Skyscrapers have become probably the greatest technological advancement in the modern era of Architecture, especially urban architecture over the past dozen decades or so since they were invented. Around the 1880s and 1890s when the skyscraper was invented, they were of great need to all cities across America, and most parts of the globe, as these urban areas were becoming denser and denser due to five or six story height limits. Conditions became worse and worse, especially in New York and Chicago where the slums just kept getting packed and more packed with people. Then in the 1880s as the post-Civil war industrial revolution chugged on, a new method of designing buildings was invented and used on a few buildings, such as the ones below, which involved A steel frame and allowed the buildings to be built upward into the sky, coining the name skyscraper.
The 1885 Home Insurance Building. It was considered the worlds first skyscraper (Demolished 1931)
New York's First Skyscraper, the tower building 1889. The structure led to the growth of taller structures along Broadway, and led ultimately to its dismantling in 1905.
The 1887 Gallatin Bank Building (Demolished in the 1920s)
Most cities have always had some type of height limit, originally to keep a building from falling down until the late 1800s. After a couple of decades of building skyscrapers, people realized that they stole light from the street, and zoning laws sprung up in places like Chicago, which had a 200 foot height limit. Ultimately, this kept many cities from growing upward and no new feats of height were reached in cities.....Except New York City whose structures topped each other out year after year in a giddy rise to the top, reflecting the speed at which the city itself was growing.
The 1908 Singer building (Demolished in 1968)
The 1909 Met life tower
The 1913 Woolworth building
During this time. many of the canyons of wall street were built as Buildings crept higher and higher with no end in sight. But all of this changed in 1915-16 with the completion of the Equitable Building near wall street.
The structure (as many New Yorkers said) robbed the street of light and air, therefore the city felt that they needed to zone the ever growing skyscrapers of New York. They could not easily just put a cap on the height limit, and end the excitement of building taller and taller, so instead, They introduced a new zoning policy. The structure would have to be stepped back at about the 16-20th story to permit light to enter the street. But instead of just capping the structure off with a pyramid, the building would be permitted to go as high as technology allowed once the size of the floors was less than 25% of the footprint of the ground level. Many new Ideas came about showing how to
design buildings with the new regulation, as shown in this 1922 drawing.
The new laws soon changed the appearance of the modern skyscraper of the 1920s in cities besides New York. As the decade "roared on" The New style of art-deco promoted "wedding cake" styled setbacks in many structures. Most of the gleaming giants in cities built at the peak of the stock market in 1929 had countless setbacks gleaming with many patterns, which reflected the times. Most of Americas famous urban skyscrapers were built during this time.
Some Famous examples are down below.
The 1924 American Radiator Building
The 1931 Empire State Building
The 1930 Chrysler building
Looking back, The 1916 zoning laws were an innovative way to overcome the challenge of height and letting in light. The zoning laws even promoted the art deco step backs which have since been embedded in the stereotypical image of the skyscraper. Even though the zoning laws were eventually lifted after WWII and the coming of the soulless glass box, step backs remain a major part of the postmodern and current structures of today.
Old Photos from The Architectural Record Book: Skyscraper, The search for the American Style 1891-1941.
