![Detroit Photographic Company (0645)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Detroit_Photographic_Company_%280645%29.jpg)
The earliest stage of
skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...
design encompasses buildings built between 1884 and 1945, predominantly in the American cities of
New York and
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. Cities in the United States were traditionally made up of
low-rise
A low-rise is a building that is only a few stories tall or any building that is shorter than a high-rise, though others include the classification of mid-rise.
Definition
Emporis defines a low-rise as "an enclosed structure below 35 metres 15 ...
buildings, but significant economic growth after the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
and increasingly intensive use of urban land encouraged the development of taller buildings beginning in the 1870s. Technological improvements enabled the construction of
fireproofed iron-framed structures with
deep foundation
A deep foundation is a type of foundation that transfers building loads to the earth farther down from the surface than a shallow foundation does to a subsurface layer or a range of depths. A pile or piling is a vertical structural eleme ...
s, equipped with new inventions such as the
elevator
An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...
and
electric lighting
An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic, which secures the lamp in the soc ...
. These made it both technically and commercially viable to build a new class of taller buildings, the first of which, Chicago's tall
Home Insurance Building
The Home Insurance Building was a skyscraper that stood in Chicago from 1885 to 1931. Originally ten stories and tall, it was designed by William Le Baron Jenney in 1884 and completed the next year. Two floors were added in 1891, bringing its ...
, opened in 1885. Their numbers grew rapidly, and by 1888 they were being labelled ''
skyscrapers
A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ri ...
''.
Chicago initially led the way in skyscraper design, with many constructed in the center of the financial district during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Sometimes termed the products of the
Chicago school of architecture, these skyscrapers attempted to balance aesthetic concerns with practical commercial design, producing large, square ''
palazzo
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...
''-styled buildings hosting shops and restaurants on the ground level and containing rentable offices on the upper floors. In contrast, New York's skyscrapers were frequently narrower towers which, more eclectic in style, were often criticized for their lack of elegance. In 1892, Chicago banned the construction of new skyscrapers taller than , leaving the development of taller buildings to New York.
A new wave of skyscraper construction emerged in the first decade of the 20th century. The demand for new office space to hold the expanding workforce of
white-collar staff in the
U.S
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
continued to grow. Engineering developments made it easier to build and live in yet taller buildings. Chicago built new skyscrapers in its existing style, while New York experimented further with tower design. Iconic buildings such as the
Flatiron
Flatiron or flat iron may refer to various things, often in the shape of a wedge:
Objects
*Clothes iron
* Hair iron
Places
* Flatiron Building, New York City, at the intersection of 5th & Broadway
**Flatiron District, New York City, named afte ...
were followed by the tall
Singer Tower
The Singer Building (also known as the Singer Tower) was an office building and early skyscraper in Manhattan, New York City. The headquarters of the Singer Manufacturing Company, it was at the northwestern corner of Liberty Street and Broadw ...
, the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, and the
Woolworth Building
The Woolworth Building is an early skyscraper, early American skyscraper designed by architect Cass Gilbert located at 233 Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was the tallest building in ...
. Though these skyscrapers were commercial successes, criticism mounted as they broke up the ordered city skyline and plunged neighboring streets and buildings into perpetual shadow. Combined with an economic downturn, this led to the
introduction of zoning restraints in New York in 1916.
In the
interwar years
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relative ...
, skyscrapers spread to nearly all major U.S. cities, while a handful were built in other Western countries. The
economic boom of the 1920s and extensive real estate speculation encouraged a wave of new skyscraper projects in New York and Chicago. New York City's 1916 Zoning Resolution helped shape the
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
or "
set-back" style of skyscrapers, leading to structures that focused on volume and striking silhouettes, often richly decorated. Skyscraper heights continued to grow, with the
Chrysler
Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...
and the
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...
each claiming new records, reaching and respectively. With the onset of the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, the real estate market collapsed, and new builds stuttered to a halt. Popular and academic culture embraced the skyscraper through films, photography, literature, and ballet, seeing the buildings as either positive symbols of modernity and science, or alternatively examples of the ills of modern life and society. Skyscraper projects after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
typically rejected the designs of the early skyscrapers, instead embracing the
international
International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations".
International may also refer to:
Music Albums
* ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011
* ''International'' (New Order album), 2002
* ''International'' (The T ...
style; many older skyscrapers were redesigned to suit contemporary tastes or even demolished—such as the Singer Tower, once the world's tallest skyscraper.
Background: 1850–1879
Commercial and social drivers
Early skyscrapers emerged in the U.S. as a result of economic growth, the financial organization of American businesses, and the intensive use of land. New York was one of the centers of early skyscraper construction and had a history as a key seaport located on the small island of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, on the east coast of the U.S. As a consequence of its colonial history and
city planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
, New York real estate was broken up into many small parcels of land, with few large sites. During the first half of the 19th century it became the national center of American finance, and the banks in the
financial district of Manhattan competed fiercely with English institutions for international dominance.
The
Great Fire of 1835 destroyed most of the old financial buildings, and in their place a wide variety of new buildings were erected and demolished in quick succession during the 1840s and 1850s; traveler Philip Hone suggested that the entire city was being rebuilt every decade. Most buildings adopted the
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
inspired ''
palazzo
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...
''-style of architecture popular in England, and rose no more than five or six stories. New York did not have any
restrictions on the height of buildings, but in practice low-rise buildings were the norm, at least until 1865, with the tallest buildings being the city's churches. New York's population tripled between 1840 and 1870, and property values soared, increasing by more than 90 percent between 1860 and 1875.
![Downtown Chicago, 1874](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Downtown_Chicago%2C_1874.jpg)
Further west, the city of Chicago became the other major site in the development of early skyscrapers. In contrast to New York, Chicago emerged as a major metropolis only in the mid-19th century, growing from a village of around fifty inhabitants in 1830, to a city of 30,000 in 1850 and nearly 300,000 by 1870. Chicago became the railroad hub for the
American West
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...
and the primary trading city for the emerging territories, famous for its commercial culture. It saw itself as different from the cities on the east coast and was immensely proud of its status as a growing, vibrant center.
By the 1870s, Chicago had become the main financial center for the West, but in October 1871 the
Great Chicago Fire
The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 10 ...
destroyed the majority of the wooden structures within the city. The city was rebuilt on large plots of land in a new
grid network
Elex Media Komputindo is a publishing company in Indonesia which publishes books, comics, magazines, novels and other print media. Established on January 15, 1985, Elex Media Komputindo is a subsidiary of Kompas Gramedia Group. Elex is headquarte ...
and followed new city ordinances that prohibited construction in wood. These factors encouraged the building of taller properties in new innovative designs, which, like New York, saw a range of businesses and services being packed into single buildings.
The construction of taller buildings during the 1870s was hindered by the financial
Panic of 1873
The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the ...
and the ensuing economic depression, which lasted until around 1879. Construction slowed, and property values slumped. By 1880, however, the recovery was well underway, with new construction in New York returning to the pace of 1871, and the economic upturn making the construction of taller buildings an attractive financial option again, establishing many of the preconditions for the development of the skyscraper.
Technological developments
![Structural design of the NY Produce Exchange](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Structural_design_of_the_NY_Produce_Exchange.jpg)
The emergence of skyscrapers was made possible by technological improvements during the middle of the 19th century. One of these developments was the iron framed building. Masonry buildings supported their internal floors through their walls, but the taller the building, the thicker the walls had to become, particularly at the base. In the 1860s, French engineers experimented with using built-up
plate girder
A plate girder bridge is a bridge supported by two or more plate girders.
Overview
In a plate girder bridge, the plate girders are typically I-beams made up from separate structural steel plates (rather than rolled as a single cross-section), ...
s made of
wrought iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...
to construct buildings supported by internal metal frames.
These frames were stronger than traditional masonry and permitted much thinner walls.
[ The methodology was extensively described in engineering journals and was initially used to build warehouses.][
Using these metal frames for taller buildings, however, meant exposing them to increased wind pressure.] As a consequence, protective wind bracing
In architecture, wind braces are diagonal braces to tie the rafters of a roof together and prevent racking. In medieval roofs they are arched, and run from the principal rafters to catch the purlin
A purlin (or historically purline, purloyne, pur ...
had to be introduced, enabled by the work of Augustin-Jean Fresnel
Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Newton's corpuscular th ...
who produced equations for calculating the loads and moments on larger buildings.[ Metal-framed buildings were also vulnerable to fire and required special ]fireproofing
Fireproofing is rendering something (structures, materials, etc.) resistant to fire, or incombustible; or material for use in making anything fire-proof. It is a passive fire protection measure. "Fireproof" or "fireproofing" can be used as a n ...
. French engineers had made advances in this area in the early 19th century, and major breakthroughs came with the work of architect Peter Wight in the 1860s. Spurred on by the catastrophic fires in Chicago in 1871 and Boston in 1872, his findings were turned into a wide variety of patented fireproofing products during the 1870s.
Taller, heavier buildings such as skyscrapers also required stronger foundations than smaller buildings. Earlier buildings had typically rested their foundations on rubble, which was in turn laid down on the soft top layer of the ground called the overburden
In mining, overburden (also called waste or spoil) is the material that lies above an area that lends itself to economical exploitation, such as the rock, soil, and ecosystem that lies above a coal seam or ore body. Overburden is distinct from tai ...
