Article on Skyscrapers (part 1) published: The Metropolitan Discourse

Jan 12, 10:14 am

Article on Skyscrapers (part 1) published: The Metropolitan Discourse

Skyscraper (part 1): The Metropolitan Discourse

George Katodrytis

The article was published in 2A (Architecture and Art) magazine, December 2006

Metropolis
The skyscraper had kept the architecture of the 20th C vibrant and it is continuing to do so in the 21st. This is the current dynamic condition. Its status is now changing: from futuristic fantasy to real estate necessity. The vast shift of population to the city continues without any sign of slowing down. In 1950 there were 86 cities in the world with a population over one million, today there are 400, and by 2015 there will be at least 550. Cities have absorbed nearly two-thirds of the global population explosion since 1950. The present urban population (3.2 billion) is larger than the total population of the world in 1960. As a result, cities will account for all future world population growth, which is expected to peak at about 10 billion in 2050. This is an unfortunate and irreversible reality. The global hyper-urbanization will inevitably transform the way we inhabit our cities. The horizontal model of suburbia with its manicured gardens and wealthy inhabitants has failed to accommodate large masses influx of population: go high. In a swift change of events over recent years, the early prophetic visions of the Italian Futurists and the evocative renderings of Hugh Ferries’s “Metropolis of Tomorrow”. “Manhattanism” has a longer lasting effect than originally thought.

The skyscraper has become the only viable architectural response to the future. Here the gothic creature meets high-tech modernism. Its scale and dominance make up distinctive skylines and give the city its much desirable, if not memorable, postcard view. It becomes the city’s representation and memory. Consider what the Eiffel Tower does to Paris, the Empire State building to New York, the CN Tower to Toronto, and Burj al Arab to Dubai.

Skyscrapers have a curious connection to the metropolis that is always unsettled and problematic. The whole city is condensed into its single monument, which encloses the paradox of the metropolis within them, vertically and dynamically. In terms of its autonomy and self-sufficiency Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous mile-high skyscraper proposal had an internal logic. People can live, work, and participate in social life without ever leaving the gigantic machine. Once in the system, there is no way out, and one never needs to leave the complex. The new atrium became a public space, landscaped and bright.

Monolithic and melancholic, the skyscraper is part of the city’s collective unconscious and extension of events. The Skyscraper has thus become a self-contained universe, a city under one roof or a “super block”, creating congestion and different programs, at all possible levels.

Skyscrapers are always contemporary. To recognize them is to accept the metropolitan condition as a dialectical element and at the same time to embrace the most advanced global capital – that of consumerism expressed as “gigantic machines” and a “cathedrals of commerce”. Like playing with Lego the skyscraper is the absolute architectural toy of the century. It is also a way for architects to compete for supremacy and iconography. By making skyscrapers compulsively competitive, they have turned the entire world into a jury. Yet the story of skyscrapers was never about exploration as much as colonizing the city itself. In this sense, the legendary computer game Sim City has been prophetic in building generic city models.

At its best the skyscraper has had a unique place in films as modernist symbols and abstract panoramas, either as slick backdrops or gazing outside to the endless and cluttered urban rooftops. In such stage and phantasmagoric pans, the city is edited as buildings connected by bridges forming an elaborate spider web of skywalks and numerous elevators and the street scene as miniature model. This is the vision of the city depicted in films. Scenes like these are now reality and part of the everyday urban experience. Among the most notable skyscraper movies are Metropolis, King Kong, The Fountainhead, Towering Inferno, Die Hard and Blade Runner.

In science fiction films the depiction of the skyscraper is gigantic, caricatured and toy-like. Behind its spectacle and urban mega-structure status, the skyscraper conceals its other character: as fortress and control over its inhabitants. The surveillance and sensory system of the new office tower already includes technologies of self-policing and recognition, such as motion detection, panoptic vision and screening. The building’s Artificial Intelligence security network will be able to protect itself against unwanted visitors and to trap burglars.

The skyscraper is a perfect starting point for any exploration into the past or the future of urbanism. Detached from its context it can lead to invention and experimentation. Early constructivist drawings of factories and explosive structures set the tone for subsequent 20th c skyscrapers.

