What’s on the The Chicago Frame poster
A definition and 6 facts worth remembering.
In Chicago after the 1871 fire, a metal skeleton frame took the load that walls had carried, so the outside of a building became a screen rather than a support.
- Home Insurance Building, Jenney, 1885, ten storeys.
- Its claim to be the first skyscraper is disputed.
- Otis demonstrated the safety elevator in 1854.
- Reliance Building, 1895, is almost entirely glass.
- The Chicago window: fixed centre, opening sides.
- Sullivan, 1896: form ever follows function.
- Home Insurance — 1885
- Reliance Building — 1895
- Once the frame carries the load, the facade is free. Le Corbusier codified that as a…
Against the load-bearing masonry wall and its height limit. Sullivan's phrase was about expression, not about stripping ornament.
Questions about the The Chicago Frame poster
- What’s on the The Chicago Frame poster?
- A definition and 6 facts worth remembering. In Chicago after the 1871 fire, a metal skeleton frame took the load that walls had carried, so the outside of a building became a screen rather than a support. Home Insurance Building, Jenney, 1885, ten storeys.; Its claim to be the first skyscraper is disputed.; Otis demonstrated the safety elevator in 1854.; Reliance Building, 1895, is almost entirely glass.; The Chicago window: fixed centre, opening sides.; Sullivan, 1896: form ever follows function.; Home Insurance — 1885; Reliance Building — 1895; Once the frame carries the load, the facade is free. Le Corbusier codified that as a…. Against the load-bearing masonry wall and its height limit. Sullivan's phrase was about expression, not about stripping ornament.
- Who is the The Chicago Frame poster for?
- The Chicago Frame belongs to the Architecture section rather than to a school year, because design is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning history & theory can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the The Chicago Frame poster?
- Use it to see where structure and enclosure came apart, decades before Le Corbusier. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so The Chicago Frame belongs on the wall where that design work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with The Chicago Frame?
- Buildings to Know, The Classical Orders and What Each Movement Opposed sit alongside The Chicago Frame in the Architecture section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.Buildings to KnowThe Classical OrdersWhat Each Movement Opposed
- Is the The Chicago Frame poster free to download and print?
- Yes. The Chicago Frame downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Architecture section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the The Chicago Frame poster print at?
- The Chicago Frame is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of The Chicago Frame loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside The Chicago Frame on the same wall.
Browse every Architecture poster, or start from the full catalogue.