Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

STEEL-FRAME BUILDINGS. 21 the lift is travelling. Its movements are indicated more precisely by a hand moving over a dial. if built of common brickwork. Briefly, the standard is dimension instead of strength. In the United States the height of modern It is unfortunate that the London Building buildings has caused a wonderful trans- Act, 1894, and numerous provin- cial building codes based upon that Act, prevent architects and engineers from taking full advan- tage of steel as a structural material. Not that we are desir- ous to see the skyscraper in this country, as the conditions are not suitable for it; but the fact re- mains that, if proper scope were given to skeleton and cage con- struction, much expense might be saved without in any way de- tracting from the safety of large edifices. So long as the obsolete regulations mentioned above re- main in force, every building within the scope of their juris- diction must have walls of the standard thickness, however effectively they may be reinforced by steel ; and even if the walls were of solid steel, they would have to be just as massive as formation in the appearance of New York, Chicago, and various other great cities. From New York harbour the spectacle pre- sented by the irregular mass of giant structures is striking, if not beautiful. It serves as an object lesson of the manner in which American engineers are always ready to attack new problems without regard to conventional practice or time-honoured prece- dents. The problem in Chicago and New York particularly was to accommodate an enormous and ever-increasing number of people on strictly limited areas, and it must be admitted that the successful nature of the solution found has given rise to a series of buildings which are justly entitled to be placed among the engineering wonders of the world. \ Fig. 71.—MONTGOMERY WARD BUILDING TOWEP.