A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building Buildings come in a wide amount of shapes and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for a wide number of factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, to land prices, ground conditions, specific uses and aesthetic reasons. There is no official definition or height above which a building may clearly be classified as a skyscraper. Most cities define the term empirically The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment. A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses. It is usually differentiated from the philosophic; even a building of 80 meters (262 feet) may be considered a skyscraper if it protrudes above its built environment and changes the overall skyline A skyline is best described as the overall or partial view of a city's tall buildings and structures consisting of many skyscrapers in front of the sky in the background. It can also be described as the artificial horizon that a city's overall structure creates. Skylines serve as a kind of fingerprint of a city, as no two skylines are alike. For.[citation needed]

Contents

Definition

The word "skyscraper" originally was a nautical term This is a glossary of nautical terms; some remain current, many date from the 17th-19th century. See also Wiktionary's nautical terms and Category:Nautical terms referring to a small triangular sail set above the skysail on a sailing ship Sailing ship is now used to refer to any large wind-powered vessel. In technical terms, a ship was a sailing vessel with a specific rig of at least three masts, square rigged on all of them, making the sailing adjective redundant. In popular usage "ship" became associated with all large sailing vessels and when steam power came along the. The term was first applied to buildings in the late 19th century as a result of public amazement at the tall buildings being built in Chicago Chicago ( /ʃɨˈkɑːɡoʊ/ or /ʃɨˈkɔːɡoʊ/) is the largest city in both Illinois and the Midwest, and the third most populous city in the United States, with over 2.8 million living within the city limits. Its metropolitan area, commonly named "Chicagoland", is the 26th most populous in the world, home to an estimated 9.7 million and New York City New York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over global commerce, finance, media, culture, art, fashion, research, education, and entertainment. As host of the. The first skyscraper was for many years thought to be the Home Insurance Building The Home Insurance Building was built in 1885 in Chicago, Illinois, USA and destroyed in 1931 to make way for the Field Building . It was the first building to use structural steel in its frame, but the majority of its structure was composed of cast and wrought iron. It is generally noted as the first tall building to be supported, both inside and built in Chicago, Illinois in 1885. More recent arguments point to New York's seven floor Equitable Life Assurance Building built in 1870 and it was arguably the first office building built using a kind of skeletal frame but it depends on what factors are chosen and even the scholars making the argument find it academic.[1]

The structural definition of the word skyscraper was refined later by architectural historians, based on engineering developments of the 1880s that had enabled construction of tall multi-storey buildings. This definition was based on the steel skeleton—-as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone such as marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, and tile. Masonry is generally a highly durable form of, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicago's Monadnock Building The Monadnock Building, also known as Monadnock Block, is a historic proto-skyscraper in the Loop district of downtown Chicago, Illinois. It is arguably the world's first skyscraper. The Monadnock is the tallest commercial building in the world with masonry load-bearing walls. It is located at 53 West Jackson Blvd. Philadelphia's City Hall Philadelphia City Hall is the seat of government for the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At 167 m , including the statue, it is the world's second-tallest masonry building, only 1.6 feet (0.49 m) shorter than Mole Antonelliana in Turin. The weight of the building is borne by granite and brick walls up to 22 feet (6.7 m) thick, rather than, completed in 1901, still holds claim as the world's tallest load-bearing masonry structure at 167 m (548 ft). The steel frame developed in stages of increasing self-sufficiency, with several buildings in Chicago and New York advancing the technology that allowed the steel frame to carry a building on its own. Today, however, many of the tallest skyscrapers are built almost entirely with reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is reinforced with iron or steel. Other materials used to reinforce concrete can be organic and inorganic fibres as well as composites.[2] Pumps A pump displaces a volume by physical or mechanical action. Pumps fall into five major groups: direct lift, displacement, velocity, buoyancy and gravity pumps. Their names describe the method for moving a fluid and storage tanks A storage tank is a container, usually for holding liquids, sometimes for compressed gases . The term can be used for reservoirs (artificial lakes and ponds), and for manufactured containers. The usage of the word tank for reservoirs is common or universal in Indian English, American English and moderately common in British English. In other maintain water pressure Pressure in open conditions usually can be approximated as the pressure in "static" or non-moving conditions , because the motions create only negligible changes in the pressure. Such conditions conform with principles of fluid statics. The pressure at any given point of a non-moving (static) fluid is called the hydrostatic pressure at the top of skyscrapers.