. As buildings became taller and heavier, the overburden could not support their weight, and foundations increasingly needed to rest directly on the bedrock
In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet.
Definition
Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...
below.[ In both New York and Chicago this required digging down a considerable distance through soft soil and often below the ]water table
The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated.
T ...
, risking the hole filling up with water before the foundations were complete. The deeper the foundations needed to be, the greater the challenge.[ Special water-tight boxes called caissons were invented to deal with this problem in England in 1830 and adopted in the U.S. during the 1850s and 1860s.][
]
The development of the elevator
An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...
was also essential to the emergence of the early skyscrapers, as office buildings taller than around six stories would have been impractical without them.[; ] Powered elevators were first installed in England during the 1830s and spread to U.S. factories and hotels by the 1840s.[ Elevators using hoist ropes, however, could only function effectively in low-rise buildings, and this limitation encouraged the introduction of the hydraulic elevator in 1870, even though early models contained dangerous design flaws. By 1876 these problems had been resolved, providing a solution for servicing the early skyscrapers.
New environmental technologies in heating, lighting, ]ventilation
Ventilation may refer to:
* Ventilation (physiology), the movement of air between the environment and the lungs via inhalation and exhalation
** Mechanical ventilation, in medicine, using artificial methods to assist breathing
*** Ventilator, a m ...
and sanitation were also critical to creating taller buildings that were attractive to work in. Central heating
A central heating system provides warmth to a number of spaces within a building from one main source of heat. It is a component of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (short: HVAC) systems, which can both cool and warm interior spaces.
...
could not be easily extended to serve larger buildings; in the 1850s, a system using low-pressure steam and steam-operated fans became adopted in the construction of the later skyscrapers. Many U.S. buildings were lit by gas, but this carried safety risks and was difficult to install in taller buildings. As an alternative, electric light
An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic, which secures the lamp in the soc ...
s were installed from 1878 onwards, powered by basement generators.[ Ventilation was also a challenge, as smoke drifting into offices from the streets and the fumes from the gas lighting made ]air quality
Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...
a major health issue. A steam-driven, forced-draft ventilation system was invented in 1860 and became widely used in taller buildings by the 1870s, overcoming much of the problem.[ Improvements in iron piping permitted running hot and cold water and sanitation facilities to be installed throughout taller buildings for the first time.
]
Emergence of the skyscraper: 1880–1899
The first skyscraper
There is academic disagreement over which building should be considered the first skyscraper. The term was first used in the 1780s to describe a particularly tall horse, before later being applied to the sail at the top of a ship's mast, tall hats and bonnets, tall men, and a ball that was hit high into the air. In the 1880s it began to be applied to buildings, first in 1883 to describe large public monuments and then in 1889 as a label for tall office blocks, coming into widespread use over the next decade. Identifying the first "true skyscraper" is not straightforward, and various candidates exist depending on the criteria applied. George Post's New York Equitable Life Building of 1870, for example, was the first tall office building to use the elevator, while his Produce Exchange building of 1884 made substantial structural advances in metal frame design. The Home Insurance Building
The Home Insurance Building was a skyscraper that stood in Chicago from 1885 to 1931. Originally ten stories and tall, it was designed by William Le Baron Jenney in 1884 and completed the next year. Two floors were added in 1891, bringing its ...
in Chicago, opened in 1885, is, however, most often labelled the first skyscraper because of its innovative use of structural steel in a metal frame design.
The Home Insurance Building was a tall, 10-story skyscraper designed by William Le Baron Jenney
William Le Baron Jenney (September 25, 1832 – June 14, 1907) was an American architect and engineer who is known for building the first skyscraper in 1884.
In 1998, Jenney was ranked number 89 in the book ''1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ran ...
, who had been trained as an engineer in France and was a leading architect in Chicago. Jenney's design was unusual in that it incorporated structural steel
Structural steel is a category of steel used for making construction materials in a variety of shapes. Many structural steel shapes take the form of an elongated beam having a profile of a specific cross section. Structural steel shapes, sizes, ...
into the building's internal metal frame alongside the traditional wrought iron. This frame took the weight of the floors of the building and helped to support the weight of the external walls as well, proving an important step towards creating the genuine non-structural curtain walls that became a feature of later skyscrapers. The design was not perfect – some of the weight was still carried by masonry walls, and the metal frame was bolted, rather than rivet
A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed, a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite to the head is called the ''tail''. On installation, the rivet is placed in a punched ...
ed, together – but it was clearly a significant advance in tall building construction.
The approach quickly caught on in Chicago. In 1889 the Tacoma Building replaced the bolted metal design with a stronger riveted approach, and Chicago's Chamber of Commerce Building introduced interior light courts to the structural design of skyscrapers. The 1890 Rand McNally Building
The Rand McNally Building (1889–1911) in Chicago, designed by Burnham and Root, was the world's first all-steel framed skyscraper.
History
The building was located at 160–174 Adams Street (on the south side between LaSalle and Wells) and ...
became the first entirely self-supporting, steel-framed skyscraper.[ Some buildings, such as The Rookery and the ]Monadnock Building
The Monadnock Building (historically the Monadnock Block; pronounced ) is a 16-story skyscraper located at 53 West Jackson Boulevard in the south Loop area of Chicago. The north half of the building was designed by the firm of Burnham & Root ...
, combined elements of both the newer and older styles, but generally Chicago rapidly adopted steel structures as a flexible and effective way to produce a range of tall buildings. Structural engineer
Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants. Their work takes account mainly of safety, technical, economic ...
s specializing in the steel frame design began to establish practices in Chicago.
There was a boom in skyscraper construction in Chicago from 1888 onwards. By 1893, Chicago had built 12 skyscrapers between 16 and 20 stories tall, tightly clustered in the center of the financial district. Chicago's skyscrapers, however, were constrained by the contemporary limits of steel-frame design and the muddy sub-soil in the city, which together limited most of their skyscrapers to around 16 or 17 stories. Chicago's skyscrapers rapidly became tourist destinations for the views of the wider city they provided from their upper floors and as attractive sites in their own right. Tourists were advised to hire cabs for street tours of the skyscrapers – by lying back in the cab, they would be able to safely take in the tops of the tall buildings.
The Masonic Temple was the most prominent of these skyscrapers. Built by the Freemasons of Chicago in 1892, at a time when the Masons was a fast-growing social community, the lavish tall skyscraper had 19 stories, the bottom ten holding shops and the higher levels containing the Masons' private suites and meeting halls, some able to hold up to 1,300 people. At the top was a roof garden and observation gallery. The Freemasons were competing with their local rivals the Odd Fellows, who intended to build a much higher skyscraper, tall, that they announced would be the tallest building in the world. Newspapers picked up the story, circulating facts about the size of the Temple and making comparison to historical buildings such as the Capitol
A capitol, named after the Capitoline Hill in Rome, is usually a legislative building where a legislature meets and makes laws for its respective political entity.
Specific capitols include:
* United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
* Numerous ...
or the Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''; French: ''La Liberté éclairant le monde'') is a List of colossal sculpture in situ, colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the U ...
. The Odd Fellows project failed, but the Masonic Temple capitalized on the publicity, being declared the "tallest commercial building in the world".
In comparison, New York trailed behind Chicago, having only four buildings over 16 stories tall by 1893. Part of the delay was caused by the slowness of the city authorities to authorize metal-frame construction techniques; it was not until 1889 that they relented and allowed Bradford Gilbert
Bradford Lee Gilbert (March 24, 1853 – September 1, 1911) was a nationally active American architect based in New York City. He is known for designing the Tower Building in 1889, the first steel-framed building anywhere and the first skyscr ...
to construct the Tower Building, an 11-story iron-framed skyscraper. This encouraged the building of more skyscrapers in New York, although the city remained cautious about the technology for some years. Finally, in 1895 a breakthrough was made with the construction of the American Surety Building
The American Surety Building (also known as the Bank of Tokyo Building or 100 Broadway) is an office building and early skyscrapers, early skyscraper at Pine Street and Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financi ...
, a twenty-story, high-steel development that broke Chicago's height record. From then on, New York thoroughly embraced skeleton frame construction.[ In particular, New York newspaper companies adopted the skyscraper, building several along Park Row, sometimes termed "Newspaper Row", in the 1880s and 1890s. A few early skyscrapers were also constructed in Baltimore, Boston, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Rochester, and Buffalo, such as the ]Wainwright Building
The Wainwright Building (also known as the Wainwright State Office Building) is a 10-story, terra cotta office building at 709 Chestnut Street in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The Wainwright Building is considered to be one of the first aestheti ...
, Wilder Building
Wilder Building is a historic office building located in Rochester, New York. It is an eleven-story steel or iron framed brick clad structure built between 1887 and 1888 in a modified Romanesque style. It is considered Rochester's first modern ...
, and Guaranty Building. Early examples on the West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
include the Old Chronicle Building
The Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences is a luxury residential skyscraper in the Financial District of San Francisco, California. The residences are built atop the historic Old Chronicle Building, sometimes called the de Young Building, which wa ...
and the Call Building in San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, as well as the Luzon Building
The Luzon Building was a historic six-story building at 1302 Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma, Washington designed by Chicago architects Daniel Burnham and John Root.
