Welcome to On Verticality. This blog explores the innate human need to escape the surface of the earth, and our struggles to do so throughout history. If you’re new here, a good place to start is the Theory of Verticality section or the Introduction to Verticality. If you want to receive updates on what’s new with the blog, you can use the Subscribe page to sign up. Thanks for visiting!
Click to filter posts by the three main subjects for the blog : Architecture, Flight and Mountains.
The Empire State Building’s Mooring Mast
Pictured above is an illustration from Popular Mechanics that shows the Empire State Building’s proposed mooring mast. This mast was designed to act as a dock for dirigibles, who could moor themselves to the top of the tower’s crown and load and unload passengers. It’s a wild idea, albeit completely impractical.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mile High Skyscraper Proposal
Frank Lloyd Wright was an outspoken advocate for low-density cities without skyscrapers. With this in mind, it’s hard to believe the tower design pictured above came from Wright. It’s called The Illinois, and it was planned to be a mile (1,609 meters, or 5,280 feet) in height. That’s more than four times the height of the Empire State Building, and nearly twice the height of the Burj Dubai.
The Pabst Building and the Symbolism of Verticality
In 1890, Frederick Pabst purchased a plot of land at the center of downtown Milwaukee, on which he planned to build a headquarters for his brewing empire. A year later, the Pabst Building was complete. Standing fourteen stories and 235 feet (71 meters) tall, it was the tallest building in the city at the time, and it was a wonderfully detailed example of the Renaissance Revival style. Being Milwaukee’s tallest building was symbolic for Pabst and for the city, however his building’s dominance wouldn’t last as long as he’d hoped.
Alternate Realities : The Great Tower for London Competition
In 1890, an open competition was held to design the Great Tower for London in the soon-to-be-opened Wembley Park. The tower was to be the tallest in the world, and it would claim the title from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, completed the year before. An open competition was held, which received 68 submissions from all over the world. Together, these designs provide a rich cross-section of the world’s architectural taste at the time.
The Chrysler Building’s Hidden Spire
If you’re competing to build the tallest building in the world, and you want to conceal the final height until the last possible moment, how do you go about it? Well, you construct the spire inside the crown of the building, wait for your competitor to finish his tower, then lift your spire into place and take the title from him, of course.
Alternate Realities : The Eiffel Tower
There’s an interesting subtext to unbuilt projects throughout the history of architecture. Unbuilt additions to existing buildings are the most intriguing, because they respond to an existing mind-scape rather than create a new one. The above illustration is a perfect example of this. It shows a preliminary design for the Eiffel Tower in Paris, drawn by French architect Stephen Sauvestre.
A Sketch Design for the Washington Monument
The above illustration originally appeared in American Architect and Building News, and was submitted to the publication by an architecture student. Curiously, the student is not named, and is just called ‘the author’. The student uses ‘the Gothic treatment’ for the design, which is wonderfully detailed, in stark contrast with the minimalist design that eventually got built.
Clarence H. Blackall’s Study for an Office Building
The above illustration originally appeared in an exhibition for the Boston Architectural Club in 1912. The subsequently published yearbook containing the drawing gives no context or background, just the cryptic title Study for Office Building and the architect’s name, Clarence H. Blackall.
Alternate Realities : The Chrysler Building
The design process is never-ending. The only reason there’s an end is because something needs to get built, and it usually needs to happen quickly. It’s like a film, and the built result is like a snapshot from somewhere near the end of the film. .e image for example, showing. The above illustration is a good example. It four proposed designs for the Chrysler Building in New York.
“The skyscraper is Orwellian or Olympian, depending on how you look at it.”
-Ada Louise Huxtable, American architecture critic, 1921-2013.
“Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
-The Book of Genesis, on the construction of the Tower of Babel.
A Design for Converting The Crystal Palace Into A Tower 1000 Feet High
Most people familiar with the history of modern architecture know the Crystal Palace. It was built in Hyde Park, London for the Great Exhibition of 1851, and it was designed by Joseph Paxton. What most people don’t know, however, is another architect took the pieces of the Crystal Palace and re-arranged them into a supertall tower proposal. It wasn’t built, of course, but it’s a fascinating proposal that takes advantage of the temporary nature of the original building.
The Coney Island Globe Tower
Pictured above is the Coney Island Globe Tower, proposed in 1906 by Samuel Friede for a lot at the corner of Steeplechase Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn. The building features an enormous globe built of latticed steel, similar in style to the Eiffel Tower. The Globe was designed as an entertainment and leisure complex, and it was marketed as the second tallest building in the world, behind the aforementioned Eiffel Tower. The most intriguing part of the proposal, however, is that it was a fraud.
Richard Trevithick’s Monument to the Reform Act
This is Richard Trevithick’s Monument to the Reform Act, proposed in 1832 for a site somewhere in London. It was meant to be 1,000 feet (304 meters) tall, and it would’ve towered over the entire cityscape at the time. It’s one of a few tower proposals that aimed for the landmark 1,000-foot height, long before the Eiffel Tower made it a reality in 1889.
Vladimir Tatlin’s Tower
Tatlin’s Tower has always made me uneasy. There’s something about it’s form that rubs me the wrong way, but at the same time, it’s strangely captivating. In school, I was exposed to it many times in architecture history classes, but it was always glossed over as just another example of Russian Constructivism. Let’s take a closer look and see just how strange it is.
Stacking Typologies
When designing a skyscraper, an architect usually takes a holistic approach. This means the entire building is designed with a common strategy, which usually translates into a single aesthetic. In short, each building has a style. What happens when you start mixing styles together? At the surface, this would sound like blasphemy to most architects practicing today, but let’s ponder it.
“A skyscraper is the incarnate rebellion against the supposedly unattainable; against the mystery of altitude, against the otherworldliness of the cerulean.”
-Joseph Roth, Austrian journalist and novelist, 1894-1939
The Tower of Civilization
This is the proposed Tower of Civilization, designed by civil engineer Donald R. Warren for the planned, but never held, 1939 World’s Fair in Los Angeles. It would’ve been the centerpiece of the event and the tallest building in the world, coming in at 393 meters, or 1,290 feet tall. The tower was no doubt meant to signify the status of Los Angeles as a world-class city, and it used Verticality to do so.
The Phare du Monde Pleasure Tower
Pictured above is a tower proposal from 1933 for the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. It features an external spiral ramp leading to a parking garage 1640 feet (500 meters) from ground level.[2] Once at the top, visitors would find a restaurant, hotel and observation deck, and the spire contained a lighthouse beacon and a meteorological cabin. The view? Sublime. The design? Utterly ridiculous, unless taken as a satirical statement on civilization’s reliance on the automobile.
"[The skyscraper] must be tall, every inch of it 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"
-Louis Sullivan, American architect, 1856-1924