Skyscrapers

Taipei 101, considered the world's tallest skyscraper.

"What is the chief characteristics 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)

A skyscraper is a very tall, continuously habitable building. The word skyscraper was first applied to such buildings in the late 19th century, reflecting public amazement at the tall buildings being built in New York City. 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 multistory buildings. This definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicago's Monadnock Building. The steel frame developed in stages of increasing self-sufficiency, with several buildings in New York and Chicago advancing the technology that allowed the steel frame to carry a building on its own. It should be noted, however, that many of today's tallest skyscrapers are built more or less entirely in reinforced concrete. In the United States today, it is a loose convention to draw the lower limit on what is a skyscraper at 500 feet (153 meters). Elsewere, though, a shorter building will sometimes be referred to as a skyscraper, especially if it is said to "dominate" its surroundings. Thus, calling a building a skyscraper will usually, but not always, imply pride and achievement.

The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

Originally, skyscraper was a nautical term for a tall mast or sail on a sailing ship.

A skyscraper taller than 1,000 feet (305 meters) may sometimes be referred to as a supertall.

New York City and the Empire State Building as seen from the Rockefeller Center observation deck

The somewhat arbitrary term skyscraper should not be confused with the slightly less arbitrary term highrise, defined by the Emporis Data Committee as "a building which is 35 meters [115 feet] or greater in height, and is divided at regular intervals into occupiable floors" [1]. All skyscrapers are highrises, but only the tallest highrises are skyscrapers. Habitability separates skyscrapers from towers and masts. Some structural engineers define a highrise as any vertical construction for which wind is a more significant load factor than weight is. Note that this criterion fits not only highrises but some other tall structures, such as towers.

The crucial developments for skyscrapers were steel, reinforced concrete, water pumps, and elevators. Until the 19th century, buildings of over six stories were rare. So many flights of stairs were impractical for inhabitants, and water pressure was usually insufficient to supply running water above about 50 feet (15 meters).

The weight-bearing components of skyscrapers differ substantially from those of other buildings. Buildings up to about four stories can be supported by their walls, while skyscrapers are larger buildings that must be supported by a skeletal frame. The walls hang from this frame like curtains—hence the architectural term curtain wall for tall systems of glass that are laterally supported by these skeletal frames. Special consideration must also be made for wind loads.

While the first skyscraper is usually considered the ten-story Home Insurance Building, in Chicago, built in 1884–1885; its height is not considered unusual or very impressive today, so that, if the building were newly constructed today, it would not be called a skyscraper. Another candidate for the title is the 1890 twenty-story New York World Building, in New York City.

Surprisingly for some, the U.K also had its share of early skyscrapers. The first building to fit the engineering definition meanwhile was the then largest hotel in the world, the Grand Midland Hotel, now known as St Pancras Chambers in London completed in 1873 and 269 feet (82 metres) tall. The 12 floor Shell Mex House in London at 12 floors and 190 feet (58 metres) was completed a year after the Home Insurance Building and also managed to beat it in both height and floor count. By more modern standards, the first true skyscraper may be New York City's Woolworth Building.

Most early skyscrapers emerged in the land-strapped areas of New York, London and Chicago toward the end of the 19th century. London builders soon found their height limited due to 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. Developers in Chicago also found themselves hampered by laws limiting height to about 40 storeys, leaving New York to be the world leader in developing supertall buildings. From the 1930s onwards, skyscrapers also began to appear in South America (Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires) and in Asia (Shanghai, Hong Kong, later Singapore).

Plans of the unbuilt 8th Stalinist skyscraper in Moscow.

Immediately after World War II, the Soviet Union planned eight massive skyscrapers dubbed "Stalin Towers" for Moscow; seven of which were eventually built. The rest of Europe also slowly began to permit skyscrapers, starting with Madrid in Spain during the 1950s. Finally, skyscrapers also began to appear in Africa, the Middle East and Oceania from the 1960s.

Today, no city has more buildings of over 492 feet (150 meters) than New York, home of the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and the former twin towers of the World Trade Center. Chicago's skyline was not allowed to grow until the height limits were relaxed in 1960; over in the next fifteen years, many towers were built, including the massive 1,451-foot (442-meter) Sears Tower. Since the 1980s, Hong Kong has gained several very tall skyscrapers, including the Bank of China Tower and Two International Finance Centre. Together, Chicago, Hong Kong, and New York are considered by some to be the "great three" skylines of the world.

Today, skyscrapers are an increasingly common sight where land is scarce, as in the centres of big cities, because of the high ratio of rentable floor space per area of land. Skyscrapers are also considered the ultimate symbols of a city's economic power, a view first held by New Yorkers, and now by developers in many newly developed Asian economies.

History of tallest skyscrapers

For current rankings of skyscrapers by height, see List of skyscrapers.

This 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 skyscrapers for details.

Source: [2].

The Freedom Tower in New York, which will be the tallest building in the U.S. when completed in 2010.

At the moment construction of the Burj Dubai is taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is expected to become the tallest building in the world, and estimates of the height range from 700 to 950 m.

Skycraper Communities

Warsaw after dark

Skyscrapercity.com is the internet's largest skyscraper enthusiast comunity. There are pictures, discussions, and critics.

SkyscraperPage.com is also one of the internet's largest skyscraper community. Both fun and educational, it contains many illustrations of skyscrapers all over the World drawn by various illustrators. Also holds a forum and an image gallery.

See also

• List of tallest buildings and structures by country
• Architecture, Construction
• World's tallest structures - List of the world's tallest structures - World's biggest and largest buildings
• List of buildings - List of skyscrapers - List of towers - List of masts - List of tallest churches
• Tallest structures in the United States - Tallest buildings in the U.S. - Tallest buildings by states
• Skyscrapers in film

External links

• Skyscrapers at the Open Directory Project

• http://www.allaboutskyscrapers.com
• http://www.skyscraperpage.com
• http://www.skyscraper-central.com
• http://www.urbanheaven.co.nr
• http://www.cincyimages.com
• http://www.skyscrapercity.com
• http://www.skyscrapers.com (subscription required to view all information)
• http://www.skyscrapernews.com
• http://www.skyscraper.org
• http://www.urbanity.es
• http://www.zacharz.com/warszawa/highrise.htm (Tallest skyscrapers in Warsaw, Poland)
• http://www.skyscrapermodels.us
• World's Tallest Skyscrapers Placemarks of skyscrapers for Google Earth