A loose convention in the United States and Europe now draws the lower limit of a skyscraper at 150 meters (~500 ft).[verification needed][3] A skyscraper taller than 300 meters (~1000 ft) may be referred to as supertall The world's tallest structure is the 828 m tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The building gained the official title of "Tallest Building in the World" at its opening on 4 January 2010. It is taller than any other man-made structure ever built.[by whom?] Shorter buildings are still sometimes referred to as skyscrapers if they appear to dominate their surroundings.[by whom?]

The somewhat arbitrary term skyscraper should not be confused with the also ill-defined term high-rise A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, apartment block, or block of flats, is a tall building or structure used as a residential and/or office building. In some areas they may be referred to as "MDU" standing for "Multi Dwelling Unit". The Emporis Standards Committee defines a high-rise building as "a multi-story structure between 35-100 meters tall, or a building of unknown height from 12-39 floors"[4] and a skyscraper as "a multi-story building whose architectural height is at least 100 meters."[5] Some structural engineers 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 and environmental concerns, but they may also consider aesthetic and social factors define a highrise as any vertical construction for which wind Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space. Winds are commonly classified by their spatial is a more significant load factor than earthquake An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes are measured with a seismometer; a device which also records is known as a seismograph. The moment magnitude (or the related and mostly obsolete Richter magnitude) of an earthquake is conventionally reported, with magnitude 3 or or weight In one of the more common definitions, the weight of an object, often denoted by W, is defined as being equal to the force exerted on it by gravity. This force is the product of the mass m of the object and the local gravitational acceleration g. Expressed in a formula: W = mg. In the International System of Units, the unit of measurement for. Note that this criterion fits not only high rises but some other tall structures, such as towers Towers are tall structures that are almost always taller than they are wide, usually by a significant margin. Towers are generally built to take advantage of their height, and can stand alone or as part of a larger structure.

The word skyscraper often carries a connotation of pride and achievement. The skyscraper, in name and social function, is a modern expression of the age-old symbol of the world center The axis mundi is a ubiquitous symbol that crosses human cultures.[citation needed] The image expresses a point of connection between sky and earth where the four compass directions meet. At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms. Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from or axis mundi: a pillar that connects earth to heaven and the four compass directions to one another.[6]

History

Before the 19th century

The Great Pyramid of Giza The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops in Greek) and, circa 2560 BC, was 146 m tall and its height was unsurpassed until at least the 14th century AD. The Two Towers of Bologna The Towers of Bologna are a group of medieval structures in Bologna, Italy. The two most prominent ones, also called the Two Towers, are the landmark of the city in the 12th century reached 97.2 m in height. The 16th-century city of Shibam Shibam (often referred to as Shibam Hadhramaut) is a town in Yemen with about 7,000 inhabitants. The first known inscription about the city dates from the 3rd century AD. It was the capital of the Hadramawt Kingdom consisted entirely of over 500 high-rise tower houses.

Modern skyscrapers are built with materials such as steel Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten. Carbon and other elements act as a hardening agent, preventing, glass Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle, and often optically transparent. Glass is commonly used for windows, bottles, and eyewear; examples of glassy materials include soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovy-glass, and aluminium oxynitride. The term glass developed in the late Roman, reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is reinforced with iron or steel. Other materials used to reinforce concrete can be organic and inorganic fibres as well as composites and granite Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granites usually have a medium to coarse grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals (phenocrysts) are larger than the groundmass in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic texture is sometimes known as a porphyry, and routinely utilize mechanical equipment such as water pumps A pump is a device used to move fluids, such as liquids or slurries, or gases. A pump displaces a volume by physical or mechanical action. One common misconception about pumps is the thought that they create pressure. Pumps alone do not create pressure; they only displace fluid, causing a flow. Adding resistance to flow causes pressure. Pumps fall and elevators An elevator is a vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors (levels, decks) of a building, vessel or other structure. Elevators are generally powered by electric motors that either drive traction cables and counterweight systems, or pump hydraulic fluid to raise a cylindrical piston. Until the 19th century, buildings of over six stories were rare, as having great numbers of stairs to climb was impractical for inhabitants, and water pressure Pressure in open conditions usually can be approximated as the pressure in "static" or non-moving conditions , because the motions create only negligible changes in the pressure. Such conditions conform with principles of fluid statics. The pressure at any given point of a non-moving (static) fluid is called the hydrostatic pressure was usually insufficient to supply running water above 50 m (164 ft).

