JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

In the several comparative heights of buildings images that have been posted to this blog in which buildings are compared to other buildings (and not enormous loaves of bread, or ears of corn, and so on) it turns out that many of them are set in a generic or fanciful landscape. Few that I can recall compare one building to several others in situ, as it were, using the area in which the building of note exists–and the example below yet again is one of those created landscapes. The building is the Burnham and Root Masonic Temple, in Chicago, and when it was built it was right in the heart of the city, without a field in the foreground. When completed in 1892–just in time for the Columbian Exposition–it was the tallest commercial building in the world, and also one of teh world’s tallest structures. The editors of the Scientific American commissioned this comparative, showing the new building (302′ high) in relation to the great Ferris Wheel in Chicago (288′), the U.S. Capitol (288′), the Statue of Liberty (301′), and Trinity Church (284′). Just for the sake of it the artist included the Broadway offices building for the Scientific American printer, Munn & Co., to the left of the Masonic Temple.  

I have basically nothing to say about the building, not knowing it at all, and am just passing along this fine comparative image. (There are numerous pages devoted to this structure online.)  

Source: Scientific American, 10 February 1894.