![Edificio Fuller (Flatiron) en 2010 desde el Empire State crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Edificio_Fuller_%28Flatiron%29_en_2010_desde_el_Empire_State_crop.jpg)
George A. Fuller (1851 β December 14, 1900) was an American architect often credited as being the "inventor" of modern skyscrapers and the modern
contracting system.
Early life and career
Fuller was born in
Templeton, Massachusetts
Templeton is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 8,149 at the 2020 census. The town comprises four main villages: Templeton Center, East Templeton, Baldwinville, and Otter River.
Geography
According to ...
, near
Worcester
Worcester may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England
** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament
* Worcester Park, London, Englan ...
. After graduating from
Andover College, he took a course in architecture at the
Boston School of Technology and then started in the office of his uncle, J.E. Fuller, an architect in Worcester, Massachusetts. Fuller soon entered the office of
Peabody & Stearns
Peabody & Stearns was a premier architectural firm in the Eastern United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the firm consisted of Robert Swain Peabody (1845β1917) and John Goddard Stearns J ...
– a firm which specialized in building mansions for the rich in
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, ...
– where he soon developed a strong interest in the details of erecting a building, and was particularly interested in "skyscrapers", the name recently given to the tall buildings that had been made possible by
Elisha Otis
Elisha Graves Otis (August 3, 1811 β April 8, 1861) was an American industrialist, founder of the Otis Elevator Company, and inventor of a safety device that prevents elevators from falling if the hoisting cable fails.
Early years
Otis was b ...
' invention of the
safety elevator.
[Alexiou, p. 3] At the age of twenty-five he was made a partner and placed in charge of Peabody & Stearns's New York office.
In New York, Fuller's design for a new club house for the
Union League Club of New York
The Union League Club is a private social club in New York City that was founded in 1863 in affiliation with the Union League. Its fourth and current clubhouse is located at 38 East 37th Street on the corner of Park Avenue, in the Murray Hill ...
, a
Queen Anne mansion for the site at the corner of
Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...
and
39th Street, won over eight other designs, including those submitted by noted architects
Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt (October 31, 1827 β July 31, 1895) was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of American architecture. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 entrance faΓ ...
and
Charles McKim
Charles Follen McKim (August 24, 1847 β September 14, 1909) was an American Beaux-Arts architect of the late 19th century. Along with William Rutherford Mead and Stanford White, he provided the architectural expertise as a member of the partn ...
and
William Rutherford Mead
William Rutherford Mead (August 20, 1846 β June 19, 1928) was an American architect who was the "Center of the Office" of McKim, Mead, and White, a noted Gilded Age architectural firm.Baker, Paul R. ''Stanny'' The firm's other founding pa ...
. Fuller also designed the United Bank Building, a nine-story building at
Wall Street
Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...
and
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
, although he left Peabody & Stearns shortly after construction began, having spent four years there.
George A. Fuller Company
Fuller moved to Chicago, the locus of much of the skyscraper construction in the United States at the time, where he formed a partnership with C. Everett Clark, another architect from Massachusetts, which lasted only two years. He then raised $50,000 and set up the George A. Fuller Company in 1882. Fuller's new firm was different from the many architecture firms of the time, in that it intended to handle all aspects of building construction ''except'' for the design of the building, which would come from outside architects. In this way, Fuller created the modern concept of the
general contractor
A general contractor, main contractor or prime contractor is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of ...
.
[Alexiou, p. 10]
One of the new firm's first jobs was the
Chicago Opera House
The Chicago Opera House was a theater complex in Chicago, Illinois, designed by the architectural firm of Cobb and Frost. The Chicago Opera House building took the cue provided by the Metropolitan Opera of New York as a mixed-used building: it h ...
, designed by
Henry Ives Cobb
Henry Ives Cobb (August 19, 1859 – March 27, 1931) was an architect from the United States. Based in Chicago in the last decades of the 19th century, he was known for his designs in the Richardsonian Romanesque and Victorian Gothic styles. ...
and
Charles S. Frost. In this building, Fuller, who was a proponent of using steel in building construction, utilized it for the floor beams, a decision which subjected him to criticism from the architectural community, which was wary of using steel and unsure of its long-term properties.
Very little is really known today of the properties of steel ... and though events point strongly to tbecoming the metal of the future, there exists among many reasonable conservative men, a wide and well-grounded distrust of its use in the higher engineer or architectural structures, on account of its mysterious behavior, and frequent erratic and inexplicable failures.
Fuller's firm built the
Tacoma Building in Chicago designed by
Holabird & Roche
The architectural firm now known as Holabird & Root was founded in Chicago in 1880. Over the years, the firm has changed its name several times and adapted to the architectural style then current — from Chicago School to Art Deco to Modern ...
and completed in 1889, which was the first skyscraper with non
load bearing curtain walls. By using
Bessemer steel
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is steelmaking, removal of impurities from the iron by ox ...
beams, Fuller created steel cages that supported all the building's weight.
