The Great Chicago Fire: From Ashes to Innovation

Описание: The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed over 17,500 buildings and left 100,000 people homeless, but it accidentally sparked the greatest architectural revolution in human history. While the famous story of Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern was complete fiction created by a reporter, the real three-day inferno forced Chicago to rebuild using revolutionary fireproof materials like terra cotta and steel frame construction. These innovations, led by architects like William Le Baron Jenney who built the world's first steel-framed skyscraper in 1885, created the Chicago School of Architecture and established the technological foundation for every modern skyscraper. Today, every steel-framed building with large windows and fireproof construction traces its technological DNA back to those desperate years when Chicago rebuilt itself from ashes into the blueprint for the modern city.