Download or read book The Black Skyscraper written by Adrienne Brown and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly interdisciplinary work, The Black Skyscraper reclaims the influence of race on modern architectural design as well as the less-well-understood effects these designs had on the experience and perception of race.
Download or read book Skyscraper written by Benjamin Flowers and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-02-25 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title Nowhere in the world is there a greater concentration of significant skyscrapers than in New York City. And though this iconographic American building style has roots in Chicago, New York is where it has grown into such a powerful reflection of American commerce and culture. In Skyscraper: The Politics and Power of Building New York City in the Twentieth Century, Benjamin Flowers explores the role of culture and ideology in shaping the construction of skyscrapers and the way wealth and power have operated to reshape the urban landscape. Flowers narrates this modern tale by closely examining the creation and reception of three significant sites: the Empire State Building, the Seagram Building, and the World Trade Center. He demonstrates how architects and their clients employed a diverse range of modernist styles to engage with and influence broader cultural themes in American society: immigration, the Cold War, and the rise of American global capitalism. Skyscraper explores the various wider meanings associated with this architectural form as well as contemporary reactions to it across the critical spectrum. Employing a broad array of archival sources, such as corporate records, architects' papers, newspaper ads, and political cartoons, Flowers examines the personal, political, cultural, and economic agendas that motivate architects and their clients to build ever higher. He depicts the American saga of commerce, wealth, and power in the twentieth century through their most visible symbol, the skyscraper.
Download or read book The American Skyscraper 1850 1940 written by Joseph J. Korom and published by Branden Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The skyscraper is an American invention that has captured the public's imagination for over a century. The tall building is wholly manmade and borne in the minds of those with both slide rules and computers. This is the story of the skyscraper's rise and the recognition of those individuals who contributed to its development. This volume is unique; its approach, information, and images are fresh and telling. The text examines America's first tall buildings -- the result of twelve years of in-depth research by an accomplished and published architect and architectural historian. Over 300 compelling photographs, charts, and notes make this the ultimate tool of reference for this subject. Biographies woven throughout with period norms, politics and lifestyles help to place featured skyscrapers in context. Quite simply, there is no book like this. The text, carefully and insightfully written, is clear, concise, and easily digestible, the text being the product of well-documented original research written in an informative tone. The American Skyscraper 1850-1940: A Celebration of Height is a richly documented journey of a fascinating topic, and it promises to be a superb addition to libraries, schools of architecture, students of architecture, and lovers of art.
Download or read book Building the Skyline written by Jason M. Barr and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-12 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Manhattan skyline is one of the great wonders of the modern world. But how and why did it form? Much has been written about the city's architecture and its general history, but little work has explored the economic forces that created the skyline. In Building the Skyline, Jason Barr chronicles the economic history of the Manhattan skyline. In the process, he debunks some widely held misconceptions about the city's history. Starting with Manhattan's natural and geological history, Barr moves on to how these formations influenced early land use and the development of neighborhoods, including the dense tenement neighborhoods of Five Points and the Lower East Side, and how these early decisions eventually impacted the location of skyscrapers built during the Skyscraper Revolution at the end of the 19th century. Barr then explores the economic history of skyscrapers and the skyline, investigating the reasons for their heights, frequencies, locations, and shapes. He discusses why skyscrapers emerged downtown and why they appeared three miles to the north in midtown-but not in between the two areas. Contrary to popular belief, this was not due to the depths of Manhattan's bedrock, nor the presence of Grand Central Station. Rather, midtown's emergence was a response to the economic and demographic forces that were taking place north of 14th Street after the Civil War. Building the Skyline also presents the first rigorous investigation of the causes of the building boom during the Roaring Twenties. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the boom was largely a rational response to the economic growth of the nation and city. The last chapter investigates the value of Manhattan Island and the relationship between skyscrapers and land prices. Finally, an Epilogue offers policy recommendations for a resilient and robust future skyline.
