In the mid-1880s, Chicago pulled off something nobody else had tried before by building a tall, metal-framed office tower called the Home Insurance Building. We’d call that a skyscraper today. It didn ...

As the first building to be built from an iron frame, the Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings in England is a forerunner of all iron- and steel-framed towers. Now, its custodians want people to know that. In ...