The tallest building in ancient times was the Great Pyramid of Giza The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops in Greek) and in ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and it developed over the next three millennia. Its history, which was 146 metres (479 ft) tall and was built in the 26th century BC. Its height was not surpassed for thousands of years, possibly until the 14th century AD with the construction of Lincoln Cathedral Lincoln Cathedral is a historic Anglican cathedral in Lincoln in England and seat of the Bishop of Lincoln in the Church of England. It was reputedly the tallest building in the world for 249 years (1300–1549). The central spire collapsed in 1549 and was not rebuilt. It is highly regarded by architectural scholars; the eminent Victorian writer (though its height is disputed),[7] which in turn was not surpassed in height until the Washington Monument The Washington Monument is an obelisk near the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate the first U.S. president, General George Washington. The monument, made of marble, granite, and sandstone, is both the world's tallest stone structure and the world's tallest obelisk, standing 555 feet 5⅛ inches .[n 1] There are in 1884. However, being uninhabited buildings, none of these buildings actually complies with the definition of a skyscraper.

High-rise apartment buildings already flourished in classical antiquity Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world. It is the period in which Greek and Roman literature (such as Aeschylus, Ovid, Homer and others) flourished: ancient Roman Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world insulae In Roman architecture, an insula was a large apartment building where the Plebs (lower class) and Equates (middle class) of Romans dwelled. The floor at ground level was used for tabernas, shops and businesses with living space on the higher floors in Rome and other imperial The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus cities reached up to 10 and more stories,[8] some with more than 200 stairs.[9] Several emperors The Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office: Latin titles such as imperator (from which English emperor ultimately derives), augustus, caesar and princeps were all associated with it. In practice, the emperor was supreme ruler of Rome and supreme commander of the, beginning with Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus was the first ruler of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from January 27 BC until his death.[note 1] Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, he was adopted posthumously by his great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC, and between then and 31 BC was officially named Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BC the Senate awarded him the (r. 30 BC-14 AD), attempted to establish limits of 20–25 m for multi-storey buildings, but met with only limited success.[10][11] The lower floors were typically occupied by either shops or wealthy families, while the upper stories were rented out to the lower classes.[8] Surviving Oxyrhynchus Papyri The Oxyrhynchus papyri are a very numerous group of manuscripts discovered by archaeologists at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. They include thousands of Greek and Latin documents, letters and literary works. They also include a few vellum manuscripts, and more recent Arabic manuscripts on paper (for example, the medieval P. Oxy indicate that seven-storey buildings even existed in provincial In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and until the Tetrarchy (circa 296), largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy. The word province in modern English has its origins in the term used by the Romans towns, such as in 3rd century AD Hermopolis Hermopolis Magna or simply Hermopolis or Hermopolis Megale (Greek: Ἑρμοῦ πόλις μεγάλη, Steph. B. s.v.; Ptol. iv. 5. § 60) or Hermupolis (It. Anton. pp 154, seq.) is the site of ancient Khmun, and is located near the modern Egyptian town of El Ashmunein (from Coptic: Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛⲉⲓⲛ Shmounein) in Al Minya governorate in Roman Egypt The Roman province of Egypt was established in 30 BC after Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) defeated his rival Mark Antony, deposed his lover Queen Cleopatra VII and annexed the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt to the Roman Empire. The province encompassed most of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai Peninsula. Aegyptus was bordered by the.[12]

The skylines of many important medieval The Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) was coined in cities had large numbers of high-rise urban towers. Wealthy families built these towers for defensive purposes and as status symbols. The residential Towers of Bologna The Towers of Bologna are a group of medieval structures in Bologna, Italy. The two most prominent ones, also called the Two Towers, are the landmark of the city in the 12th century, for example, numbered between 80 to 100 at a time, the largest of which (known as the "Two Towers") rise to 97.2 metres (319 ft). In Florence Florence (Italian: Firenze listen , pronounced [fiˈrɛntse]; alternative obsolete spelling: Fiorenza, Latin: Florentia) is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 367,569 inhabitants (1,500,000 in the metropolitan area), a law of 1251 decreed that all urban buildings should be reduced to a height of less than 26 m, the regulation immediately put into effect.[13] Even medium-sized towns at the time such as San Gimignano are known to have featured 72 towers up to 51 m height.[13]