Fuller's firm also built the
Rookery Building
The Rookery Building is a historic office building located at 209 South LaSalle Street in the Chicago Loop. Completed by architects Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root of Burnham and Root in 1888, it is considered one of their masterpiece b ...
(1888,
Burnham and 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 ...
), the
Rand McNally Building
The Rand McNally Building (1889β1911) in Chicago, designed by Burnham and Root, was the world's first all-steel framed skyscraper.
History
The building was located at 160β174 Adams Street (on the south side between LaSalle and Wells) and a ...
(1890, Burnham & Root), the
Pontiac Building
The Pontiac Building is a historic high-rise building located at 542 S. Dearborn St. in the Printer's Row neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.
History
Built in 1891, the building is the oldest surviving work in downtown Chicago designed by the a ...
(1891, Holabird & Roche) and the
Monadnock Building
The Monadnock Building (historically the Monadnock Block; pronounced ) is a 16-story skyscraper located at 53 West Jackson Boulevard in the south Loop area of Chicago. The north half of the building was designed by the firm of Burnham & Root ...
(1891, Burnham & Root; 1893, Holabird & Roche) in Chicago, and the
New York Times Building
The New York Times Building is a 52-story skyscraper at 620 Eighth Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets, on the west side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Its chief tenant is the New York Times Company, publisher of ''The New York Time ...
(1889,
George B. Post
George Browne Post (December 15, 1837 β November 28, 1913) was an American architect trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition. He was recognized as a master of modern American architecture as well as being instrumental in the birth of the skyscra ...
) in New York City. The Fuller Company was also intensely involved in the building of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, the
Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...
, in which a temporary "White City on the Lake" was constructed under the supervision of
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 β June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ...
.
With the success of his firm, Fuller became a multimillionaire, and his wife and daughters entered Chicago society. He commissioned Charles P. Post to design a home on Drexel Boulevard on the
South Side of Chicago, and Post created a
Queen Anne style mansion. His daughter, Allon, married
Harry St. Francis Black in 1894, and Fuller took him into the company as vice president, despite the fact that Black was neither an architect nor an engineer.
In 1892, New York City altered its building regulations to allow skeleton construction and
curtain walls, in which the load created by the building was carried by the internal skeleton and not by the exterior wall, a construction method which had been allowed under the Chicago building code for years. This change prompted Fuller to open an office in New York in 1896, and soon the company had contracts in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
,
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
and
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, as well as in Chicago and New York. Future skyscraper builder
William A. Starrett
William Aiken Starrett, Jr. (June 14, 1877 β March 25, 1932) was an American builder and architect of skyscrapers. He was best known as the builder of the Empire State Building in New York City (1930β31). He was a principal officer of sever ...
joined the company in 1897 as an office boy.
Death
![Grave of George A](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Grave_of_George_A._Fuller_%281851%E2%80%931900%29_at_Oak_Woods_Cemetery%2C_Chicago_1.jpg)
Fuller died suddenly on December 14, 1900, from
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...
, leaving a $3 million estate. His tomb at
Oak Woods Cemetery
Oak Woods Cemetery is a large lawn cemetery in Chicago, Illinois. Located at 1035 E. 67th Street, in the Greater Grand Crossing area of Chicago's South Side. Established on February 12, 1853, it covers .
Oak Woods is the final resting place o ...
in Chicago, designed by New York architect
Bruce Price
Bruce Price (December 12, 1845 – May 29, 1903) was an American architect and an innovator in the Shingle Style. The stark geometry and compact massing of his cottages in Tuxedo Park, New York, influenced Modernist architects, including F ...
, is one of the largest in the cemetery.
The Fuller Company after Fuller
![Fuller-building](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Fuller-building.jpg)
Following the death of Fuller, Harry S. Black, Fuller's son-in-law, took over as president of the Fuller Company and aggressively expanded its capitalization and operations, merging it with smaller companies, and bringing on to the company's board of directors such men as
Henry Morgenthau, Sr.
Henry Morgenthau (; April 26, 1856 β November 25, 1946) was a German-born American lawyer and businessman, best known for his role as the United States Ambassador to Turkey, ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Morgenthau was on ...
, former New York City mayor – and
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
man –
Hugh J. Grant
Hugh John Grant (September 10, 1858 β November 3, 1910) served as the 88th mayor of New York City for two terms from 1889 to 1892. He remains the youngest mayor in the city's history, was one of the youngest mayors of a major United States, Am ...
, and banker
James Stillman
James Jewett Stillman (June 9, 1850 β March 15, 1918) was an American businessman who invested in land, banking, and railroads in New York, Texas, and Mexico. He was chairman of the board of directors of the National City Bank. He forged alli ...
and creating what became known as the "skyscraper trust". In 1902, he took the company public, listing it on the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
, and then put together a merger with
Alliance and New York Realty to create a new $66 million company, the United States Realty and Construction Company; the Fuller Company – which by then had offices in New York, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore,
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, Washington DC, and Pittsburgh – would remain an independent company under the umbrella of the new entity.
