Building Tall

topics

Publishers

Architecture

ISBN: 9781890449476
English edition
Princeton Architectural Press/Balcony Press
Hardcover, 280 pages
20,3 x 35,6 cm
December 2008
€26,56 (excl. VAT)

Building Tall

Imagining the Skyscraper

Scott Johnson

The skyscraper continues to inspire architects and visual artists of all types. More than a century of literature, art, film, and new media representations have built an image of the skyscraper inside the space of our collective imagination. A towering physical presence, the skyscraper has come to embody many of our unexamined notions and secret desires about wealth, ambition and dominance. Paradoxically, as the skyscraper building type changed to address shifting socioeconomic conditions, its perception by mainstream culture has become simpler and more consumable. Featuring rarely seen images and lively text, Building Tall explores the phenomenon of the skyscraper – from its legacy of supreme technical achievement to the meanings of its various artistic interpretations.