The medieval Egyptian city of Fustat housed many high-rise residential buildings, which Al-Muqaddasi in the 10th century described as resembling minarets. Nasir Khusraw in the early 11th century described some of them rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top floor complete with ox-drawn water wheels for irrigating them.[14] Cairo in the 16th century had high-rise apartment buildings where the two lower floors were for commercial and storage purposes and the multiple stories above them were rented out to tenants.[15] An early example of a city consisting entirely of high-rise housing is the 16th-century city of Shibam in Yemen. Shibam was made up of over 500 tower houses,[16] each one rising 5 to 11 storeys high,[17] with each floor being an apartment occupied by a single family. The city was built in this way in order to protect it from Bedouin attacks.[16] Shibam still has the tallest mudbrick buildings in the world, with many of them over 100 feet (30 m) high.[18]

An early modern example of high-rise housing was in 17th-century Edinburgh, Scotland, where a defensive city wall defined the boundaries of the city. Due to the restricted land area available for development, the houses increased in height instead. Buildings of 11 stories were common, and there are records of buildings as high as 14 stories. Many of the stone-built structures can still be seen today in the old town of Edinburgh. The oldest iron framed building in the world, although only partially iron framed, is The Flaxmill (also locally known as the "Maltings"), in Shrewsbury, England. Built in 1797, it is seen as the "grandfather of skyscrapers”, since its fireproof combination of cast iron columns and cast iron beams developed into the modern steel frame that made modern skyscrapers possible. Unfortunately, it lies derelict and needs much investment to keep it standing.

Early skyscrapers

Oriel Chambers, Liverpool. The world's first glass curtain walled building. The stone mullions are decorative. Built in 1931, The Empire State Building in New York City is one of the oldest, yet tallest skyscrapers.

An early development was Oriel Chambers in Liverpool. Designed by local architect Peter Ellis in 1864, the building was the world's first iron-framed, glass curtain-walled office building. It was only 5 floors high as the elevator had not yet been invented.[19][20][21] Further developments led to the world's first skyscraper, the ten-storey Home Insurance Building in Chicago, built in 1884–1885. While its height is not considered very impressive today, it was at that time. The architect, Major William Le Baron Jenney, created a load-bearing structural frame. In this building, a steel frame supported the entire weight of the walls, instead of load-bearing walls carrying the weight of the building. This development led to the "Chicago skeleton" form of construction.

Sullivan's Wainwright Building in St. Louis, 1891, was the first steel-framed building with soaring vertical bands to emphasize the height of the building, and is, therefore, considered by some to be the first true skyscraper.

Most early skyscrapers emerged in the land-strapped areas of Chicago, London, and New York toward the end of the 19th century. A land boom in Melbourne, Australia between 1888-1891 spurred the creation of a significant number of early skyscrapers, though none of these were steel reinforced and few remain today. Height limits and fire restrictions were later introduced. London builders soon found building heights limited due to a complaint from Queen Victoria, rules that continued to exist with few exceptions until the 1950s. Concerns about aesthetics and fire safety had likewise hampered the development of skyscrapers across continental Europe for the first half of the twentieth century (with the notable exceptions of the 26-storey Boerentoren in Antwerp, Belgium, built in 1932, and the 31-storey Torre Piacentini in Genoa, Italy, built in 1940). After an early competition between New York City and Chicago for the world's tallest building, New York took the lead by 1895 with the completion of the American Surety Building, leaving New York with the title of tallest building for many years. New York City developers competed among themselves, with successively taller buildings claiming the title of "world's tallest" in the 1920s and early 1930s, culminating with the completion of the Chrysler Building in 1930 and the Empire State Building in 1931, the world's tallest building for forty years. The first completed World Trade Center tower became the world's tallest building in 1972 for two years. That changed with the completion of the Sears Tower (later renamed the Willis Tower) in Chicago in 1974, which became the world's tallest building until 1998.

Modern skyscrapers

Taipei 101, formerly the world's tallest skyscraper, was the first to exceed the half-kilometer mark. The iconic World Trade Center twin towers were destroyed in 2001. The Willis Tower in Chicago was the world's tallest building from 1974 to 1998, and remains the tallest in the United States. The Petronas Twin Towers, the world's tallest twin buildings. Tower 2 of the International Finance Centre in Hong Kong is one of the 20 tallest buildings in the world. The Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt/Germany is the tallest completed skyscraper in the European Union. 30 St Mary Axe in London, United Kingdom is an example of a modern environmentally friendly skyscraper.

