Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986: How Technology, Politics, Finance, and Race Reshaped the City

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Thomas Leslie

Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986

How Technology, Politics, Finance, and Race Reshaped the City

Thomas Leslie

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Hardback

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English

University of Illinois Press
20 June 2023

Public buildings: civic, commercial, industrial; History of architecture; History of the Americas; Local history

From skyline-defining icons to wonders of the world, the second period of the Chicago skyscraper transformed the way Chicagoans lived and worked. Thomas Leslie’s comprehensive look at the modern skyscraper era views the skyscraper idea, and the buildings themselves, within the broad expanse of city history. As construction emerged from the Great Depression, structural, mechanical, and cladding innovations evolved while continuing to influence designs. But the truly radical changes concerned the motivations that drove construction. While profit remained key in the Loop, developers elsewhere in Chicago worked with a Daley political regime that saw tall buildings as tools for a wholesale recasting of the city’s appearance, demography, and economy. Focusing on both the wider cityscape and specific buildings, Leslie reveals skyscrapers to be the physical results of negotiations between motivating and mechanical causes.

Illustrated with more than 140 photographs, Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934–1986 tells the fascinating stories of the people, ideas, negotiations, decision-making, compromises, and strategies that changed the history of architecture and one of its showcase cities.

By: Thomas Leslie
Imprint: University of Illinois Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 279mm, Width: 216mm, Spine: 28mm
ISBN: 9780252044953
ISBN 10: 0252044959
Pages: 354
Publication Date: 20 June 2023
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Thomas Leslie is an architect, educator, and author. His books include Beauty's Rigor: Patterns of Production in the Work of Pier Luigi Nervi and Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871–1934.

Reviews for Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986: How Technology, Politics, Finance, and Race Reshaped the City

"""A magisterial account of our city's high-rise foundations."" --Newcity ""An impressive and important book that ranks with other works providing the deepest insights into what makes Chicago, Chicago. . . . Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986 is one of those rare books about significant architectural structures that looks beyond design controversies, elegant descriptions, and engineering details and examines the forces behind their creation."" --Third Coast Review “A worthy successor to the pathbreaking work of Carl Condit, this deeply researched volume explores the architectural design, structure and equipment of tall buildings in Chicago from the 1930s into the 1980s in their full and complex relationship to changing economic, social, and political realities in the city.”--Robert Bruegmann, author of Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America"