Download or read book Skyscraper Gothic written by Kevin D. Murphy estate and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all building types, the skyscraper strikes observers as the most modern, in terms not only of height but also of boldness, scale, ingenuity, and daring. As a phenomenon born in late nineteenth-century America, it quickly became emblematic of New York, Chicago, and other major cities. Previous studies of these structures have tended to foreground examples of more evincing modernist approaches, while those with styles reminiscent of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe were initially disparaged as being antimodernist or were simply unacknowledged. Skyscraper Gothic brings together a group of renowned scholars to address the medievalist skyscraper—from flying buttresses to dizzying spires; from the Chicago Tribune Tower to the Woolworth Building in Manhattan. Drawing on archival evidence and period texts to uncover the ways in which patrons and architects came to understand the Gothic as a historic style, the authors explore what the appearance of Gothic forms on radically new buildings meant urbanistically, architecturally, and socially, not only for those who were involved in the actual conceptualization and execution of the projects but also for the critics and the general public who saw the buildings take shape. Contributors: Lisa Reilly on the Gothic skyscraper ● Kevin Murphy on the Trinity and U.S. Realty Buildings ● Gail Fenske on the Woolworth Building ● Joanna Merwood-Salisbury on the Chicago School ● Katherine M. Solomonson on the Tribune Tower ● Carrie Albee on Atlanta City Hall ● Anke Koeth on the Cathedral of Learning ● Christine G. O'Malley on the American Radiator Building
Download or read book The Comet written by W. E. B. Du Bois and published by Graphic Arts Books. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Comet (1920) is a science fiction story by W. E. B. Du Bois. Written while the author was using his role at The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, to publish emerging black artists of the Harlem Renaissance, The Comet is a pioneering work of speculative fiction which imagines a catastrophic event not only decimating New York City, but bringing an abrupt end to white supremacy. “How silent the street was! Not a soul was stirring, and yet it was high-noon—Wall Street? Broadway? He glanced almost wildly up and down, then across the street, and as he looked, a sickening horror froze in his limbs.” Sent to the vault to retrieve some old records, bank messenger Jim Davis emerges to find a city descended into chaos. A comet has passed overhead, spewing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. All of lower Manhattan seems frozen in time. It takes him a few moments to see the bodies, piled into doorways and strewn about the eerily quiet streets. When he comes to his senses, he finds a wealthy woman asking for help. Soon, it becomes clear that they could very well be the last living people in the planet, that the fate of civilization depends on their ability to come together, not as black and white, but as two human beings. But how far will this acknowledgment take them? With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of W. E. B. Du Bois’ The Comet is a classic work of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.
Download or read book The American Skyscraper written by Roberta Moudry and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-05-09 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book The Future of the Skyscraper written by Philip Nobel and published by THAMES HUDSON. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engines of industry, expressions of ego or will, tall towers are nonetheless, when they pierce the shared skies, intensely public. We may ask of them artistic questions: what do we make of these things we make? What do these forms mean? But also, because architecture is forever tied to real life, we may ask of them questions of a political, economic and technological nature--as well as those, touching on the body and the mind and the soul, that we may simply call human. In this volume, Bruce Sterling describes four possible futures that might shape future towers, presenting a choose-your-own-adventure of potential futures for architecture, some of them terrifying in their nearness. We peer up at skyscrapers old and new, visit their highest floors, turn them this way and that to see them clearly through the psychology (Tom Vanderbilt) and physiology (Emily Badger) of living and working on high, and through the lens of policy in the low-rise counterexample of Washington, DC (Matthew Yglesias). Diana Lind tests the idea of tall against the more sprawling needs of those spatially mundane but transformative new economy industries that may well be the supertall clients of the future. Will Self looks back in literature, film and recent urban history to write forward toward a new understanding of the tower in the popular imagination. Dickson Despommier shares a comprehensive vision of an ecological future, in which towers, perhaps supertalls, would necessarily play a crucial role. Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, a short story collection that helped to define the cyberpunk genre. Tom Vanderbilt is an American journalist whose articles have appeared in Wired, The London Review of Books, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Artforum, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Cabinet, Metropolis and Popular Science. Matthew Yglesias is the Executive Editor of Vox and author of The Rent Is Too Damn High. Diana Lind is the Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of Next City, a non-profit quarterly magazine with a mission to inspire social, economic and environmental change in cities. Will Self writes a column for The Guardian and appears regularly on BBC radio and television. His ninth and latest novel, Umbrella, was a finalist for this year's Man Booker Prize. Emily Badger is a reporter for the Washington Post; she previously served as a staff writer for the online journal, The Atlantic Cities. Dickson Despommier is emeritus Professor of Microbiology and Public Health at Columbia University and the author of The Vertical Farm. Michael Govan is the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Govan previously served as the director of the Dia Art Foundation in New York. Philip Nobel is a New York-based architecture critic who writes for Metropolis, Artforum, The New York Times and Architectural Digest, and is the author of Sixteen Acres: Architecture and the Outrageous Struggle for the Future of Ground Zero. He also serves as the editorial director for SHoP architects.
Download or read book The Metropolis of Tomorrow written by Hugh Ferriss and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-03-14 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The metropolis of the future — as perceived by architect Hugh Ferriss in 1929 — was both generous and prophetic in vision. This illustrated essay on the modern city and its future features 59 illustrations.
Download or read book Big and Green written by David Gissen and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than a century after its inception, the skyscraper has finally come of age. Though it has long been lampooned as a venal and inhospitable guzzler of resources, a revolutionary new school of skyscraper design has refashioned the idiom with buildings that are sensitive to their environments, benevolent to their occupants, and economically viable to build and maintain. Designed by some of the best-known architects in the world, these towers are as daring aesthetically as they are innovative environmentally. Big and Green is the first book to examine the sustainable skyscraper, its history, the technologies that make it possible, and its role in the future of urban development. The book examines more than 40 of the most important recent sustainable skyscrapers-including Fox & Fowle's Reuters Buildings in New York, Norman Foster's Commerzbank in Frankfurt, and MVRDV's spectacular Dutch Pavilion from Expo 2000 in Hanover-with project descriptions, photographs, and detailed drawings. Interviews with such leaders in the field as Sir Richard Rogers, William McDonough, and Kenneth Yeang are also included.