From the 1930s onwards, skyscrapers also began to appear in Latin America (São Paulo, Santiago Caracas, Bogotá, Mexico City) and in Asia (Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore, Mumbai, Jakarta, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Bangkok). Immediately after World War II, the Soviet Union planned eight massive skyscrapers dubbed "Stalin Towers" for Moscow; seven of these were eventually built. The rest of Europe also slowly began to permit skyscrapers, starting with Madrid, during the 1950s. Finally, skyscrapers also began to be constructed in cities of Africa, the Middle East and Oceania (mainly Australia) from the late 1950s.

In the early 1960s structural engineer Fazlur Khan realized that the rigid steel frame structure that had "dominated tall building design and construction so long was not the only system fitting for tall buildings", marking "the beginning of a new era of skyscraper revolution in terms of multiple structural systems."[22] His central innovation in skyscraper design and construction was the idea of the "tube" structural system, including the "framed tube", "trussed tube", and "bundled tube".[23] These systems allowed far greater economic efficiency,[24] and also allowed efficient skyscrapers to take on various shapes, no longer needing to be box-shaped.[25] Over the next fifteen years, many towers were built by Khan and the "Second Chicago School",[26] including the massive 442-meter (1,451-foot) Willis Tower.[27] Chicago is currently undergoing an epic construction boom that will greatly add to the city's skyline. Since 2000, at least 40 buildings at a minimum of 50 stories high have been built or planned.[28] The Chicago Spire, Trump International Hotel and Tower, Waterview Tower, Mandarin Oriental Tower, 29-39 South LaSalle, Park Michigan, and Aqua are some of the more notable projects currently underway in the city. Chicago, Hong Kong, and New York City, otherwise known as the "the big three," are recognized in architectural circles as having especially compelling skylines. A landmark skyscraper can inspire a boom of new high-rise projects in its city, as Taipei 101 has done in Taipei since its opening in 2004. Large cities currently experiencing skyscraper building booms include Toronto in Canada, London in the United Kingdom, Shanghai in China, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and Miami, which now is third in the United States.[29]

History of tallest skyscrapers

Main article: History of the tallest buildings in the world

At the beginning of the 20th century, New York City was a center for the Beaux-Arts architectural movement, attracting the talents of such great architects as Stanford White and Carrere and Hastings. As better construction and engineering technology became available as the century progressed, New York and Chicago became the focal point of the competition for the tallest building in the world. Each city's striking skyline has been composed of numerous and varied skyscrapers, many of which are icons of 20th century architecture:

Momentum in setting records passed from the United States to other nations with the opening of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1998. The record for world's tallest building remained in Asia with the opening of Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan, in 2004. A number of architectural records, including those of the world's tallest building and tallest free-standing structure, moved to the Middle East with the opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE.

This geographical transition is accompanied by a change in approach to skyscraper design. For much of the twentieth century large buildings took the form of simple geometrical shapes. This reflected the "international style" or modernist philosophy shaped by Bauhaus architects early in the century. The last of these, the Willis Tower and World Trade Center towers in New York, erected in the 1970s, reflect the philosophy. Tastes shifted in the decade which followed, and new skyscrapers began to exhibit postmodernist influences. This approach to design avails itself of historical elements, often adapted and re-interpreted, in creating technologically modern structures. The Petronas Twin Towers recall Asian pagoda architecture and Islamic geometric principles. Taipei 101 likewise reflects the pagoda tradition as it incorporates ancient motifs such as the ruyi symbol. The Burj Khalifa draws inspiration from traditional Arabic art. Architects in recent years have sought to create structures that would not appear equally at home if set in any part of the world, but that reflect the culture thriving in the spot where they stand.

For current rankings of skyscrapers by height, see List of tallest buildings in the world.

The following list measures height of the roof. The more common gauge is the highest architectural detail; such ranking would have included Petronas Towers, built in 1998. See List of tallest buildings in the world for details.