Skyscrapers around the world define the image of the metropolis monetary success collaged against the city skyline and as a hybrid: the skyscraper is an alchemical mix of real estate speculation, technological advancements, and architectural experimentation. It is increasingly difficult to identify the purely local from the global. Contemporary trends in architectural practice register an increase in international commissions, particularly for a building type requiring specialized technical expertise. The impact of globalization on the built environment is manifested in the explosive growth of cities around the world and the proliferation of the skyscraper as a ubiquitous building type.

This necessity to maximize shortage of ground area in a city has shifted urbanism from horizontal to vertical. The skyscraper looks as if it will be the final act of building typologies.

Global Competition
Interestingly enough, the tallest skyscrapers in the world are not necessarily the most interesting ones. We will have to wait to see how the tallest and upcoming one, Burj Dubai will perform.

Currently the tallest buildings in the world are:
1. Taipei 101, Taipei, Taiwan, 2003, 509 m and 101 stories.
2. The twin Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1997, 456 m and 88 stories.
3. Sears Tower, Chicago, US, 1974 in Chicago, 443 m and 110 stories.
4. Jim Mao Tower, Shanghai, China, 1998, 420m and 93 stories.

The skyscrapers of the future will be built in clusters, forming nodes in the centers of cities as well as on the edges near centers of knowledge and information, with access to transportation. Skyscrapers can combine many and unrelated uses, compressing time and increasing productivity, like an airport lounge and a hotel lobby: interiorized urban movement. They will combine new social and public spaces, privately owned, but with intense activity, both outdoors and indoors.

A skyline is best described as the overall or partial view or relief of a city’s tall buildings and structures consisting of many skyscrapers. It can also be described as the artificial horizon that a city’s overall structure creates. An impressive skyline may be thought of as a representation of a city’s overall power; the more prominent the skyline, the more money the city has to spend. Skylines also serve as a kind of fingerprint of a city, as no two skylines are alike. Skylines that are stretched out to a large (sometimes panoramic) view because of large cities or twin cities are called cityscapes. In many but not all metropolises, skyscrapers play a significant role in defining the skyline. In more strongly planned metropolises (such as Minneapolis), the skyline tends to form the shape of an artificial mountain, with the tallest buildings toward the center of town. Chicago, Hong Kong, and New York City, other wise known as the “the big three,” are recognized in most architectural circles as having the most compelling skylines in the world.

The following skyline ranking is based on the height of buildings, as well as the number of buildings above 90 m (or about a 25 story building). This kind of ranking favors cities with many mid-rise buildings. For example, a skyline with twenty 295 ft. buildings would rank higher than a skyline with ten 500-foot buildings.

1. Hong Kong
2. New York City
3. Dubai
4. Tokyo
5. Shanghai
6. Chicago
7. Bangkok
8. Guangzhou
9. Kuala Lumpur
10. Singapore

Tallest High-rise (Building / City / Height / Floors / Year)
1. Taipei 101 Taipei 509 m 101 2004
2. Petronas Towers 1&2 Kuala Lumpur 452 m 88 1998
4. Sears Tower Chicago 442 m 108 1974
5. Jin Mao Tower Shanghai 421 m 88 1998
6. Two Intnl FinanceHong Kong 415 m 88 2003
7. CITIC Plaza Guangzhou 391 m 80 1997
8. Shun Hing Square Shenzhen 384 m 69 1996
9. Empire State Building New York City 381 m 102 1931
10. Central Plaza Hong Kong 374 m 78 1992
11. Bank of China Tower Hong Kong 367 m 70 1990
12. Emirates Office Tower Dubai 355 m 54 2000

Skyscrapers by Region (Continent / Buildings / Percent)
1 Asia 35,240 32.16 %
2 Europe 26,070 23.79 %
3 North America 26,068 23.79 %
4 South America 18,253 16.66 %
5 Oceania 2,852 2.60 %
6 Africa 1,079 0.98 %

At the moment, construction of the Burj Dubai is taking place in Dubai. Its exact height is unknown, but it is expected to reach 800 m high, making it the tallest building in the world.