The Reliance Building: A Building Book from the Chicago Architecture Foundation

Daniel H. Burnham & Co.'s glass-covered Reliance Building, built in 1890-1891 and then extended to fifteen stories in 1895, is a granddaddy of today's skyscrapers. The enormous flat and projecting bay windows invited abundant natural light, and the steel-frame structure, covered with twelve thousand pieces of white terra-cotta decorated with Gothic-style elements, was unique in office building construction. By Jay Pridmore, photographs by Hedrich Blessing. Published with the Chicago Architecture Foundation.