The Skyscraper: An American
Icon
Reading/Research
• Research articles/books on the world
trade center towers and see if you can
answer the following:
• What impact did they have on the context
around them, aesthetically and spatially?
• What is the nature of the design that was
chosen to replace them?
Reading
• Read the following article
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/20
11/03/how-skyscrapers-can-save-thecity/8387/1/
and answer the following:
• How did the zoning code of 1916 affect the
shape of the skyscraper?
• What is “floor area ratio” and what is its purpose
in the design of tall buildings?
• What does the author say about the economics
of tall buildings: how do they impact prices in the
city?
The origins of the
Skyscraper
• Few factors
encouraged the
invention of the
Skyscraper:
• Centralization
• The invention of steel
• The invention of the
elevator
• High land costs
• Expression of power
Centralization and
the Skyscraper
•
•
•
•
As mentioned earlier in this
course, the city as an
expansive metropolis did not
take place until industry had
demanded centralization.
With centralization there arose
two issues: the need to house
large quantities of workers and
the need to address increased
land costs.
How could a land owner
optimize returns on his
purchase.
“The skyscraper is a machine
that makes the land pay” Craig
Severance: Architect.
The invention of
steel
•
•
•
By the mid century, the
smelting of iron ore had been
perfected and before too long
an engineer by the name of
Henry Bessemer invented a
method by which to turn iron
into steel.
Steel was found to be most
economical when used in a
design of repetitive patterns
i.e. standardized.
The skyscraper as a vertical
assembly of repetitive floors
seemed to be a natural byproduct of steel and the
economy associated with it
The Eiffel Tower
•
•
•
•
In 1889 and at the site for the
world expo in Paris, Gustav Eiffel,
a French structural engineer, gave
expression to a monument for
steel.
The famous Eiffel tower was
functionless at first.
If it did have a purpose, it was to
inspire a generation of new
architects and engineers to
imagine new possibilities in design
The tower later acquired functions
to address the tourist and to serve
as a hoisting platform from which
to suspend communication
satellite equipment
Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1889,
Architect/Engineer: Gustav
Eiffel.
The freeing
potential of steel
• The invention of steel
freed the perimeter of the
building from the burden
of having to support the
weight of the building
• Now it was possible to
open up the façade and
bring more light into the
interior
• The freeing of the façade
also gave architects and
clients greater ability to
play with exterior
expression
The steel cage
benefits
•
•
•
The opening of the façade
made possible a new benefit
for commercial architecture.
Now architects and clients
realized that they could use the
big openings to display
products around the clock as
part of the urban experience.
Nowhere was this better
portrayed than in the Carson
Scott Pirie department store in
Chicago.
Carson Scott Pirie, dept. Store,
Chicago, 1899: Architect: Louis
Sullivan.
The problem with
the steel cage
•
•
•
The invention of steel brought
into the making of architecture
the work of the engineer.
To restore the place of art in
architecture and the role of the
craftsman in it, architects such
as Louis Sullivan sought to
clad the steel frame with works
of sculpture.
Natural motifs were used as
the theme by which to
counterbalance the effects of
the excessively rational steel
cage design.
Wainwright Building: St. Louis,
MO, 1890-91: Architect Louis
Sullivan.
The elevator
•
•
Along with steel, the invention
of the safety elevator
contributed to the design of the
skyscraper.
It not only hoisted people up
mechanically but, because of
its ability to transcend floors,
also gave rise to the sublime
feeling of having arrived
among the clouds suddenly.
The problem of
grounding
•
•
•
With the increased height in
buildings the first architects of
the skyscraper were
concerned with connectivity to
the ground.
How to build high buildings
and remain sensitive to the
person on the ground.
To solve this problem
architects borrowed from the
principle of the classical
column: base, shaft and
capital.
Competition entry for the
Chicago Tribune Bldg., 1922:
Architect: Adolf Loos.
Iconic Power
• With the rise of wealthy
industrialist there also
arose the desire to
express that wealth.