The Luzon was built in 1890–1891 as the Pacific National Bank, which had ...
in Tacoma, Washington
Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, Washington, Olympia, and northwest of Mount ...
. Early skyscrapers outside the United States include the APA Building (1889) in Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
, Australia, the Ryōunkaku
The was Japan's first Western-style skyscraper. It stood in the Asakusa district of City of Tokyo (now Taitō, Tokyo) from 1890 until its demolition following the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923. The , as it was affectionately called by Tokyoite ...
(1890) in Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
, Japan and the Witte Huis
The Witte Huis () or White House is a building and National Heritage Site in Rotterdam, Netherlands, built in 1898 in the Art Nouveau style.Rijksmonument report The building is tall, with 10 floors. It was also the first ''hoogbouw'' (liter ...
(1898) in Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
, the Netherlands.
Architectural challenges
The architects of early skyscrapers faced a number of challenges. The most fashionable architectural style in the late 19th century was the French Beaux-Arts movement, sometimes termed the Italian Renaissance style, which applied Classical aesthetic principles to modern buildings. American architects trained in the Beaux-Arts style at the Parisian Académie des Beaux-Arts
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
began to return home in the 1880s, bringing these ideals and standards with them. Applying contemporary Beaux-Arts standards to early skyscrapers, however, was not straightforward. The buildings that the Beaux-Arts movement influenced were typically much shorter and broader than any skyscraper, as it was difficult to accurately reproduce the style in a tall, narrow building.[
Skyscrapers were also primarily commercial buildings, and economics as well as aesthetics had to play an important part in their design. The architectural writer Barr Ferree noted in 1893 that "current American architecture is not a matter of art, but of business. A building must pay, or there will be no investor ready with the money to meet its cost. This is at once the curse and the glory of American architecture." George Hill echoed the theme, condemning unnecessary features on the basis that "every cubic foot that is used for purely ornamental purposes beyond that needed to express its use and to make it harmonize with others of its class, is a waste".
By the 1890s, Chicago architects were producing a solution to this problem, creating a new architectural style, often termed the "Chicago school of architecture".] The school included architects such as Louis Sullivan
Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloy ...
and Dankmar Adler
Dankmar Adler (July 3, 1844 – April 16, 1900) was a German-born American architect and civil engineer. He is best known for his fifteen-year partnership with Louis Sullivan, during which they designed influential skyscrapers that boldly addr ...
, Jenney, John Root
John Wellborn Root (January 10, 1850 – January 15, 1891) was an American architect who was based in Chicago with Daniel Burnham. He was one of the founders of the Chicago School (architecture), Chicago School style. Two of his buildings hav ...
, and William Holabird
William Holabird (September 11, 1854 in Amenia, New York – July 19, 1923 in Evanston, Illinois) was an American architect.
Holabird was the son of General Samuel B. Holabird and Mary Theodosia Grant. He studied at the United States Mili ...
and Martin Roche
Martin Roche (1853–1927) was an American architect.
Life
In partnership with William Holabird, Martin Roche designed buildings following the Chicago School and that were landmarks in the development of early sky scrapers. He worked for Wi ...
, whose designs combined architectural aesthetic theory with practical commercial sense. They favoured placing rich, ornate designs on the outside of skyscrapers at the ground level and simpler, plainer ornamentation on the upper levels, with strong vertical lines. The roofs of their skyscrapers typically formed a comprehensible outline and structure when seen at a distance as part of the city skyline. The intent was to draw the observer's eye upwards, celebrating what Sullivan termed the "lofty" nature of the skyscraper, but not wasting resources on intricate detailing unlikely to appeal to a busy businessman. At the same time, the more lavish ground floor designs would make the building stand out to passers-by and pull in the necessary business for a successful commercial building.
This community also saw close collaboration between architects, specialist structural engineers, and building contractors emerge on the new skyscraper projects. Historically the industry had been dominated by individuals and small firms who combined the roles of architect and engineer, but this broke down in Chicago during the period, being replaced by a partnership between specialist architects who focused on the appearance of the skyscraper, and specialist engineers who focused on the structures that enabled it to be built. Chicago architectural firms grew to be large, hierarchical and with numerous specialist staff; the D. H. Burnham & Company, for example, felt like a small factory to visitors, and ultimately expanded to employ 180 staff.
The resulting Chicago school produced large, solid-looking skyscrapers, built with a common appearance and to a common height. The result was usually a box-like ''palazzo'', illuminated with a large light court, ideally, if space allowed, in the center. The outside of the building was commonly divided into three parts: a base, middle section and the roof line. This tripartite design was intended both to emulate classical columns, and reflect the functions of the different parts of the skyscraper. The central court could form a simple courtyard, but many companies preferred to roof over the courtyard with glass to produce an atrium
Atrium may refer to:
Anatomy
* Atrium (heart), an anatomical structure of the heart
* Atrium, the genital structure next to the genital aperture in the reproductive system of gastropods
* Atrium of the ventricular system of the brain
* Pulmona ...
for shops and restaurants. Rents for these shops were up to five or six times that for office space, and made an important difference to the income from a property. Chicago skyscraper windows were also a feature of the style; these were large, fixed windows flanked by smaller sash window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...
s on either side, which provided access to sunlight and adequate ventilation. Sometimes these protruded from the building to form a slight bay.
Although the exterior of the Chicago skyscrapers buildings were relatively plain, the entrance ways and lobbies were fitted out in a grand style. The Unity Building
The Unity Building, in Oregon, Illinois, is a historic building in that city's Oregon Commercial Historic District. As part of the district the Oregon Unity Building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The National ...
, for example, was reported as including "Numidian, Alps, Green and Sienna marbles ... an artistic screen of glass and bronze ... a marble balcony" alongside "Corinthian columns with finely carved capitals, gold-leaf and silver chandeliers, and silver-plated latticework" on the elevators. The aim was to project a sense of prosperity and solid financial credentials, which in turn would attract tenants willing to pay high rents. For the tenants, such surroundings were good for their own business credibility and affirmed their own social status as professionals.
New York faced similar architectural challenges, but in comparison to Chicago, skyscraper architects worked less closely with engineers and other specialists, and instead held strong backgrounds in the Beaux Arts movement and perceived their role to be primarily artistic rather than a partnership with the mechanical arts. Their practices tended to be smaller, resembling ''atelier'' style workshops. Structural engineers in New York took longer to build up a strong professional role there, a trend reflected in the lower engineering quality of many early skyscrapers in the city. The New York style emphasized stunning height and a somewhat eclectic use of architectural features from other periods, creating an energetic, flamboyant appearance. Towers were common, making best use of the relatively small plots of land in New York. Some New York skyscrapers emulated the tripartite style of Chicago, but others broke their exterior down into many different layers, each with its own style. Proponents argued that this reintroduced a sense of human proportion to these tall buildings; critics felt that the results were confusing and ungainly.
Life in early skyscrapers
Early skyscrapers were mainly made up of small office cubicles, commonly only across, which were placed adjacent to one another along long corridors, following a pattern first invented in the Oriel Chambers
Oriel Chambers is an office building located on Water Street near the town hall in Liverpool, England. It was the world's first building featuring a metal framed glass curtain wall, which has since become a defining feature of skyscrapers aro ...
building in England in 1864. This allowed the average small company to rent a small amount of space using one or two offices, but held out the option for future expansion by renting additional office cubicles if required at a later date.[ A skyscraper office relied on natural sunlight from the windows but if necessary was dimly lit from electric desk-top lamps. By the standards of the day, these offices were very modern, with radiators, air vents, and the latest fixtures and fittings, and modern communication systems, including telephone and ]pneumatic tube
Pneumatic tubes (or capsule pipelines, also known as pneumatic tube transport or PTT) are systems that propel cylindrical containers through networks of tubes by compressed air or by partial vacuum. They are used for transporting solid objects, ...
s were often installed. As a result, many businesses chose to move out of their older, low-rise offices in Chicago to take up tenancy in the new skyscrapers, which were felt to be more convenient and healthier.[
The first skyscrapers were mainly occupied by male workers, but this changed during the 1890s, with female employees becoming more common. The percentage of female clerical workers in Chicago, for example, increased from 11 percent in 1880 to 21 percent by 1890, reaching 30 percent by 1900. Various moral concerns were raised about men and women mixing in such offices, which were characterized as being masculine spaces, full of tobacco smoke and profanity and therefore unsuitable for women. The new female workers typically worked as typists or stenographers, using the recently invented ]typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
, which grew in number in U.S. offices from 146 in 1879 to 65,000 by 1890.
Skyscrapers provided a wide range of in-house services for their tenants, including shops, restaurants, barbers, tobacconists, newsagents, tailors, professional specialists and libraries. Skyscrapers also employed a substantial number of service staff to maintain and support them; a building such as the Chicago Board of Trade spent 20 percent of its rental revenue on service staff, employing 41 people, including janitors, elevator operators, engineers, and an electrician.[ With this collection of services and facilities, skyscrapers of the period were often referred to as small cities in their own right.]
