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Masonic Temple Building
Masonic Temple Building was the world's tallest building from 1892 to 1894.*
Preceded by	New York World Building
Surpassed by	Manhattan Life Insurance Building
Information
Location	Chicago, USA
Status	Destroyed
Constructed	1891-1892
Destroyed	1939
Technical details
Floor count	22
*Fully habitable, self-supported, from main entrance to highest structural or architectural top; see world's tallest buildings and structures for other listings.

The Masonic Temple Building was a skyscraper built in Chicago, Illinois in 1892. Constructed by early skyscraper pioneer, Daniel Burnham, it was briefly the tallest building in the world, at 302 feet (92 meters) tall. It was surpassed only 2 years later by the Manhattan Life Building in New York City. Although the World Building in New York had architectural details that were higher off the ground, the Masonic Temple had a higher occupied floor. In 1895, when the clock tower was removed from the Board of Trade Building it became the tallest building in Chicago.

Built at the corner of Randolph and State Streets by the firm of Burnham and Root, the building rose 22 stories. It featured a central court ringed by nine floors of shops with offices above and meeting rooms for the Masons at the very top. These meeting rooms also served as theaters, which contributed to the building's obsolescence; its elevators proved inadequate for these crowds, and the building rapidly fell from favor with commercial tenants.

Chicago's building height regulations, enacted in 1892, did not allow taller building until the 1920's. In 1939, The Masonic Temple was demolished, in part due to its poor internal services, but also due to the construction of the new State Street subway, which would have necessitated expensive foundation retrofitting. A two-story "taxpayer" was erected in its place, and the Joffrey Tower is under construction on the former site of this building.

Both the building's primary designer, John Welborn Root, and the Mason's primary representative, Norman Gassette, died of unrelated causes during its construction.

• World's Tallest Skyscrapers

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