• To build taller buildings
was in one sense an
expression of economics
but in another sense a
means to express
success and domination.
• Higher buildings were in
many ways the physical
expression of Darwinian
principles (survival of the
fittest).
A view from the
sky
• Alongside the age of
steel and the ability to
build higher came the
age of the aircraft .
• This new technology
brought about a new
fascination of seeing
the world from the air.
• All of a sudden a new
interest in dominating
the sky came of age.
King Kong on top
the Empire State
•
•
The story of King Kong is one
about the struggle between
Man and nature, where
interestingly the skyscraper is
used as an agent of showing
Man’s overreach for
domination.
Man’s beautiful capacity for
sensory reality (symbolized by
the beautiful reporter) has not
been used wisely to record the
attributes of nature and so
nature retaliates, at least
temporarily.
The race to the top
Chrysler Building, 1930, Architect: William
Van Allen
Empire State Building, 1931,
Architect: Shreve, Lamb and
Harmon.
An expression of
the sublime
• With the new skyscraper,
interest in the urban
fabric began to erode
• Unlike its 19th C
predecessor, which was
still tied to the street and
the city, the skyscraper of
the 20’s onward was
more a product of
individuality.
• A city onto itself .
Skyscraper
interior
• Following in the idea that
skyscrapers removed the
individual from the world
around him/her, their
interiors were designed to
open before the visitor a
world of glory and
glamour.
• Here the eye was dazzled
by effects in marble,
murals, steel sculpture
etc.
• Lobbies were not simply
rooms in which to catch
an elevator but a lesson
in moral/civic and labor
ethics.
Skyscraper interiors and the
Art Deco style
Why Art Deco: Because it represented a
nice complement to the aims of the
skyscraper which had to do with expressing
ingenuity, entrepreneurship, power but also
art and creativity.
The lobby of the
Chrysler building
In his autobiography,
Walter P. Chrysler
claimed that he asked
the architect to
redesign the lobby so
that "when people
come into a big building
they...sense a change,
get a mental lift that will
put them in a frame of
mind to transact their
business.'
Interior glamour
• Skyscraper interior was
meant to inspire in the
visitor/tenant a sense of
awe.
• The interior was meant to
hold you captive.
• To do so the burden of
structure was removed in
favor of the spectacle,
thinning out the effect of
heavy columns either by
hiding the column,
cladding it with marble or
creating a glow around it.
The skyscraper and
the stock market
crash of 1929
• In 1929 the stock market
crashed, putting many out
of a job.
• Big projects were
scrapped but several
stayed on.
• Projects such Rockefeller
center continued and
became a symbol of
benevolence to keep
many workers employed.
The World Trade
Center
• The world trade center
was a skyscraper project
of a special kind
• Unlike its predecessors,
the WTC project was not
meant to shine as an
expression of success on
behalf of a single person
or company.
• It was meant as a neutral
expression of national
power made possible
through trade with the
world.
The twin towers
• The twin towers
represented less a desire
for bombast than a
source of orientation for
those who lived and
visited New York.
• The doubling effect of the
project; making out of a
single function two
buildings, reduced its
reading as a product of
ego and more as
something generic.
The Islamic Motif
•
•
•
Interestingly Minoru Yamasaki,
the architect of the WTC,
chose to work with an Islamic
motif to design the exterior of
the buildings’ skin.
Of importance about this motif
is its repetitiveness and its
expression of unity (notice how
the arch goes from three lines
to one line).
WTC then was meant to be
appreciated from either a long
distance or from close-upeither as a source of
orientation or as motif.
911
• When the twin towers
were attacked on 911, the
perpetrators perhaps did
not attack an American
symbol of individualism
but American domination
in the world.
• Why not attack The
Empire State Building?
• Or The Sears tower in
Chicago?
How is the American
Skyscraper a form of living
by rural principles?
• It is an expression of
independence and
individualism.
• A desire to remove
oneself from the
crowd.
• To seek the distant
horizon, reminiscent
of the
Emersonian/Wrightian
spirit.