Criticism and reform in Chicago
Opposition to Chicago's skyscrapers began to grow during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Even before the development of the skyscraper, some criticized large buildings in Chicago for dominating churches and private houses, and this sentiment strengthened. Critics complained that the concentration of tall buildings in the center of the city was causing huge congestion, and each new skyscraper was also burning additional coal to power its facilities, together consuming a total of over one million tons each year, leaving smoke and stagnant air hanging over Chicago.[ Many were concerned over the risk of a major fire breaking out and spreading, uncontrolled, from building to building.][
Chicago was not alone in having concerns over the growth of the skyscraper. In Boston, the Fiske and the ]Ames Building
The Ames Building is located in Boston, Massachusetts. It is sometimes ranked as the tallest building in Boston from its completion in 1893 until 1915, when the Custom House Tower was built; however, the building was never the tallest structure in ...
s were built in the late 1880s, and tall respectively, but protests by local civic campaigners and the real estate industry resulted in the city passing a law to limit new buildings to a maximum of , effectively banning the construction of skyscrapers. The cities of Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. similarly introduced height restriction laws to limit skyscraper construction.
The decisive factor in favor of change in Chicago, however, was the economic slowdown in the early 1890s, which gave way to the financial panic of 1893.[; ] The recession, combined with the frantic building of the previous few years, meant that Chicago suddenly had a significant surplus of office space, threatening occupancy levels and rents.[ Regulation was introduced by the city council to control the problem in 1892, with support from the real estate industry who hoped to slow the construction of additional office space and shore up their diminishing profit margins. The height of new buildings was limited to , with lower height levels on narrower streets, effectively curtailing the construction of any taller skyscrapers.][
]
The "First Great Age": 1900–1919
Pre-war boom
The early years of the 20th century saw a range of technically sophisticated, architecturally confident skyscrapers built in New York; academics Sarah Landau
Dr. Sarah Bradford Landau (born 1935) is a noted architectural historian who taught for many years in the Department of Art History at New York University.
Landau earned her B.F.A. at the University of North Carolina (1957). She earned her M.A ...
and Carl Condit
Carl Wilbur Condit (Cincinnati, Ohio, September 29, 1914 – January 4, 1997) was an American historian of urban and architectural history, a writer, professor, and teacher."Condit, Carl W(ilbur) (1914–1997)," ''The Hutchinson Unabridged Ency ...
term this "the first great age" of skyscraper building. Some were relatively conservative buildings in a classical style, such as the Mutual Life, Atlantic Mutual, and Broad Exchange Building
The Broad Exchange Building, also known as 25 Broad Street, is a residential building at Exchange Place and Broad Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The 20-story building was designed by Clinton & Russell a ...
s, all designed by Clinton and Russell
Clinton and Russell was a well-known architectural firm founded in 1894 in New York City, United States. The firm was responsible for several New York City buildings, including some in Lower Manhattan.
Biography
Charles W. Clinton (1838– ...
. Others broke new ground, including the Flatiron Building
The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a triangular 22-story, steel-framed landmarked building at 175 Fifth Avenue in the eponymous Flatiron District neighborhood of the Boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan in New ...
which opened in 1903 near Madison Square. The Chicago firm of Daniel Hudsdon Burnham designed the high, 21 story structure; the unusually shaped, narrow building needed particularly strong wind bracing, while the facade was richly textured and incorporated stylistic features more common in Chicago. A critical and popular success, the Flatiron was likened to the Parthenon
The Parthenon (; grc, Παρθενών, , ; ell, Παρθενώνας, , ) is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena during the fifth century BC. Its decorative sculptures are considere ...
of Ancient Greece and became a New York icon.
The construction of the Singer Tower
The Singer Building (also known as the Singer Tower) was an office building and early skyscraper in Manhattan, New York City. The headquarters of the Singer Manufacturing Company, it was at the northwestern corner of Liberty Street and Broadw ...
was announced by the company in 1906, who intended to produce the tallest skyscraper in the world. The company already had several low-rise buildings in New York that the tower would be incorporated into and planned to rent out the bottom half of the tower to tenants to subsidize their use of the upper half. The skyscraper was designed by Ernest Flagg
Ernest Flagg (February 6, 1857 – April 10, 1947) was an American architect in the Beaux-Arts style. He was also an advocate for urban reform and architecture's social responsibility.
Early life and education
Flagg was born in Brooklyn, New ...
, a Beaux-Arts advocate and noted critic of existing skyscrapers, who justified taking on the project as a way of generating support for skyscraper reform. The design was technically challenging: the tall, narrow tower needed special wind bracing, and the deep bedrock on the site required particularly deep foundations. The tower was faced in dark brick and followed the Beaux-Arts style used by the rest of the complex, with a galleried lobby fitted out in Italian marble. When it opened in 1908, it had 41 stories and was tall; visitors paid $0.50 ($14 in 2020 terms) each to use the observation area at the top of the building.
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower was opened in 1909, the culmination of a long building project by N. LeBrun and Sons to hold Metropolitan Life's growing headquarters staff, 2,800 strong by 1909. At high and with 50 stories, it became the world's new tallest building. Metropolitan Life intended the skyscraper to promote the company's image, and the building was surrounded by publicity. The tower was featured on the front of prominent magazines such as ''Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
'', as well as on the sides of corn flake
Corn flakes, or cornflakes, are a breakfast cereal made from toasting flakes of corn (maize). The cereal, originally made with wheat, was created by Will Kellogg in 1894 for patients at the Battle Creek Sanitarium where he worked with his bro ...
boxes, coffee packets, and cars. The tower was loosely modeled on the Venician St Mark's Campanile
St Mark's Campanile ( it, Campanile di San Marco, ) is the bell tower of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy. The current campanile is a reconstruction completed in 1912, the previous tower having collapsed in 1902. At in height, it is the tal ...
, and featured extensive Early Renaissance-style detailing, with the more modern additions of huge clock faces, electric floodlights for night-time illumination, and an observation deck at the top. The design won critical acclaim within the American architectural profession.
The construction of the Woolworth Building
The Woolworth Building is an early skyscraper, early American skyscraper designed by architect Cass Gilbert located at 233 Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was the tallest building in ...
was announced in 1910 by Frank Woolworth, who wanted to create the largest income-producing property in the U.S. The project grew, and Woolworth finally opted for a 55-story, high skyscraper, the latest tallest building in the world, at a cost of $13.5 million ($5.1 billion in 2010 terms). Architect Cass Gilbert
Cass Gilbert (November 24, 1859 – May 17, 1934) was an American architect. An early proponent of skyscrapers, his works include the Woolworth Building, the United States Supreme Court building, the state capitols of Minnesota, Arkansas and ...
designs included a very high proportion of usable – and thus rentable – floor space, with a great deal of light and a flexible floor plan that could be subdivided for different tenants. Up-to-date fittings were installed to encourage a high-class of tenants, including the world's fastest elevators, safety features, and a swimming pool. Gilbert adopted the Beaux-Arts style, using accented terracotta and glass to emphasis vertical lines, elegantly echoing the structural frame underneath and incorporating 15th and 16th century Flamboyant Gothic
Flamboyant (from ) is a form of late Gothic architecture that developed in Europe in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, from around 1375 to the mid-16th century. It is characterized by double curves forming flame-like shapes in the bar-tr ...
-styled features. It was capped by a gilded tower that blended into the sky behind it to produce an illusion of even greater height. The building was illuminated with floodlights at night, topped with red and white flashing lights. It was famously dubbed the "Cathedral of Commerce", rather to Gilbert's displeasure as he had attempted to avoid copying ecclesiastical architecture.
Meanwhile, Chicago's skyscraper industry also boomed during the decade before World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. The city's elevated train network was operating by 1910, allowing more workers to come into the centre. In 1910 alone of new offices were opened and by the end of the decade, Chicago had the second largest number of headquarters offices in the U.S.[ Chicago architectural firms such as Daniel H. Burnham and then ]Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White (GAP&W) was a Chicago architectural firm that was founded in 1912 as Graham, Burnham & Co. This firm was the successor to D. H. Burnham & Co. through Daniel Burnham's surviving partner, Ernest R. Graham, and Burnh ...
continued to design skyscrapers in the ''palazzo'' style made popular in the previous decade. Chicago had hosted the World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordi ...
in 1893, a massive international event which had excited interest in the themes of classical architecture and well-designed city landscapes. Chicago also had extensive discussions in 1909 about the potential for designing large parts of the city, the Burnham Plan of Chicago
The Burnham Plan is a popular name for the 1909 ''Plan of Chicago'', co-authored by Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett and published in 1909. It recommended an integrated series of projects including new and widened streets, parks, new rail ...
.
The resulting skyscrapers reflected these debates: the Railway Exchange, the Peoples Gas
Peoples Gas (short for The Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company) is a gas utility subsidiary of WEC Energy Group servicing the city of Chicago, Illinois and its northern suburbs.
History
Established in 1849, in Chicago, Illinois, The Peoples Gas ...
and the Illinois Continental and Commercial Bank Buildings were each substantial, quarter-block wide ''palazzo'' cubes of common height, their facades divided into a classical tripartite design, and sporting classical columns and other features. Despite the apparent uniformity of design, individual buildings varied considerably in the detail of their designs in effort to express their particular identities, the Peoples Gas Building using texture and the Railway Exchange Building's white terracotta, for example.
Improvements in construction
The process of building skyscrapers became more sophisticated, starting with the acquisition of the real estate needed for the site. Brokers working on commission would secretly acquire the individual lots of land required for a project, operating under a variety of names to avoid having the price increase once a planned build became known. The properties at the front of the site would typically be bought first, so if news broke of the skyscraper then those owning property at the back of the plot would have little choice but to sell anyway. The funding for skyscraper developments was normally lent by banks, insurance companies, or raised through bonds sold through a specialised bond house, with the latter becoming increasingly popular after World War I.
