Let's Go To Architecture School - Lesson #2

Who knows what clear-span construction is?

From the Chicago Architecture Foundation's Website:

"a structural system that does not use any columns between the exterior walls"

Think Mad Men.  Think about the cubicle farm you probably have worked in.   It doesn't seem like such a big deal today but back in the day, a building needed a lot of interior columns and walls to hold itself up.  The Mondanock Building on Dearborn and Jackson is a great example of this.  In a building like that you don't get big big open rooms.   With engineering advances - mostly developed here in Chicago I might add - the building was able to start holding itself up with an exterior cage-like structure.  This left the interiors able to have much bigger open spaces uninterrupted with columns and walls.   The picture above by the way is the Inland Steel Building on Monroe in Chicago, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.   My uncle, Tevis Freeman, was an architect on this amazing project.   

The Mad Men tv set.

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