Built Building City Country Roof Floors Pinnacle Current status
1873 Equitable Life Building New York City United States 142 ft 43 m 8 Demolished in 1912
1889 Auditorium Building Chicago United States 269 ft 82 m 17 349 ft 106 m Standing
1890 New York World Building New York City United States 309 ft 94 m 20 349 ft 106 m Demolished in 1955
1894 Manhattan Life Insurance Building New York City United States 348 ft 106 m 18 Demolished in 1930
1895 Milwaukee City Hall Milwaukee United States 353 ft 108 m 15 Standing
1899 Park Row Building New York City United States 391 ft 119 m 30 Standing
1901 Philadelphia City Hall Philadelphia United States 511 ft 155.8 m 9 548 ft 167 m Standing
1908 Singer Building New York City United States 612 ft 187 m 47 Demolished in 1968
1909 Met Life Tower New York City United States 700 ft 213 m 50 Standing
1913 Woolworth Building New York City United States 792 ft 241 m 57 Standing
1930 40 Wall Street New York City United States 70 927 ft 283 m Standing
1930 Chrysler Building New York City United States 1,046 ft 319 m 77 1,046 ft 319 m Standing
1931 Empire State Building New York City United States 1,250 ft 381 m 102 1,454 ft 443 m Standing
1972 World Trade Center (North tower) New York City United States 1,368 ft 417 m 110 1,727 ft 526.3 m Destroyed in 2001
1974 Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) Chicago United States 1,450 ft 442 m 108 1,729 ft 527 m Standing
2004 Taipei 101 Taipei Taiwan 1,474 ft 448 m 101 1,671 ft 509 m Standing
2010 Burj Khalifa Dubai United Arab Emirates 2,717 ft 828 m 160 2,717 ft 828 m Standing

Source: emporis.com

Today

Today, skyscrapers are an increasingly common sight where land is expensive, as in the centres of big cities, because they provide such a high ratio of rentable floor space per unit area of land. They are built not just for economy of space; like temples and palaces of the past, skyscrapers are considered symbols of a city's economic power. Not only do they define the skyline, they help to define the city's identity.

Supertall towers

At the time Taipei 101 broke the half-kilometer mark in height, it was already technically possible to build structures towering over a kilometer above the ground. Proposals for such structures have been put forward, including the Mile-High Tower to be built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia[34][35] and Burj Mubarak Al Kabir in Kuwait. Kilometer-plus structures present architectural challenges that may eventually place them in a new architectural category.[36]

Future skyscrapers

The following skyscrapers are either approved or due to be completed in the near future:

A growing interest exists in a concept adapted from skyscraper, called seascraper. This is a proposed large building which will function as a floating city.

Sustainability

The skyscraper as a concept is a product of the industrialized age, made possible by cheap energy and raw materials. The amount of steel, concrete and glass needed to construct a skyscraper is vast, and these materials represent a great deal of embodied energy. Tall skyscrapers are very heavy, which means that they must be built on a sturdier foundation than would be required for shorter, lighter buildings. Building materials must also be lifted to the top of a skyscraper during construction, requiring more energy than would be necessary at lower heights. Furthermore, a skyscraper consumes a lot of electricity because potable and non-potable water must be pumped to the highest occupied floors, skyscrapers are usually designed to be mechanically ventilated, elevators are generally used instead of stairs, and natural lighting cannot be utilized in rooms far from the windows and the windowless spaces such as elevators, bathrooms and stairwells.

Despite these costs, the size of skyscrapers allows for high-density work and living spaces, reducing the amount of land given over to human development. Mass transit and commercial transport are economically and environmentally more efficient when serving high-density development than suburban or rural development. Also, the total energy expended towards waste disposal and climate control is relatively lower for a given number of people occupying a skyscraper than that same number of people occupying modern housing.[citation needed] Indeed, though the city of Paris, for example, has almost the population density of Manhattan, Paris' stringent building codes and unchanging borders have made it difficult to create the larger buildings and utilities needed for a growing population within the actual city limits.[citation needed] This inflexibility has led many important institutions and departments to locate outside of city limits (such as the La Défense business district).