Efforts were made to improve the processes for erecting skyscrapers, largely through the work of general contractors such as Louis Horowitz and Frank Gilbreth
Frank Bunker Gilbreth (July 7, 1868 – June 14, 1924) was an American engineer, consultant, and author known as an early advocate of scientific management and a pioneer of time and motion study, and is perhaps best known as the father and ce ...
, who in turn drew on recent work by efficiency specialist Frederick Taylor. Time schedules were devised for all the work to be undertaken, with costs carefully monitored and reports produced each day. The results were demonstrated on the Woolworth Building construction project, where of steel were assembled in only six days, a record for the period.[ Improved windbracing techniques were introduced.] The use of pneumatic caissons in skyscraper foundations grew more advanced; in the construction of the 1908 Manhattan Municipal Building
The David N. Dinkins Municipal Building (originally the Municipal Building and later known as the Manhattan Municipal Building) is a 40-story, building at 1 Centre Street, east of Chambers Street, in the Civic Center neighborhood of Manhat ...
they were successfully sunk below the surface, with specially conditioned workers operating in shifts with constant medical support.
New technologies were also introduced within the buildings. Fast Otis elevators, powered by electricity rather than steam-driven hydraulics, began to be installed in skyscrapers, with Ellithorpe safety air cushions protecting the passengers in the case of failure. Lighting improved, with the recommended levels in 1916 being around twice the level of the 1890s. Nonetheless, skyscrapers still relied primarily on natural sunlight, which required installing large windows and having tall ceilings to allow the sunlight to penetrate the back of the offices; an office deeper than was not considered a practical design.
Life in the skyscrapers
One of the reasons for the increase in the numbers of skyscrapers during the period was the growth in demand for office workers. In part this demand was fuelled by many U.S. firms becoming larger and more complex, and white-collar sectors such as insurance and banking grew in scale. It was also driven by changing technology. The typewriter was joined in the office by the adding machine
An adding machine is a class of mechanical calculator, usually specialized for bookkeeping calculations.
In the United States, the earliest adding machines were usually built to read in dollars and cents. Adding machines were ubiquitous off ...
, the telephone and filing cabinets, all adding to the demand for office space and requiring increasingly specialised workers.
Tenants and rental income were essential to the financial success of any skyscraper, as even the largest skyscrapers and those founded by prominent companies rented out much of their office space. Owners could charge significantly more for office space close to the main windows, making it most efficient to build skyscrapers with as much premium office space as possible, even if this cost slightly more to construct in the first instance. As a result, a standard pattern for office units in both New York and Chicago emerged, with either a single rectangular office adjoining an exterior wall, or a "T" shaped design, with a reception room giving way to two windowed offices, separated by glass partitions. Skyscrapers usually took on large numbers of relatively small companies as their tenants. A skyscraper such as the Woolworth Tower had around 600 different tenants in 1913, for example, while a typical tenant might rent four or five office units in a skyscraper.
Criticism
Skyscrapers, particularly those in New York, attracted considerable comment, much of it negative. On his return to New York, writer Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
condemned the buildings in ''The American Scene'' as simply "giants of the mere market", "mercenary monsters" doomed to be torn down in turn as other, even larger, buildings took their place. In Chicago the combination of the environmental pollution and skyscrapers meant that, as Charles Warner complained, "one can scarcely see across the streets on a damp day, and the huge buildings loom up in the black sky in ghostly dimness".
Wider artistic sentiments varied. Many, like Alfred Stieglitz, harboured mixed feelings over New York's skyscrapers, reflected in his famous 1903 portrait of the Flatiron Building
The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a triangular 22-story, steel-framed landmarked building at 175 Fifth Avenue in the eponymous Flatiron District neighborhood of the Boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan in New ...
, and his 1910 work ''Old and New New York'' that contrasts the growing steel frame of the emerging Vanderbilt Hotel
4 Park Avenue (formerly known as the Vanderbilt Hotel) is a 22-story building in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Warren and Wetmore, the structure was built for Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and opened in 191 ...
with the old low-rise blocks of the street below. Poets also wrote about the issues, the early Modernist Sadakichi Hartmann
Carl Sadakichi Hartmann (November 8, 1867 – November 22, 1944) was an American art and photography critic, notable anarchist and poet of German and Japanese descent.
Biography
Hartmann, born on the artificial island of Dejima, Nagasaki, to ...
describing how "from the city's stir and madd'ning roar" the Flatiron's "monstrous shape soars in massive flight". Artists such as Alvin Coburn and John Marin experimented with producing portraits of New York's skyscrapers, capturing the positive and negative aspects of the modern structures. In 1908 artist Harry Pettit produced a romantic interpretation of a future New York, filled with giant skyscrapers supporting aerial bridges and receiving dirigibles from around the globe.
Amongst the architectural community, the Exposition in Chicago inspired many Americans to champion planning cities that had a unified design, in which each building had unique features but elegantly complemented its neighbours, typically by being built to a common height: "horizontal visual unity". In the aftermath of the Exposition, many of these advocates joined with the Beaux-Arts movement to form the City Beautiful movement
The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. It was a part of the ...
, proposing low-rise cities with wide boulevards, built in a classical style. These critics condemned New York's skyscrapers, Montgomery Schuyler
Montgomery Schuyler AIA, (August 19, 1843, Ithaca, New York – July 16, 1914, New Rochelle, New York) was a highly influential critic, journalist and editorial writer in New York City who wrote about and influenced art, literature, music ...
describing how they had produced a "horribly jagged sierra" of a city skyline and complaining that no modern skyscraper had turned out to be an architectural success. Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his '' Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book '' Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764 ...
argued that the skyscraper impinged on the rights of the rest of the city by destroying the collective appearance of an urban area. Some architects, such as Charles McKim
Charles Follen McKim (August 24, 1847 – September 14, 1909) was an American Beaux-Arts architect of the late 19th century. Along with William Rutherford Mead and Stanford White, he provided the architectural expertise as a member of the partn ...
and Stanford White
Stanford White (November 9, 1853 – June 25, 1906) was an American architect. He was also a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, one of the most significant Beaux-Arts firms. He designed many houses for the rich, in additio ...
refused to work on such projects altogether.
Reform in New York
Calls were made in New York for legislation to prevent the growth of skyscrapers, citing their effect on the city skylines, but these attempts faced legal obstacles. The United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven ar ...
did not give local government authority to prevent the buildings on the grounds of aesthetics alone, and any such law in New York was considered likely to face judicial challenge.
Others argued that legal reform of skyscraper construction was needed for public health and safety reasons, an area in which U.S. law was normally more supportive of state intervention.[ The risk of fire was one concern; while skyscrapers might be relatively fireproof, their height made conventional fire-fighting difficult. Architect Charles Bragdon considered a large scale, devastating high-rise fire to be inevitable if regulation was not forthcoming. The ]Baltimore fire of 1904
The Great Baltimore Fire raged in Baltimore, Maryland from Sunday, February 7, to Monday, February 8, 1904. More than 1,500 buildings were completely leveled, and some 1,000 severely damaged, bringing property loss from the disaster to an estimate ...
was widely cited as an example of this risk and, although Baltimore had few high rise buildings, city lawyers argued that the taller buildings had caused the flames to spread through the city during the blaze.[ Baltimore subsequently passed a law in 1904, banning buildings higher than .][ Other campaigners argued that skyscrapers were compromising access to light and air, noting that when tall buildings rose straight up from the sidewalk, they cast long shadows across the street, preventing healthy sunlight from reaching smaller buildings below.
]
Early attempts by Ernest Flagg
Ernest Flagg (February 6, 1857 – April 10, 1947) was an American architect in the Beaux-Arts style. He was also an advocate for urban reform and architecture's social responsibility.
Early life and education
Flagg was born in Brooklyn, New ...
to limit the height of New York's skyscrapers in 1896 failed; further unsuccessful attempts followed between 1906 and 1908, and legislation was turned down again in 1909, partially because of pressure from the real estate industry. After 1913, however, the property market in New York entered a recession, and vacancy levels in buildings began to rise.[ The campaign for change was helped by the construction of the Equitable Building in 1915 at the estimated cost of $29 million ($10.9 billion in 2010 terms), which rapidly became infamous as its vast height and bulk blocked views cast neighbours into permanent shade. The real estate industry finally ceased its objections to new legislation, and the 1916 Zoning Resolution was passed.][
The details of the legislation were largely the work of architect George Ford. Ford had sympathies with the City Beautiful movement, disliked the unimaginative form of many New York skyscrapers, and had concerns over urban public health, but he also found tall buildings exciting and believed that horizontal visual unity produced boring architecture. As a consequence of Ford's influence, New York's laws were relatively complex and divided up the city into different zones; in each zone, a particular zoning envelope applied, controlling the height to which buildings could be built. Typically a building could only rise up from the sidewalk vertically by around , after which the building had to be set back at a set angle to allow sunlight to reach the street below.] On a quarter of the site, however, the owner could build as high as they wished, without any further restrictions.[
]
Inter-war period, boom and depression: 1920–1939
Post-war boom
A real estate boom occurred in the U.S. after the end of the First World War, with a particular surge in the construction of new skyscrapers between 1925 and 1931. In New York, a quarter of the financial district was rebuilt between 1928 and 1931, with of new office space added between 1925 and 1929 alone. In Chicago, limited wartime construction created supply shortages, and rent levels rose in response by around 100 percent between 1919 and 1924. This level of potential profits encouraged an explosion of new building projects in the city. The boom inflated prices in the real estate market, leading to speculative financing and building projects, including the introduction of 100 percent mortgages for new builds. An early edition of the ''Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...
