Earliest curtain wall office building

Oriel Chambers on Water Street in Liverpool, UK, is the world’s earliest surviving metal-framed glass curtain walled building, completed in 1864. Designed by architect Peter Ellis (1805–84) for its owner the Reverend Thomas Anderson, the non-structural façade of Oriel Chambers is cantilevered from the building’s main structure. The frame is made from H-section columns and inverted T-section beams spanning the building's width, supporting fireproof floors with brick barrel vaulting below. On the street façades elevations, slender full-height masonry piers create bay divisions. Between the piers, tall projecting (“oriel”) windows maximise light. Internally, there are four floors of offices plus a basement.

Oriel Chambers had considerable influence on the design of tall office buildings, particularly in America through Chicago architects John Root (1850–91) and Daniel Burnham (1846–1912), who were working on early skyscrapers.