Quotations

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Skyscraper
"What is the chief characteristic of the tall office building? It is lofty. It must be tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line."
—Louis Sullivan's The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered (1896)

See also

References

  1. ^ Ivars Peterson (April 5, 1986). "The first skyscraper - new theory that Home Insurance Building was not the first". CBS Interactive. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_v129/ai_4501450/. Retrieved January 6, 2010. ""In my view, we can no longer argue that the Home Insurance Building was the first skyscraper," says Carl W. Condit, now retired from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and author of several books on Chicago architecture. "The claim rests on an unacceptably narrow idea of what constitutes a high-rise commercial building," he says."If there is a building in which all these technical factors--structural system, elevator, utilities--converge at the requisite level of maturity," argues Condit, "it's the Equitable Life Assurance Building in New York." Completed in 1870, the building rose 7-1/2 stories, twice the height of its neighbors. To lighten the building and keep costs down, engineer George B. Post used a primitive type of skeletal frame in its construction. A great fire destroyed the building in 1912"
  2. ^ Finniston, Monty; Williams, Trevor; Bissell, Christopher, eds (1992). "Skyscraper". Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia of Invention and Technology. Oxford University Press. p. 322. ISBN 0-19-869138-6. "Modern skyscrapers such as the World Trade Center, New York, have steel and concrete hull-and-core structures. The central core–a reinforced concrete tower–contains lift shafts, staircases, and vertical ducts. From this core, the concrete and steel composite floors span on to a steel perimeter structure; a lightweight aluminium and glass curtain wall encloses the building. This type of construction is the most efficient so far designed against wind forces."
  3. ^ "Huge New Rogers Skyscraper Proposed". skyscrapernews.com. 3 December 2007. http://www.skyscrapernews.com/news.php?ref=1244. Retrieved 3 December 2007. "...their eleventh proper skyscraper, that is by definition buildings above 150 metres"
  4. ^ Data Standards: high-rise building (ESN 18727), Emporis Standards, accessed on line October 16, 2009.
  5. ^ Data Standards: skyscraper (ESN 24419), Emporis Standards, accessed on line October 16, 2009.
  6. ^ Penza State University of Architecture and Construction; Before The Workshop (1) Tower
  7. ^ The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cathedral Church of Lincoln, by A.F. Kendric, B.A
  8. ^ a b Gregory S. Aldrete: "Daily Life in the Roman City: Rome, Pompeii and Ostia", 2004, ISBN 9780313331749, p.79f.
  9. ^ Martial, Epigrams, 27
  10. ^ Strabo, 5.3.7
  11. ^ Alexander G. McKay: Römische Häuser, Villen und Paläste, Feldmeilen 1984, ISBN 3761105851 p. 231
  12. ^ Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2719, in: Katja Lembke, Cäcilia Fluck, Günter Vittmann: Ägyptens späte Blüte. Die Römer am Nil, Mainz 2004, ISBN 3-8053-3276-9, p.29
  13. ^ a b Werner Müller: "dtv-Atlas Baukunst I. Allgemeiner Teil: Baugeschichte von Mesopotamien bis Byzanz", 14th ed., 2005, ISBN 978-3423030205, p.345
  14. ^ Behrens-Abouseif, Doris (1992). Islamic Architecture in Cairo. Brill Publishers. p. 6. ISBN 90 04 09626 4.
  15. ^ Mortada, Hisham (2003). Traditional Islamic principles of built environment. Routledge. p. viii. ISBN 0700717005.
  16. ^ a b Old Walled City of Shibam, UNESCO
  17. ^ Helfritz, Hans (April 1937). "Land without shade". Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 24 (2): 201–16.
  18. ^ Shipman, J. G. T. (June 1984). "The Hadhramaut". Asian Affairs 15 (2): 154–62. doi:10.1080/03068378408730145.
  19. ^ "Oriel Chambers". Liverpool Architectural Society. http://www.liverpoolarchitecture.com/tours/buildings/building.php?id=25. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
  20. ^ Manchester School of Architecture video YouTube
  21. ^ Building Design Architect's website, 8 Jan 2010
  22. ^ Mir M. Ali, Kyoung Sun Moon. "Structural developments in tall buildings: current trends and future prospects". Architectural Science Review (September 2007). http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-32962093_ITM. Retrieved 2008-12-10.
  23. ^ Ali, Mir M. (2001). "Evolution of Concrete Skyscrapers: from Ingalls to Jin mao". Electronic Journal of Structural Engineering 1 (1): 2–14. http://www.ejse.org/Archives/Fulltext/200101/01/20010101.htm. Retrieved 2008-11-30.
  24. ^ Alfred Swenson & Pao-Chi Chang (2008). "Building construction: High-rise construction since 1945". Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/83859/building-construction/60143/High-rise-construction-since-1945#toc60143. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
  25. ^ a b "Khan, Fazlur Rahman". Banglapedia. http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/K_0187.htm. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
  26. ^ Billington, David P. (1985). The Tower and the Bridge: The New Art of Structural Engineering. Princeton University Press. pp. 234–5. ISBN 069102393X.
  27. ^ List of Tallest skyscrapers in Chicago
  28. ^ Chicago Building Boom
  29. ^ Gramsbergen, Egbert and Paul Kazmierczak. "The World's Best Skylines". http://homepages.ipact.nl/%7Eegram/skylines.html. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  30. ^ SkyscraperPage.com - Chrysler Building. Quote: An exhibition in the building's lobby reports the height as 1046'...
  31. ^ Emporis.com - Chrysler Building statistics
  32. ^ America's Favorite Architecture: Chrysler Building ranked 9th
  33. ^ Pollak, Michael (April 23, 2006). "75 YEARS: F. Y. I.". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03EEDD153FF930A15757C0A9609C8B63&scp=4&sq=%22empire%20state%20building%22%20height%201,454&st=cse. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
  34. ^ Kingdom Tower
  35. ^ Zawya
  36. ^ Owainati, Sadek (2008-11-03). "Reaching for the stars". ArabianBusiness.com. http://www.arabianbusiness.com/537095-reaching-for-the-stars. Retrieved 2008-11-15.
  37. ^ Shanghai Tower Breaks Ground - Luxist
  38. ^ "Shanghai Center main building will reach 632 meters". People's Daily Online. 2008-08-18. http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/6479288.html. Retrieved 2008-08-19.
  39. ^ "上海中心大厦项目环境影响报告书简本公示" (in Chinese) (pdf). Envir.gov.cn. 2008-08-13. http://www.envir.gov.cn/info/2008/200808131.pdf. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
  40. ^ "Shanghai Center". Emporis. http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=323473. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
  41. ^ "Tallest Chinese building features indoor gardens". Shanghai Daily. 2008-07-24. http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2008/200807/20080724/article_367915.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-09.
  42. ^ Shelbourne Development - The Chicago Spire Achieves 30 Percent Sales
  43. ^ Chicago Spire, Chicago / Emporis.com
  44. ^ a b Freedom Tower, New York City / Emporis.com
  45. ^ a b Tour Generali - Paris, France / SkyscraperPage.com
  46. ^ The Independent, UK and Worldwide News: London's 'Shard of Glass' Must Face Public Inquiry. Thursday 25 July 2002, Paragraph four line one, Quote:"...dubbed the "Shard of Glass", would be 1,016ft high..."'
  47. ^ Tony Gee & Partners LLP: TGP and Gifford to analyse underground conditions by the 'Shard of Glass'
  48. ^ Shard London Bridge, London / Emporis.com