'' magazine commented wryly that "all a man needs to own a skyscraper is the money and the land. And he may be able to get along without the money."
Skyscrapers continued to grow in height throughout the 1920s. In part this was the result of improvements in technology: steel-frame structures had become increasingly efficient, while improvements in elevator design made taller buildings easier to ascend. Commercial factors were at work too, as growing commercial demand pushed up rents, enabling taller projects, while the higher offices attracted more sunlight, permitting the charging of premium rents. The tallest buildings could also acquire publicity for their owners, in turn making it easier to find and keep the best tenants.[ Furthermore, the higher the cost of the underlying real estate, the taller a building needed to be to generate a suitable return on the investment, and the minimum sensible commercial height for a skyscraper project grew to between 40 and 45 stories. 70 story skyscrapers became relatively common, although an influential 1930 study demonstrated that the best rate of return on a skyscraper was to build it 63 stories high, returning an annual profit of 10.25 percent.
]
Skyscrapers continued to spread both across the U.S. and internationally. New York and Chicago remained the center of skyscraper development, but most major cities in the U.S. had built skyscrapers by 1929, frequently as a result of competition between rival cities for status and investment. Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
built the Cincinnati Towers in 1914, followed by the Carew Tower Complex in 1930. In Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
, the General Motors Building
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...
opened in 1920 and the Fisher Building
The Fisher Building is a landmark skyscraper located at 3011 West Grand Boulevard in the heart of the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan. The ornate 30-story building, completed in 1928, is one of the major works of architect Albert Kahn, and ...
in 1928. Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
acquired the Union Trust Building in 1923 and the Terminal Tower
Terminal Tower is a 52-story, , landmark skyscraper located on Public Square in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Built during the skyscraper boom of the 1920s and 1930s, it was the second-tallest building in the world when it was com ...
in 1929; the latter, built by the Van Sweringen brothers
Oris Paxton Van Sweringen (April 24, 1879 – November 22, 1936) and Mantis James Van Sweringen (July 8, 1881 – December 12, 1935) were American brothers who became railroad barons in order to develop Shaker Heights, Ohio. They are better know ...
, was, for a short period, the second tallest building in the world. Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
had built Smith Tower
Smith Tower is a skyscraper in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Completed in 1914, the 38- story, tower is the oldest skyscraper in the city and was among the tallest skyscrapers outside New York City at t ...
in 1914, and the Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
local government granted itself an exemption from city planning restrictions in order to build the Los Angeles City Hall
Los Angeles City Hall, completed in 1928, is the center of the government of the city of Los Angeles, California, and houses the mayor's office and the meeting chambers and offices of the Los Angeles City Council. It is located in the Civic Cente ...
in 1928. Also in 1928, the Industrial Trust Tower was built in Providence
Providence often refers to:
* Providentia, the divine personification of foresight in ancient Roman religion
* Divine providence, divinely ordained events and outcomes in Christianity
* Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of Rhode Island in the ...
.
Skyscrapers were also built in other developed countries, although reaching nowhere near the level of construction seen in the U.S. This was partially the result of a lack of funding but also because of local architectural preferences.[ Some European cities including London and Paris had laws to ban tall buildings, but elsewhere skyscrapers began to appear, including ]Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
's Imperial Bank of Commerce Building, Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, 's Boerentoren, Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
's Telefónica Building
The Telefónica Building, in Spanish ''Edificio Telefónica'', is a skyscraper in Madrid, Spain. It is located in Gran Via 28. At the time of construction it was the tallest European skyscraper with 89 m of roof height, until in 1940, when the ...
and Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
' Kavanagh, Comega and Safico buildings. Many other European skyscrapers were proposed in a frenzy of excited planning, although few materialised. Soviet Russia began the construction of the Palace of the Soviets
The Palace of the Soviets (russian: Дворец Советов, ''Dvorets Sovetov'') was a project to construct a political convention center in Moscow on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The main function of the p ...
in the late 1930s, in the Socialist Classicism
Stalinist architecture, mostly known in the former Eastern Bloc as Stalinist style () or Socialist Classicism, is the architecture of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, between 1933 (when Boris Iofan's draft for the Palace o ...
style, which would have become the tallest building in the world, but war intervened and the skyscraper was never completed. In the post-war years, this style resulted in the monumental Seven Sisters of Moscow building.
The technology used in constructing skyscrapers continued to develop. Time was increasingly a factor in the projects, and architects and their specialist teams developed faster ways to design and construct the buildings to minimise the interest payments during construction and hasten the arrival of rental income. By 1930, skyscrapers were being erected in just 12 months by teams of workers totalling 5,000 men, with four floors being assembled in a typical week. Building skyscraper towers involved some adaption of engineering techniques, as effectively two different buildings were being designed – the base and the tower – which needed to be efficiently linked using elevators and other service facilities. Most new offices settled around a standard size, wide by deep, depending on the height of the ceiling, with multiple small windows considered better than a few larger ones. The output of electric lighting continued to improve, although this began to give off excessive heat within the offices. Air conditioning was first installed in a few skyscrapers during the 1930s.
Art Deco skyscrapers and New York's set-back style
During the 1920s and 1930s many skyscrapers were designed in an Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
style. This architectural approach typically combined what Carol Willis terms an "aesthetic of simple, sculptural mass" with the use of rich colour and ornamentation on the surfaces of the buildings. The aim was to call attention to the increasingly complex three-dimensional shape of the skyscraper, in contrast to earlier styles which could be critiqued, as historian Larry Ford suggests, as being merely "short buildings made taller with additional stories". Windows were de-emphasised in favour of creating a strong sense of shape and mass, the surrounding walls treated as textured fabric, dressing the building underneath. Skyscrapers of this period typically lost their ornamental horizontal divisions, being broken up by physical changes in their shape as one looked up the building, the whole forming a striking silhouette.
In New York, the 1916 act to allow light and air to reach the streets encouraged a stepped or ziggurat
A ziggurat (; Cuneiform: 𒅆𒂍𒉪, Akkadian: ', D-stem of ' 'to protrude, to build high', cognate with other Semitic languages like Hebrew ''zaqar'' (זָקַר) 'protrude') is a type of massive structure built in ancient Mesopotamia. It has ...
approach to skyscraper design; this "set-back" style often made unrestricted use of the 25 percent of the site allowed by law to complete with a very tall tower. This encouraged a diversity of buildings, while maintaining an element of harmony and consistency of style. The Paramount Building
1501 Broadway, also known as the Paramount Building, is a 33-story office building on Times Square between West 43rd Street (Manhattan), 43rd and 44th Street (Manhattan), 44th Streets in the Theater District, Manhattan, Theater District neighb ...
and 120 Wall Street
120 Wall Street is a skyscraper in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It was completed in 1930. The building is 399 ft (122 m) tall, has 34 floors, and is located on the easternmost portion of Wall Street, and a ...
, for example, were constructed in the set-back style without towers, partially because the limited size of the sites would have made the towers relatively narrow and – when packed with the necessary elevators and service facilities – economically unviable. Many other skyscrapers built on larger or more expensive plots opted for the tallest towers possible, including the $24 million ($3.8 billion in 2010 terms) Bank of Manhattan Building at 40 Wall Street and the City Bank-Farmers Trust Company Building at 20 Exchange Place. New York continued its lead in tall skyscrapers throughout the period; in 1920 it had ten times the number of tall buildings than its nearest rival Chicago.
Some New York skyscrapers complemented traditional, cubicle offices linked by corridors, with larger, more open-plan spaces called "general offices". These maximised the number of workers that could be fitted into a given space and provided for greater flexibility.[ Expensive corporate suites were also created during the 1930s, especially on ]Wall Street
Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...
, typically on the highest levels of the buildings. These were used by the corporate executives and were usually lavishly outfitted in a range of traditional and exotic styles. The lobbies of these skyscrapers remained grand affairs, although some banks now eschewed renting out space to shops and restaurants in favour of a more exclusive atmosphere. The largest skyscrapers held up to 16,000 workers, although between 5,000 and 10,000 was more common, and the buildings held a wide range of services to support them, including beauty salons, private luncheon clubs, chiropodists and gymnasiums. A skyscraper such as the Cities Service Building at 70 Pine Street directly employed over 200 staff to manage and protect the property. The technology within the offices also grew still more sophisticated, with dictating, automatic typing and tabulating machine
The tabulating machine was an electromechanical machine designed to assist in summarizing information stored on punched cards. Invented by Herman Hollerith, the machine was developed to help process data for the 1890 U.S. Census. Later model ...
s being used by teams of ever more specialised office workers.