Download or read book Rise of the New York Skyscraper 1865 1913 written by Sarah Bradford Landau and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The invention of the New York skyscraper is one of the most fascinating developments in the history of architecture. This authoritative book chronicles the history of New York's first skyscrapers, challenging conventional wisdom that it was in Chicago and not New York that the skyscraper was born. 206 illustrations.
Download or read book The International Style written by Henry Russell Hitchcock and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1995 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most influential work of architectural criticism and history of the twentieth century, now available in a handsomely designed new edition.
Download or read book The Chicago School of Architecture written by Carl W. Condit and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1964 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thoroughly illustrated classic study traces the history of the world-famous Chicago school of architecture from its beginnings with the functional innovations of William Le Baron Jenney and others to their imaginative development by Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. The Chicago School of Architecture places the Chicago school in its historical setting, showing it at once to be the culmination of an iron and concrete construction and the chief pioneer in the evolution of modern architecture. It also assesses the achievements of the school in terms of the economic, social, and cultural growth of Chicago at the turn of the century, and it shows the ultimate meaning of the Chicago work for contemporary architecture. "A major contribution [by] one of the world's master-historians of building technique."—Reyner Banham, Arts Magazine "A rich, organized record of the distinguished architecture with which Chicago lives and influences the world."—Ruth Moore, Chicago Sun-Times
Download or read book The Skyscraper and the City written by Gail Fenske and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-08 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Woolworth Building is noted for its striking but incongruous synthesis of Beaux-Arts architecture, fanciful Gothic ornamentation, and audacious steel-framed engineering. Here, in the first history of this great urban landmark, Gail Fenske argues that its design serves as a compelling lens through which to view the distinctive urban culture of Progressive-era New York. Fenske shows here that the building’s multiplicity of meanings reflected the cultural contradictions that defined New York City’s modernity. For Frank Woolworth—founder of the famous five-and-dime store chain—the building served as a towering trademark, for advocates of the City Beautiful movement it suggested a majestic hotel de ville, for technological enthusiasts it represented the boldest of experiments in vertical construction, and for tenants it provided an evocative setting for high-style consumption. Tourists, meanwhile, experienced a spectacular sightseeing destination and avant-garde artists discovered a twentieth-century future. In emphasizing this faceted significance, Fenske illuminates the process of conceiving, financing, and constructing skyscrapers as well as the mass phenomena of consumerism, marketing, news media, and urban spectatorship that surround them. As the representative example of the skyscraper as a “cathedral of commerce,” the Woolworth Building remains a commanding presence in the skyline of lower Manhattan, and the generously illustrated Skyscraper and the City is a worthy testament to its importance in American culture.
Download or read book Skyscraper for the XXI Century written by Carlo Aiello and published by eVolo Press. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the best 60 projects of the 2006, 2007, and 2008 Skyscraper Competition. An investigation by architects, students, and designers on the future of the skyscraper. What is the skyscraper in the beginning of the XXI Century? What is the historical and social context of these mega-structures? What is their response towards the urban fabric? Is the modern skyscraper a city in and of itself? Is the human scale lost? Talented architects have entered these competitions to explore, re-think, and speculate on this fascinating architectural genre. Each project includes a full description by the author as well as several illustrations and drawings. In addition, reknown architects were invited to present their thoughts on this fascinating architectural genre.
Download or read book Chicago Skyscrapers 1871 1934 written by Thomas Leslie and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2013-05-15 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed tour, inside and out, of Chicago's distinctive towers from an earlier age For more than a century, Chicago's skyline has included some of the world's most distinctive and inspiring buildings. This history of the Windy City's skyscrapers begins in the key period of reconstruction after the Great Fire of 1871 and concludes in 1934 with the onset of the Great Depression, which brought architectural progress to a standstill. During this time, such iconic landmarks as the Chicago Tribune Tower, the Wrigley Building, the Marshall Field and Company Building, the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Palmolive Building, the Masonic Temple, the City Opera, Merchandise Mart, and many others rose to impressive new heights, thanks to innovations in building methods and materials. Solid, earthbound edifices of iron, brick, and stone made way for towers of steel and plate glass, imparting a striking new look to Chicago's growing urban landscape. Thomas Leslie reveals the daily struggles, technical breakthroughs, and negotiations that produced these magnificent buildings. He also considers how the city's infamous political climate contributed to its architecture, as building and zoning codes were often disputed by shifting networks of rivals, labor unions, professional organizations, and municipal bodies. Featuring more than a hundred photographs and illustrations of the city's physically impressive and beautifully diverse architecture, Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871–1934 highlights an exceptionally dynamic, energetic period of architectural progress in Chicago.
Download or read book Terror and Wonder written by Blair Kamin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-11 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collects the best of Kamin's writings for the Chicago Tribune from the past decade.