Black announced:
The new company will undoubtedly enter foreign fields, with the view of introducing steel construction in cities like London, Paris and Berlin. Its relations will be very close to the United States Steel Corporation, and naturally, as we will be the largest consumers of structural steel in the world, our terms as to price and delivery will be most favorable.
Indeed, Black had constructed the new company's board of directors with an eye for its need for steel and rail transport. It included
Charles Schwab of
U.S. Steel
United States Steel Corporation, more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an American integrated steel producer headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with production operations primarily in the United States of America and in severa ...
,
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 β January 4, 1877), nicknamed "the Commodore", was an American business magnate who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. After working with his father's business, Vanderbilt worked his way into lead ...
, Charles Tweed of
Southern Pacific
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...
,
Charles Francis Adams, former head of
Union Pacific
The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...
, and representatives from
J.P. Morgan
JP may refer to:
Arts and media
* ''JP'' (album), 2001, by American singer Jesse Powell
* ''Jp'' (magazine), an American Jeep magazine
* ''JΓΆnkΓΆpings-Posten'', a Swedish newspaper
* Judas Priest, an English heavy metal band
* ''Jurassic Park ...
and the
Mutual Life Insurance Company. Since Black had put together U.S. Realty, he naturally expected to be named the company's president, but the board passed over him and selected Bradish Johnson, president of New York Realty, one of the firms folded into the new conglomerate.
[Alexiou, pp.103β104, 112β116]
U.S. Realty's stock never performed as expected, although the members of the board did receive substantial salaries and large dividends on the stock they owned, even as the company was underperforming. When the Fuller Company was implicated in the corruption of the building trades union leader, Samuel Parks, its stock fell. Board members dumped their stock and left the company, but Fuller was buying up stock at the same time. He took control of the company, naming a new board which made Black president.
Among the many buildings constructed by the Fuller Company under Black were the
Lincoln Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial built to honor the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument, and is in the ...
(1914β22),
Arlington Memorial Amphitheater
Memorial Amphitheater is an outdoor amphitheater, exhibit hall, and nonsectarian chapel located in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, in the United States. Designed in 1913 as a replacement for the older, wooden amphitheat ...
(1915β20),
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Arlington)
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a historic monument dedicated to deceased U.S. service members whose remains have not been identified. It is located in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, United States. The World War I "Unknown" is a re ...
(1921),
Freer Gallery of Art
The Freer Gallery of Art is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. focusing on Asian art. The Freer and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and Sac ...
(1916β23),
Pennsylvania Station
Pennsylvania Station (often abbreviated Penn Station) is a name applied by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) to several of its grand passenger terminals. Several are still in active use by Amtrak and other transportation services; others have been ...
(1910), the
Flatiron Building
The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a triangular 22-story, steel-framed landmarked building at 175 Fifth Avenue in the eponymous Flatiron District neighborhood of the Boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan in New ...
(1902),
Macy's Herald Square
Macy's Herald Square (originally named the R. H. Macy and Company Store) is the Flagship#Retailing, flagship of Macy's department store, as well as the Macy's, Inc. corporate headquarters, on Herald Square in Manhattan, New York City. The buildi ...
on Broadway and
34th Street (1902), the
New York Times Building
The New York Times Building is a 52-story skyscraper at 620 Eighth Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets, on the west side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Its chief tenant is the New York Times Company, publisher of ''The New York Time ...
(1905), the
Plaza Hotel
The Plaza Hotel (also known as The Plaza) is a luxury hotel and condominium apartment building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is located on the western side of Grand Army Plaza, after which it is named, just west of Fifth Avenue, a ...
and the
Savoy-Plaza Hotel
The Savoy-Plaza Hotel was a 33-story hotel overlooking Central Park at Fifth Avenue and East 59th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It opened in 1927 and was demolished in 1965.
History Original Savoy Hotel
The original Savoy Hotel at ...
(across
Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...
from it). In Chicago, Fuller built the
Stevens Hotel
The Hilton Chicago (also known as Chicago Hilton and Towers) is a centrally-located luxury hotel in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The hotel is a Chicago landmark that overlooks Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park, Lake Michigan, and the Museum Ca ...
, designed by
Holabird & Roche
The architectural firm now known as Holabird & Root was founded in Chicago in 1880. Over the years, the firm has changed its name several times and adapted to the architectural style then current — from Chicago School to Art Deco to Modern ...
.
[Alexiou, ''passim'']
The Fuller Company's current headquarters are located in
White Plains, New York
(Always Faithful)
, image_seal = WhitePlainsSeal.png
, seal_link =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country
, subdivision_name =
, subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State
, su ...
.
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
Biography at Chicago EncyclopediaObituaryin ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuller, George A.
1851 births
1900 deaths
19th-century American architects
People from Templeton, Massachusetts