Chicago's towers
Chicago altered its laws in the 1920s to allow towers to be built as part of its skyscrapers. In 1920, the maximum building height in Chicago was increased to , and unoccupied structures on a building, such as ornamental towers, were allowed to extend up to high. Additional changes came in 1923, with taller occupied towers being permitted for the first time, but subject to controls on overall volumes. The main building of a skyscraper could be up to tall, and a tower could be built on up to 25 percent of the lot, but the tower could not have a volume of more than a sixth of the main block.[ In practice, this meant that a tower could not be built more than around 20 stories tall in a typical Chicago skyscraper development.][
Initially, Chicago still preferred ''palazzo''-styled buildings with large light courts in the centre, because they remained the most profitable designs. The ]Wrigley Building
The Wrigley Building is a skyscraper located at 400–410 North Michigan Avenue on Chicago's Near North Side. It is located on the Magnificent Mile directly across Michigan Avenue from the Tribune Tower. Its two towers in an elaborate style wer ...
, built under the 1920 law, demonstrated the effect of two ornamental towers on top of a skyscraper.[ Under the revised law, the Straus Building and the ]Pittsfield Building
The Pittsfield Building, is a 38-story skyscraper located at 55 E. Washington Street in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States, that was the city's tallest building at the time of its completion. The building was designated ...
took the ''palazzo'' design and added somewhat stunted towers on top in the early 1920s, producing profitable buildings.
One of the period's most famous buildings, the Tribune Tower
The Tribune Tower is a , 36-floor neo-Gothic skyscraper located at 435 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Built between 1923 and 1925, the international design competition for the tower became a historic event in 20th-ce ...
, emerged from a competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...
held by the Tribune Company
Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 ...
in 1922 to celebrate its 75th anniversary. The newspaper was one of the largest in the world and used the competition, in which members of the public were invited to influence the design of the skyscraper, to build a loyal following amongst its readership and generate free publicity. The final design was determined by a competition panel largely made up of the company's appointees, who chose John Howells and Raymond Hood
Raymond Mathewson Hood (March 29, 1881 – August 14, 1934) was an American architect who worked in the Neo-Gothic and Art Deco styles. He is best known for his designs of the Tribune Tower, American Radiator Building, and Rockefeller Center. Th ...
's tower design. The resulting tower was a conservative, Gothic design and controversy about the decision broke out almost immediately: Louis Sullivan and many others criticized Howells and Hood's design as being derivative of the Woolworth Tower. Regardless of its critics, the Tribune received as many as 20,000 visitors to its observation gallery when it opened in 1925. The unbuilt second-place entry in the competition, a more simplified stepped-back design by Eliel Saarinen
Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1873 – July 1, 1950) was a Finnish-American architect known for his work with art nouveau buildings in the early years of the 20th century. He was also the father of famed architect Eero Saarinen.
Lif ...
, also proved highly influential.
The popularity of the older style then began to wane in favor of a greater emphasis on towers. One common way of building these within Chicago's laws was to build a square main block with a central service core, and then simply place a tower on the top; the more massive the main block, the taller the tower could be. The Trustees System Service Building and the Foreman State National Bank Building form good examples of this approach.[ Alternatively, the front of the main block could be recessed, as at the Chicago Civic Opera Building or the LaSalle-Wacker Building, sacrificing volume but producing the visual effect of two high wings flanking a very tall tower. The distinctive New York "setback" style was not adopted in Chicago, the only example of this style being the ]Palmolive Building
The Palmolive Building, formerly the Playboy Building, is a 37-story Art Deco building at 919 N. Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Built by Holabird & Root, it was completed in 1929 and was home to the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Corporation.
The Palmo ...
on North Michigan Avenue.
Great Depression
The boom in skyscraper construction began to falter following the Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...
, with fast economic growth giving way to the slump years of the Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
: construction of all sorts slowed considerably. The real estate market that lay behind new skyscraper builds collapsed, and the value of many properties dropped dramatically: the American Insurance Union tower cost $8 million ($1.2 billion in 2010 terms) to build in 1927, but was valued at only $3.5 million ($900 million) by 1933; 40 Wall Street defaulted on its debts in 1935 and was put on sale for just $1.2 million ($240 m). The major bond house of S.W. Straus, behind many successful developments, defaulted on the $214 million ($47 billion) in bonds held by 60,000 investors; the Van Swerigan developer brothers went bankrupt. Vacancy rates began to increase as the recession bit, increasing from only one percent in central New York in early 1920 to 17 percent in 1931 and 25 percent by 1934.
In the face of the recession, some skyscrapers projects were canceled or scaled back. Plans by the Metropolitan Life company to build a 100-story skyscraper alongside their existing tower had been put forward in 1929, but were shelved in the face of the recession and public criticism of such expenditure in the economic climate. Instead the first phase of the project, known as the North Building ended up only 32 stories high in 1932 and the building, even at this height, was only fully completed in 1950. In many other cases, projects which had already been commissioned continued through to completion. This resulted in of new office space being added to New York between 1931–34 even after the start of the recession, adding to the problem of underoccupancy. Some of these buildings, however, became iconic structures, pushing the limits of skyscraper height sharply upwards.
The Chrysler Building
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. At , it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel fra ...
was completed in 1930, just after the Depression began to affect the industry. Architect William Van Alen
William Van Alen (August 10, 1883 – May 24, 1954) was an American architect, best known as the architect in charge of designing New York City's Chrysler Building (1928–30).
Life
William Van Alen was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1883 to ...
competed with the designers of 40 Wall Street to produce the tallest building in the world and famously erected the Chrysler spire in a last-minute, secret move in order to acquire the title for his own 69-story, tall building. The exterior was built of white and grey brick, but metal was used extensively to ornament it further, including gargoyles, nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...
- chrome eagles' heads, and a winged helmet of Mercury. The entrance used black granite to contrast with the nickel-chrome windows, and the foyer gave way to red marble and a mural ceiling. The design of each part of the building was individualist and distinct, with even each elevator different in design. A Chrysler
Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...
showroom was placed on the first floor of the building and an observation deck and the exclusive "Cloud Club" on the upper levels.
The Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...
originated from a 1928 project to redevelop the original Waldorf–Astoria into a 50-story mixed-use development; the purchase of the site for $14 million ($2.1 billion) set a record in New York for the year. John Raskob and Pierre du Pont entered into the project as financial backers, and concluded that the project would be more profitable if the site was used to build an extremely tall 80-story skyscraper instead. Although revised financial estimates suggested that the height should be cut back, the cachet of having the world's tallest building was considerable, and instead an additional five stories were added to ensure the building, at , would be slightly taller than the Chrysler Building. An observation deck was built to attract tourists, which proved to be a valuable source of revenue. The limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
, granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
, and aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...
skyscraper was specially designed to be easily erected, with standardized paneling and structural fittings, and was completed in only 18 months, opening in 1931. Due to the recession, however, it was only 25 percent occupied throughout the 1930s and ran at a loss; critics dubbed it the "Empty State Building".
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 commerce, commercial buildings covering between 48th Street (Manhattan), 48th Street and 51st Street (Manhattan), 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 14 original Art Deco ...
had originally been intended by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 – May 11, 1960) was an American financier and philanthropist, and the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller.
He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in ...
to be a new location for the Metropolitan Opera House, but the Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...
brought an end to the scheme. Rockefeller decided to develop a large office center instead, taking advantage of the low construction costs during the recession. At the center of the development was the RCA Building
30 Rockefeller Plaza (officially the Comcast Building; formerly RCA Building and GE Building) is a skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Completed in 1933, the 66 ...
, heavily influenced by architect Raymond Hood. The long, slab-like RCA had two distinct axes – from one side, it appeared to be a narrow tower, from the other it rose like a sheer wall. Not only was the structure highly distinctive, but it was also economically very effective. The design maximized the available light to the offices and eliminated any darker internal rooms, as the core of the building was entirely taken up with elevators and other engineering services. It took until 1940 before all of the building had been filled by tenants.
In Chicago, the final pre-war skyscraper was built in 1934. The Field Building
The Field Building, also known as the LaSalle National Bank Building and Bank of America Building is an art deco office building at 135 South LaSalle Street in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. The building was d ...
was commissioned during the final boom years of the inter-war economy, and the Home Insurance Building – the first skyscraper, built in 1884 – was demolished to make way for the "wing and tower"-style development.
Skyscraper mania and social commentary
Public interest in skyscrapers increased during the 1920s, particularly after the Tribune competition. The competition drawings were circulated on display, with 25,000 people coming to see them in Chicago in just one month. In the aftermath, images of skyscrapers flourished across American culture, commencing what historian Merrill Schleier dubbed a "skyscraper mania". The "Titan City" exhibition in 1925 celebrated existing skyscraper and featured futuristic murals by Harvey Corbett and Hugh Ferriss
Hugh Macomber Ferriss (July 12, 1889 – January 28, 1962) was an American architect, illustrator, and poet. He was associated with exploring the psychological condition of modern urban life, a common cultural enquiry of the first decades of ...
, depicting the skyscraper at the heart of the "City of the Future".[ Charles Sheeler and ]Paul Strand
Paul Strand (October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. ...
's 1921 short film ''Manhatta
''Manhatta'' (1921) is a short documentary film directed by painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand.
Production background
''Manhatta'' documents the look of early 20th-century Manhattan. With the city as subject, the film consist ...