Further reading

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'Skyscraper' News
Seeking new life at the Westminster Club - BCLocalNews
news.google.com
Seeking new life at the Westminster Club

BCLocalNews

Since 1912, the year the Westminster Trust Company built the Royal City's first skyscraper for the hefty price tag of $365000, the Westminster Club has ...
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'Skyscraper' Images
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Wed May 19 07:21:43 2010
'Skyscraper' Blogs
' Skyscraper of the Year' completed in Chicago
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' Skyscraper of the Year' completed in Chicago

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Fri, 28 May 2010 02:44:32 GM

James McHugh Construction has officially completed Aqua, the Chicago highrise that was named . Skyscraper. of the Year by international building data...

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'Skyscraper' Answers
How does the skeleteon compare to the steel frame work of a skyscraper?
Q. I have been working on this question for a long time and I don't get it help please?
Asked by kim - Mon May 8 20:06:45 2006 - - 1 Answers - 0 Comments

A. On top of the human skeleton are muscles and skin, right? Similarly, the steel framework of a skyscraper is what the rest of the building is based on. Bricks, pipes, windows, etc. lay on top of the steel framework of a building, just like skin and muscles lay on top of the skeleton's bones. You can say that the steel framework is the "skeleton" of the skyscraper. Hope that helps.
Answered by Pablos+3 - Mon May 8 20:13:28 2006

Yahoo Answers Search: Skyscraper,
Wed May 19 07:21:30 2010
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