Which Chicago building, completed in 1885, is often considered the world’s first skyscraper?

Chicago’s Home Insurance Building, completed in 1885, is often considered the world’s first skyscraper.

Architect William Le Baron Jenney designed the building, whose original ten-story version stood about 42 metres tall. Its importance came less from sheer height than from its pioneering structural system. A metal frame carried much of the building’s load, allowing the exterior walls to be lighter than the thick masonry walls used in earlier tall buildings.

The Home Insurance Building was later expanded to twelve stories and eventually reached about 55 metres. It stood at the corner of LaSalle and Adams Streets in Chicago until demolition began in 1931.

The phrase “first skyscraper” is not completely universal because historians use different definitions. Some emphasize the metal skeleton, while others consider earlier tall buildings with elevators, steel components, or unusually high masonry walls. Chicago’s Home Insurance Building remains the conventional answer because its load-bearing metal frame helped establish the modern skyscraper’s basic construction principle.