A skyscraper is a building so tall that it appears to 'scrape the sky.'
A rigid steel frame is the key to skyscraper construction, taking all the building loads. The walls simply 'hang' from the frame (curtain walling), and they can thus be made from relatively flimsy materials such as glass and aluminium.
The term "skyscraper" started life as an English naval term used for a high, light sail at the top of a ship's mast to catch the breeze in calm conditions. The term was then employed in the late 18th century to describe a particularly tall horse after the Duke of Bedford's thoroughbred Skyscraper won the 1789 Epsom Derby. The word arrived in America as a baseball term for a ball hit high in the air.
The word "skyscraper" first began to be applied to buildings in 1883 to describe large public monuments and later in the decade as a label for tall office blocks, especially the Home Insurance Building in Chicago. The term came into widespread use over the 1890s.
The invention of the elevator fostered the development of the skyscraper in modern cities. However, the earliest "skyscrapers" were not tall by today's standards, because technology did not permit it. The development in the 1850s of the Bessemer process to improve steelmaking made possible much taller office buildings.
The first structure to use steel-girder construction was the 138-foot (42 m) tall, ten-story Home Insurance Company Building in Chicago. It was designed by William Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907), who founded the Chicago school of architecture. The Home Insurance Building, which opened in 1885 and was demolished 47 years later in 1931 was the first "skyscraper" to have a façade, which was disconnected from the building's skeleton.
There was a boom in skyscraper construction in Chicago from 1888 onwards. By 1893, there were 12 skyscrapers between 16 and 20 stories tall, tightly clustered in the center of the city's financial district.
Boston architect Louis Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was another member of the "Chicago school of architecture". Known as the "father of skyscrapers," his productive years began in 1880 when Sullivan became a partner in the firm Dankmar Adler. He designed buildings as many as ten storeys high by using the new method of construction made possible by the use of special steel girders. Purely functional, his buildings had large floor areas, which allowed more light to be admitted to the interior.
Sullivan was particular known for his office buildings built in the early 1890s, particularly the 1891 Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri, the Schiller (later Garrick) Building and theater (1890) in Chicago and the 1894 Prudential Building, also known as the Guaranty Building, in Buffalo, New York.
The Woolworth Building located at 233 Broadway in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, was the tallest building in the world from 1913 to 1930. Designed by architect Cass Gilbert, it consists of a 30-story base topped by a 30-story tower. The basement of the Woolworth Building contains an unused bank vault, restaurant, private swimming pool and barbershop.
A rigid steel frame is the key to skyscraper construction, taking all the building loads. The walls simply 'hang' from the frame (curtain walling), and they can thus be made from relatively flimsy materials such as glass and aluminium.
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| The iconic twin towers. Jeffmock - Own work |
The term "skyscraper" started life as an English naval term used for a high, light sail at the top of a ship's mast to catch the breeze in calm conditions. The term was then employed in the late 18th century to describe a particularly tall horse after the Duke of Bedford's thoroughbred Skyscraper won the 1789 Epsom Derby. The word arrived in America as a baseball term for a ball hit high in the air.
The word "skyscraper" first began to be applied to buildings in 1883 to describe large public monuments and later in the decade as a label for tall office blocks, especially the Home Insurance Building in Chicago. The term came into widespread use over the 1890s.
The invention of the elevator fostered the development of the skyscraper in modern cities. However, the earliest "skyscrapers" were not tall by today's standards, because technology did not permit it. The development in the 1850s of the Bessemer process to improve steelmaking made possible much taller office buildings.
The first structure to use steel-girder construction was the 138-foot (42 m) tall, ten-story Home Insurance Company Building in Chicago. It was designed by William Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907), who founded the Chicago school of architecture. The Home Insurance Building, which opened in 1885 and was demolished 47 years later in 1931 was the first "skyscraper" to have a façade, which was disconnected from the building's skeleton.
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| The Home Insurance Building |
There was a boom in skyscraper construction in Chicago from 1888 onwards. By 1893, there were 12 skyscrapers between 16 and 20 stories tall, tightly clustered in the center of the city's financial district.
Boston architect Louis Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was another member of the "Chicago school of architecture". Known as the "father of skyscrapers," his productive years began in 1880 when Sullivan became a partner in the firm Dankmar Adler. He designed buildings as many as ten storeys high by using the new method of construction made possible by the use of special steel girders. Purely functional, his buildings had large floor areas, which allowed more light to be admitted to the interior.
Sullivan was particular known for his office buildings built in the early 1890s, particularly the 1891 Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri, the Schiller (later Garrick) Building and theater (1890) in Chicago and the 1894 Prudential Building, also known as the Guaranty Building, in Buffalo, New York.
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| Wainwright Building |
The Woolworth Building located at 233 Broadway in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, was the tallest building in the world from 1913 to 1930. Designed by architect Cass Gilbert, it consists of a 30-story base topped by a 30-story tower. The basement of the Woolworth Building contains an unused bank vault, restaurant, private swimming pool and barbershop.
The Empire State Building in New York City contains 102 stories and is 381m/1253ft high.. Completed in 1931, it was the tallest building in the world for nearly 40 years.
The father of the modern skyscraper (tube system of construction) was Fazlur Rahman Khan, a Bangladeshi-American whose hometown of Dhaka, Bangladesh did not have any buildings taller than three stories. He also did not see his first skyscraper in person until the age of 21 years old. He was inspired by the strength of bamboo, which is hollow and can grow to great heights.
The first building to apply the tube-frame construction was the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartment Building which Khan designed and which was finished in Chicago by 1963. This laid the foundations for the tube structural design of many later skyscrapers, including his own Willis Tower.
When it was built in 1977, New York City's Citigroup Center was, at 59 stories, the seventh-tallest building in the world. However, the following year a civil engineering student at Princeton University, Diane Hartley, found it was structurally unsound and could blow over in the wind. Repair work was done throughout the night and quit at daybreak, just as the office workers returned to work. The story remained a secret until 1995.
In May 2013 Sullivan's Wainwright Building was listed by a PBS program as one of "10 Buildings That Changed America" because it was "the first skyscraper that truly looked the part."
The Burj Khalifa skyscraper, the world's tallest building, was constructed in the 2000s in the Business Bay district of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. When it reached a height of 636 metres on May 12, 2008, the Burj Khalifa surpassed its nearest rival, the KVLYTV mast in North Dakota, by seven metres.
The Burj Khalifa skyscraper officially opened on January 4, 2010. It reaches the height of 829.8 metres (2,722 ft) and has 163 floors and has a curtain wall equivalent to 17 football pitches.
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| The Burj Khalifa By Donaldytong |
Skyscrapers in Hong Kong are designed according to Feng Shui principles. This includes large "dragon holes" cut through upper floors that allow dragons to fly through on way to the sea.
Skyscrapers shrink over time due to building materials compressing. This shrinkage is large enough that elevator guide rails in the highest skyscrapers need to be mounted to sliding clips, instead of attached solidly, so they can move when the building shrinks instead of warping.
Source Comptons Encyclopedia
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