'' explored the form, ending with a sunset shot from the top of a skyscraper. Authors such as Janet Flanner
Janet Flanner (March 13, 1892 – November 7, 1978) was an American writer and pioneering narrative journalist who served as the Paris correspondent of ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1925 until she retired in 1975.Yagoda, Ben ''About T ...
, John Dos Passos
John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his ''U.S.A.'' trilogy.
Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a young man, visit ...
and Mary Borden
Mary Borden (May 15, 1886 – December 2, 1968) (married names: Mary Turner; Mary Spears, Lady Spears; pseud. Bridget Maclagan) was an American-British novelist and poet whose work drew on her experiences as a war nurse. She was the second of ...
wrote novels with skyscrapers as important motifs or settings.[ ]John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. Although he worked in various film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. He ...
produced a ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
on the theme.[ ]Paul Frankl
Paul Frankl (22 April 1878 – 30 January 1962) was an art historian born in Austria-Hungary.
Frankl is most known for his writings on the history and principles of architecture, which he famously presented within a Gestalt-oriented framework.
Ea ...
designed a range of popular "skyscraper furniture".
Much of this commentary was positive, reflecting an optimism about technology and the direction of urban life in general. Skyscrapers were seen as an expression of rational engineering, the perfect buildings for mankind to live in, as celebrated in artist Louis Lozowick
Louis Lozowick (1892 – 1973) (ukr: Луї Лозовик) was a Ukrainian-born American painter and printmaker. He is recognized as an Art Deco and Precisionist artist, and mainly produced streamline, urban-inspired monochromatic litho ...
's lithographs. Some other proponents of skyscrapers likened them to medieval cathedrals, symbols of the modern age. Poems depicted skyscrapers as objects of sublime, rational beauty, Ferris describing them as "buildings like crystals, walls of translucent glass, sheer glass blocks sheathing a steel grill". At Chicago's Century of Progress
A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from 1933 to 1934. The fair, registered under the Bureau International des Expositi ...
exposition in 1933, skyscrapers and technology were portrayed as a solution for the United States' current and future problems. The French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...
acclaimed New York in 1935 as being "overwhelming, amazing, exciting, violently alive", but went on to complain that there were still too few skyscrapers, and those that had been built were not yet tall enough. Lewis Hine
Lewis Wickes Hine (September 26, 1874 – November 3, 1940) was an American sociologist and muckraker photographer. His photographs were instrumental in bringing about the passage of the first child labor laws in the United States.
Early life
...
, employed to record the building of the Empire State Building, portrayed the skyscraper construction teams as courageous heroes, creating a genre of photography that continued up until 1941.
Their critics expressed concerns about the effect of modern technology and urban living on the human condition, arguing that skyscrapers generated pollution and noise, and imposed a regimented and dehumanising lifestyle on the people that worked in them. Social commentator Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a wr ...
reflected the concerns of many in his critiques entitled ''Is the Skyscraper Tolerable?'' and ''The Intolerable City''. Political theorist Stefan Hirsch condemned the buildings as "bandages covering the sky, stifling our breath". Inventor Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...
expressed fears that an uncontrolled expansion of skyscrapers would result in overcrowding and disaster. Artist Howard Cook
Howard Norton Cook (1901–1980) was an American artist, particularly known for his wood engravingsBecker, p.56. and murals. Cook spent much of the 1920s in Europe and returned to live in Taos, New Mexico.
Cook first came to Taos, New Mexico in ...
's engravings critiqued the oppressive character of the new skyscrapers as they loomed over the traditional city. Berenice Abbott's photographic studies of New York in the 1930s explored the complex theme of urban change and the effect of skyscrapers on the older ways of life in the city, echoing Steigler's work in the first decade of the century.
Hollywood used skyscrapers extensively in popular films. ''The Skyscrapers of New York'' in 1906 became the first of many, and in the 1920s Harold Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, and stunt performer who appeared in many silent comedy films.Obituary ''Variety'', March 10, 1971, page 55.
One of the most influential film co ...
produced his five "skyscraper films", most prominently ''Safety Last!
''Safety Last!'' is a 1923 American silent romantic-comedy film starring Harold Lloyd. It includes one of the most famous images from the silent-film era: Lloyd clutching the hands of a large clock as he dangles from the outside of a skyscraper ...
'', in which the hero dangles from a clock on the side of a Los Angeles building. In these early silent movies
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...
, skyscrapers were closely associated with masculine identity; Lloyd's climbing of skyscrapers closely associated with his characters' transformation from young men into mature adults, and the winning of the heroine. The 1933 film ''King Kong'' included another iconic use of the early skyscraper in its final scenes, as the giant ape scaled the Empire State Building shortly before his death; the scene can be interpreted as contrasting natural instinct with the insensitive rationality of the modern building and wider New York.
Legacy
Skyscraper development paused during the years of the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Once development began again in the 1950s and 1960s, the skyscraper entered a different phase of development, usually called the international
International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations".
International may also refer to:
Music Albums
* ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011
* ''International'' (New Order album), 2002
* ''International'' (The T ...
or modern
Modern may refer to:
History
* Modern history
** Early Modern period
** Late Modern period
*** 18th century
*** 19th century
*** 20th century
** Contemporary history
* Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century
Phil ...
period. Some experimental designs in this style had been built in the U.S. using European architectural concepts in the early 1930s, most notably the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society
The Philadelphia Savings Fund Society (PSFS), originally called the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society, was a savings bank headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. PSFS was founded in December 1816, the first savings bank to organ ...
and McGraw-Hill Buildings. Post-war, their modernist themes were used in a new generation of skyscrapers. These stood alone on individual plots in the fashion of the Rockefeller Centre's RCA building, rather than as part of a row of buildings, forming huge slabs and towers featuring huge glass façades, breaking with earlier skyscraper traditions. Inside, new technologies such as fluorescent lighting
A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet ligh ...
and widespread air-conditioning meant that many older architectural features such as light courts and operable windows were unnecessary.
The trend had substantial implications for many early skyscrapers. Some were redesigned to fit new tastes. Much of the ornate detail was removed from the Metropolitan Life Tower in the 1960s, for example, to fit contemporary, plainer fashions. Many older skyscrapers could not be adapted, however, as they lacked the physical depth to build larger modern offices or the space for new service facilities. Some were demolished to make way for new, larger structures. Amongst these was the Singer Tower, demolished in 1968 and replaced by the international style United States Steel Building. In the 21st century, buildings such as 90 West Street have been renovated as upmarket housing, partially because of their extensive windows and access to sunlight.
Critical discussion of early skyscrapers began from the 1880s onwards in the architectural community and continued across a growing cultural and academic community in the inter-war period. In 1930, the terms the Chicago "school" and "movement" began to be used for the first time, popularised by the 1940s academics Sigfried Giedion
Sigfried Giedion (sometimes misspelled Siegfried Giedion; 14 April 1888, Prague – 10 April 1968, Zürich) was a Bohemian-born Swiss historian and critic of architecture. His ideas and books, '' Space, Time and Architecture'', and ''Mech ...
and Carl Condit
Carl Wilbur Condit (Cincinnati, Ohio, September 29, 1914 – January 4, 1997) was an American historian of urban and architectural history, a writer, professor, and teacher."Condit, Carl W(ilbur) (1914–1997)," ''The Hutchinson Unabridged Ency ...
as a label for the early Chicago architects. They regarded skyscrapers as the early forerunners of modernism and as marking a clear break with earlier architectural forms in the U.S. This interpretation of Chicago's skyscrapers was later challenged by Robert Bruegmann and Daniel Bluestone, who argued that it underplayed the links of the movement to pre-existing Chicago culture. During the 1980s and 1990s, analysis of the early skyscrapers increasingly shifted away from the architects and architecture of the individual buildings to considerations of skyscrapers' roles in the wider urban context. Histories stressing the social, economic, and cultural dimension of skyscrapers began to be produced, with New York's skyscrapers receiving greater attention than before. The Skyscraper Museum
The Skyscraper Museum is an architecture museum located in Battery Park City, Manhattan, New York City and founded in 1996. As the name suggests, the museum focuses on high-rise buildings as "products of technology, objects of design, sites of c ...
– the first to address the theme – was founded in New York in 1997 by historian Carol Willis to preserve the history of the skyscraper.
See also
* List of early skyscrapers
This list of early skyscrapers details a range of tall, commercial buildings built between 1880 and the 1930s, predominantly in the United States cities of New York and Chicago, but also across the rest of the U.S. and in many other parts of the ...
* History of the tallest buildings in the world
The tallest building in the world, as of , is the Burj Khalifa. The title of " world's tallest building" has been borne by various buildings, such as the Lincoln Cathedral, the Empire State Building and the original World Trade Center.
Before ...
* Architecture of the United States
The architecture of the United States demonstrates a broad variety of architectural styles and built forms over the country's history of over two centuries of independence and former Spanish and British rule.
Architecture in the United States h ...
* Early Chicago Skyscrapers- a nomination for UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
's World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
list
Notes
References
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External links
Late-19th Century Development of Skyscrapers
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
, Lecture on video (39:23) from Washington University
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
February 13, 2018
The Skyscraper Museum
holding digital archives of material on early skyscraper design and construction
Traditional Skyscrapers Photo Group at flickr
{{Good article
19th-century architecture in the United States
20th-century architecture in the United States
Architectural history
History of construction
History of structural engineering
Skyscrapers