The Society for Savings Building, also known as the Society Corp. Building, is a high-rise building on

Public Square A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true square, geometric square, used for community gathe ...

Downtown Cleveland, Ohio Downtown Cleveland is the central business district of Cleveland, Ohio. The economic and symbolic center of the city and the Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH Combined Statistical Area, it is Cleveland's oldest district, with its Public Square laid out b ...

, United States. The building was constructed in 1889, and stood as the tallest building in Cleveland until 1896, when it was surpassed by the 221-foot (67 m)

Guardian Bank Building The Guardian Bank Building (originally known as the New England Building and later known as the National City Bank Building) is a high-rise building on Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Description and history It was built in 1896 and ...

. The building stands 152 feet (46 m) tall, with 10 floors. The Society for Savings Building is often considered to be the first modern

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

in Cleveland and the state of Ohio. It was designed by

John Wellborn Root John Wellborn Root (January 10, 1850 – January 15, 1891) was an American architect who was based in Chicago with Daniel Burnham. He was one of the founders of the Chicago School style. Two of his buildings have been designated a National H ...

of the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

-based architectural firm

Burnham & Root Burnham and Root was one of Chicago's most famous architectural companies of the nineteenth century. It was established by Daniel Hudson Burnham and John Wellborn Root. During their eighteen years of partnership, Burnham and Root designed and ...

Design

The Society for Savings Building was designed with a combination of

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

, Romanesque, and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

architectural styles. It contains elements of each in its granite pillars, arched window frames and red

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

facade.

History

The Society for Savings Building was constructed to serve as office space for Cleveland's Society for Savings. Though structurally complete in late 1889, the building did not officially open until June 23, 1890. The building was at the time dubbed "Ohio's skyscraper" by locals, as it was the first modern high-rise building to be constructed in the city and the state. It went on to serve as the headquarters of the

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) is a labor union founded in Marshall, Michigan, on 8 May 1863 as the Brotherhood of the Footboard. It was the first permanent trade organization for railroad workers in the US. A year lat ...

, or BLE, from 1896 until 1910. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on November 7, 1976. In modern times, the building is one of several structures located at Key Center.

Key Tower Key Tower is a skyscraper on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Designed by architect César Pelli, it is the tallest building in the state of Ohio, the 39th-tallest in the United States, and the 165th-tallest in the world. The buildin ...

(formerly known as the Society Center), the tallest building in Cleveland and in the state of Ohio, was built adjacent to the Society for Savings Building by Society Bank 100 years after it; the lobbies of the two buildings were integrated, and in the process the Society for Savings Building underwent an extensive restoration and renovation project headed by the architectural firm of van Dijk, Pace, Westlake & Partners. The building contains 147,089 square feet (13,665 m²) of office space.

References

{{authority control 1890s architecture in the United States Skyscraper office buildings in Cleveland Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Burnham and Root buildings Commercial buildings completed in 1890 National Register of Historic Places in Cleveland, Ohio Office buildings completed in 1890

Design

History

See also

References