of money n many suts arsng from "nfrngements" but never won a sngle case. He lved, however, long enough to receve royaltes on hs patent after ts legal term had expred, and as a result of a gesture compounded of modern publcty and cvc prde when the owners of the Rand Tower at Mnneapols pad hm voluntarly about $2500. Snce the tower was desgned by Holabrd and Root, the modern successors of the earler Chcago frms of Holabrd and Roche, and Burnham and Root, whch dd so much for the development of the skyscraper, the royalty was an roncal nverson of poetc justce. 50. The retrement of Jenney was announced n the Amercan Archtect, LXXXVII, May 20, 1905, pp. 157-58, where the queston of who was the earlest to apply the prncples of skyscraper constructon s rased only wth reference to Jenney, and Glbert of New York. It s not untl the ssue of June 22, 1907, that an edtoral of the Amercan Arclhtect, notng the recent death of Jenney, suggests that Buffngton was an earler contestant for the same honor: "A few years ago, because of dsputaton over the matter, the Amercan Insttute of Archtects examned the evdence accessble and decded that as between Messrs. Bradford L. Glbert, L. S. Buffngton, and W. L. B. Jenney, all archtects of standng, the latter had the better clam to be consdered the orgnator of the modern method of steel-skeleton constructon for hgh buldngs." I have been unable, however, to locate any earler publcaton of ths "rulng" that would suggest the date of the frst nstance of Buffngton's clam to prorty. In any case what ndrect evdence we have suggests that the fraudulent clam was frst made probably between 1905 and 1907 when the prncpal wtnesses who could contradct hm were out of the way. Ths perod, therefore, may be the tme when the sgnatures and dates were added to the drawngs of 1885-88. ton's skyscraper I propose the followng hypothetcal, but very probable, account of hs actvty. He knew lttle or nothng of skeleton constructon before the wnter of 1885-86. Upon readng Jenney's artcle n the Santary Engneer, for December Io, 1885, he was struck by the techncal and fnancal possbltes of the prncple of skeleton constructon. Snce, accordng to hs own credble nvestga- tons on that pont, the prncple had not been patented, he proceeded to develop hs own verson of t wth the as- sstance of Ells, the desgner, and Strom, the engneer, for the purpose of securng a patent. The evoluton of hs "scheme" seems to fall nto three phases. The frst phase - early 1886 --s represented by the columnar projects (Fgs. I, 2) whch nclude the Elevaton of Iron Constructon wth the solated pyramdal footng, very smlar to the type llustrated n Jenney's artcle and totally unsuted to Mnneapols foundatons. The second - phase - 1886-87 shfted to the Neo-Romanesque style and developed the solated Rchardsonan tower (wth an entrance on each of ts four sdes) leadng to the patented project of 1887 (Fgs. 3, 6, 10, 12 n the order gven). The thrd phase - - 1887-88 developed along stll more practcal lnes the varous versons of the 28-story buldng whch has entrances only on two sdes and no dormer wndows (Fgs. 14, 17). Ths project was ntended for publcty. The foregong account would be approxmately all that a truthful record would accord to the Buffngton offce. But Buffngton's mana for dstncton and the costly suts for "nfrngement" of hs patent demanded some compensatory reward and he proceeded to nvent t. He may have