Evaluate whether the following statement is logically supported by the provided text. Determine if it is True (supported) or False (unsupported/contradicted).
The architectural ascendance of the American skyscraper in the late nineteenth century is frequently, yet reductively, attributed solely to the advent of structural steel. While the Bessemer process undeniably facilitated the mass production of steel beams capable of supporting unprecedented vertical loads, thereby freeing exterior walls from their traditional load-bearing duties, this metallurgical leap would have been architecturally inert without a concurrent, though less heralded, innovation in fireproofing. Early metal-frame structures were perilously vulnerable to fire; at temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit—easily reached in an urban conflagration—wrought iron and steel lose more than half their structural yield strength, warping and buckling with catastrophic results. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 had demonstrated that exposed metal columns were actually inferior to massive timber posts, which charred on the exterior but insulated their own load-bearing cores, retaining structural integrity longer.
Consequently, the true progenitor of the modern high-rise was not merely the steel skeleton, but the "protected skeleton." Engineers initially attempted to insulate metal columns by encasing them in solid brick or concrete. However, this approach effectively reintroduced the very problem the steel frame was meant to solve: exorbitant dead weight that constrained vertical growth. The structural solution arrived via the widespread adoption of porous terra cotta hollow tile in the 1880s. Manufactured from clay mixed with combustible materials like sawdust—which burned away during kiln firing to leave insulating air voids—these tiles were designed to interlock around steel structural members. By creating a lightweight thermal barrier that delayed the transfer of heat to the steel core, terra cotta tiles allowed architects to achieve necessary fire resistance while preserving the weight-saving advantages of the skeletal frame. Thus, the aesthetic verticality of the 1890s Chicago School was predicated as much on managing the thermal vulnerability of steel as on harnessing its tensile strength.
STATEMENT TO EVALUATE:
The passage implies that porous terra cotta hollow tiles replaced solid brick and concrete as the preferred fireproofing material primarily because terra cotta created a more effective thermal barrier against extreme urban conflagrations.
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