「シカゴ構法」考

主としてウィリアム・ル・バロン・ジェニーのホーム・インシュアランス・ビル（1885）を通して

抄録

 From MoMA`s “Ealy Modern Architecture: Chicago 1870-1910” exhibition in 1933 and through the publishing of Carl Condit`s The Chicago School of Architecture in 1964, the typical overview on the Chicago school of architecture in late nineteenth century and the “Chicago Construction” have been firmly formed from aesthetic, formalistic, and structural points of view.

 In this essay, first we examine closely the discourses on William Le Baron Jenney`s Home Insurance Building(1885), which was once deemed to be the first metal framed structural building. In William Mundie`s manuscript, Skeleton Construction, Its Origin and Development, in 1932, despite the fact that it was written one year after the demolition of the building and the concomitant investigation on the structure of it, Mundie described the building as of metal framed construction. Regarding emphasis on the transition of the building construction, namely from traditional bearing wall system to framed construction, his description is considered to be also contemporary with MoMA`s emphasis on the same transition of building construction for modern architecture. On the other hand, in 1964, Condit described the building as an example of early curtain wall adoption not as that of metal framed structure, discussing from the same structural point of view. Condit also made criticism of the building from aesthetic and formalistic points of view, which were again the same as those of MoMA`s.

 Closely examining these discourses and the typical floor plan, we attempt to position them in historical perspective.

 Going back to the middle and late nineteenth century, the age of Jenney himself, we also attempt to reevaluate the “primitive hut in Manila,” which Jenney once saw on his trip to Philippine in his boyhood, as another great inspiration source of “Chicago Construction” again. The notion of “primitive hut” was an important one in the nineteenth century architectural history, in Eugene Viollet-le-Duc`s writings for example. In other words, by going back to Jenney`s age, we attempt to give a proper appreciation to the locale where the U.S. expansion to the Pacific Ocean by whaling which brought Jenney to Philippine and gave him an encounter with the “primitive hut” in Manila, and the notion of “primitive hut” in French theory of architectural history, merged into one architect to form the idea of “Chicago Construction.”