thought about makng hs clam to prorty of nventon before Ells left the offce n 1895 but the earlest publshed reference to hs clam suggests that he announced t after that date and certanly before 1907. It was probably dur- ng the same perod that he sgned and dated as of 1881, 1882, etc. the projects whch preceded the patented skyscraper of 1887. Perhaps at ths tme he also desgned the skeleton wth the grllage footng and formulated the account of how the Lectures of Vollet-le-Duc nspred hs nventon. Ths account he later elaborated n hs Memores and unwttngly provded the key to the engma of hs skyscraper. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
FIc.. Studes for 5o-Story and oo-story Buldng, Dated x882 FIc. 2. "Elevaton of Iron Constructon," Dated
FIG. 3. Study for Skyscraper, Dated I881 FIG. 5. Desgn for West Hotel, Mnneapols, Mnnesota FIG. 4. Pttsburgh: Allegheny County Court Buldng by H. H. Rchardson, 1884-87 FIG. 5a. Mnneapols: Lobby of West Hotel n Process of Demolton
FIG. 7. Mnneapols: Detal, Rear Elevaton, Pllsbury Hall, Unversty of Mnnesota, 1887 FIc. 6. Half Elevaton, Half Secton, Plans for 25-Story Buldng, Dated 1883 FIc. 8. Cambrdge: Detal, Austn Hall, by H. H. Rchardson, 1881-83
Fc. 9. Secton, Seven Stores of Skeleton Constructon, Dated I88z FIG. o. Study for 28-Story Buldng, Dated 886 Fc. x1. Bo Rchardson,
(No Model.) Sheets-Sheet $ L. BSUFFINGTON. S (N1o Model.)5 L. S. BUFFINGTON. IRON CONSTRUOTION. BUILDINO Patented May 22, 1888. No. 383,170. IRON CONSTRUJCTION. BUILDfNO Patented May 22, 1888. No. 383,170.!a 00a, qoo -"??. 0 4' c1-5- 00 '- c fl4>ey&j Sheets--Sheet4..6.0 00a s./ 900 00 00* Do $1 ar J e'.,,?? cooc 00/~c~~ u0aoi 11 11 0ell aah-l l~?o c-4,y;~~~0/ ~1~ 00 ~ oclv~-lfbu-.xwd,i 7?-, oo /X~ 8 0?,c 0 SP~6 13 r y~3. 0 c 0----~~? r"-" ~77n co " o? j14 tlh~l~~lff~r 'VC~Y~~'-YI;L'I~I~LCY w4y a s1y;jj.70 ",r 0 0 0 0 00 cmmo~ j)i 0 0 10 I H- 42 o~?zu*~,o 0 0, ~ _ r./ e a, 3' Z3 IE~;t~tX~ll~l~47"~, FIc. 12. Elevaton, Plans, and Secton of Patented Buldng, Desgned n 1887 FIc. 13. Detals of Iron Buldng Constructon, Desgned n 1887 8Ft JA.. 14. FG. for StSu-8S udy z 8-Story
FIG. 15. Study for Skyscraper, Dated 1886 FIc. 16. Study for Skyscraper, Dated 1886 FIG. 17. Study for 2
$- /, /I :. 11 *? ;..I. r~?;,,?. ft?. -k,,,, -._;? U~B ~ ; I..,...?... L _.:,? - ",, o r ff/, f? :a1;4~u~ n~r tlar a 1~ jl r I? f:1 1)! :.. f f j I a.? ; a?f~;3'%l~'.~:_-?~?,a~a_" FIc. I8. Plans for 28-Story Buldng, Dated 1885 FIG. I9. Ground Plan for 28-Story Buldng, D _ I, -e, S.._ t. _r Cf7777ff? FIc. 20. Typcal Floor Plan for 28-Story Buldng, Dated 1886 FIc. 21. Ground Plan for 28-Story Bu 1882
ji? c;: t ' t- B f? -:, :?. I :- :.?? ", - ;,!' I r-, L- -4 r LI t~?-- RF :~~,r 4, '11 9 tr?:???;-:? I: I 81 I I? Fc. 22. Typcal Floor Plan for 28-Story Buldng ;"?:?~-?I-? ~d : f ; :: : r?5:;? -Q?*;:~- f~r " -: -? r-1-????ltl,~ ;:?---_ L--:$-?.:-.?:-_~d~"?? -1-I-~ -7~. -. x B t ;?ru~? ~?? ;?- 3l t13~?:-!?i-;;1-?? E::~8, II : I?: f I, :? : L` - ;!Y; I' ;l -.t, I r 1 :?-?"r' '? :'-Pn ;_ c f 1 ~u?:,.?;:???:??- ;? t~?~- ":??: -?.:rh r :a: -...:? t r? -1~??,!r - 1.?'I??;? ;, :I 1!111 ) r???:., n b fr'~-~7" r? I -:_~;??? 1 II?~?-:--?s - :? r I,~;??:I-~ - L ~,, ar?~?:s?-?, ; r! I7... :?;I" ;? I::" ~l~f~~? ; ~~s~~?' e I? ;,?, ~J~J f,, c.,--tp-~ul. ~4~?. t I~2 FIG. 23. Sectons and Detals for 28-Story Buldng, Dated 1885 ;-J~?a~~ r. ". IL 1 T I I" 4 - T, _ ".rt FIc. 24. Secton of Twenty-Seven 7