It might seem that adding beehives and golf courses on the top of London buildings is a rather 21st-century phenomenon.īut Adelaide House was there first, with a fruit and flower garden gracing its top, as well as beehives and an 18-hole mini golf course. The unadorned side was never really meant to be seen it was only exposed after the next-door building was demolished after the second world war. Adelaide House, pictured from the south bank of the Thames, showing its plain eastern facade. Barefaced beautyĪnother quirk can be seen on its eastern side: it's faced in bare brick. On 8 October 1871, a fire swept through the young city along a four-mile corridor. It was built at the height of London's Egyptian mania, sparked by the discovery in 1922, of Tutankhamun's tomb. Much of the building is art deco style, with Egyptian flourishes. She also has a Southern Australian city named after her and there seem to be other Australian connections with the building, as it features a row of stone coats-of-arms from Australian states across its entrance. Queen Adelaide opened London Bridge, right next to Adelaide House, in 1831. Why Adelaide?Īs is often the case in London, Adelaide House has the same name as a previous building on the site which in turn, was named after Queen Adelaide, King William IV's wife. Other American-style attributes, like central ventilation (an early form of air conditioning), an internal mail system as well as telephone and electric connections on every floor, meant the building was positively futuristic when completed. It was built in 1862 in Chicago, Illinois. The Delaware Building is one of Americas oldest skyscrapers. Youll also see one of the tallest buildings in the United States-the Willis Tower in Chicago, built in 1974 with 108 floors, as well as diverse architectural. Its structure wasn't the only thing that gave Adelaide House a distinctly cosmopolitan outlook. The oldest skyscrapers in America Delaware Building. It was this new method of building taller structures, pioneered - believe it or not - by a mill outside Shrewsbury, that went on to shape the skyscrapers in New York and Chicago, and then throughout the world. ![]() ![]() Steel frameĪdelaide House was the first building in the City to use the 'steel frame' building technique we now see in building sites across London. And more important than its height (although you can argue, like architect Owen Hatherley, that anything more than 10 storeys tall is a skyscraper) are the materials that go into making each of those 11 storeys.
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