The American Skyscraper 1850-1940 - A Celebration of Height is Great Tour of America!

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Skyscraper

By day the skyscraper looms in the smoke and sun and has a soul.
PrAirie and valley, streets of the city, pour citizen into it and they
Mingle among its twenty floors...
It is the Men and woMen, boys and girls so poured in and out all day
That give the construction a soul of dreams and thoughts and memories...

American Stories

--Carl Sandburg's Chicago's Poems (p. 325)

How to The American Skyscraper 1850-1940 - A Celebration of Height is Great Tour of America!

Sheer serendipity brought me into the formal facilities planning and management activities I directed for many years. However, in many ways, it merged with an instinctual love of the architectural form in all of its beauty. Thus, for me, Joseph Korom's The American Skyscraper, will come to be much more--a "coffee-table" book to be picked up and read again and again.

In reality, however, it is a complete text on the history of America's creation and use of Skyscrapers with in-depth information and over 300 images highlighting buildings across the United States. It includes over 60 pages for the bibliography, index, footnotes, and tabular presentations of famous skyscrapers! The author notes, "Between its covers are the stories of 287 American skyscrapers which were, or still are, placed in seventy-one cities and towns..." (p. 21) Reflections of outside details or interior shots, as well as architects' personal pictures, generate a primary historical offering for the libraries of both students and professionals in the fields of architectural and engineering, as well as all those who, like myself, are awed with the majesty and charm of structures.

Architect Joseph Korom earned a scholar of Architecture degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he also served as mentor. He is an done artist whose paintings are represented in many private collections and is a freelance writer, architectural critic, and photographer. He is a member of the community of Architectural Historians, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Art create of Chicago, and the Milwaukee Art Museum. Joseph Korom, who has also authored Look Up Milwaukee (1979) and Milwaukee Architecture A Guide to famous buildings (1995.

"Very tall buildings, those now known as "skyscrapers," were invented here-in America.... Humans built tall for many reasons: to do so was communally satisfying, personally fulfilling and maybe most of all it was a celebratory act-for everyone. To build tall was defiant, it was risky and it was scary but inherent in these anxieties was the conquering of height itself, to pierce the sky with a manmade object while still tethered to the ground was simply irresistible..." (pps. 14-15) Korom thus introduces his impressive text with a brief historical perspective of the brave men who began to build high and chronicles "this country's unique offering to architecture..." (p. 16).

Presenting Chicago's Sear Tower as his first picture, he notes that it "is the ultimate expression of skyscraper technology and is the embodiment of vertical manifest destiny. It stands 110 floors, 1,454 feet tall, and is North America's tallest skyscraper." The author includes inviting factual information such as when he notes, "When the sun sets, pedestrians at the Sears Tower's base are plunged into shade. But due to the curvature of the earth, shade covers the tower's floors from bottom inviting upward at the rate of one floor per second. Consequently, those at the building's top enjoy practically two more minutes of sunlight..." (p. 21)

When I explored the buildings on the West Virginia University campus, working to better administrate the utilization of those facilities and then plan what was needed to meet hereafter needs, it was always the older buildings that I found more intriguing. Exploring Woodburn Hall all the way up into the clock tower, or walking through Chitwood and Martin Halls, prior to their being gutted and renovated, I thrilled at the basic charm we wanted to retain, while at the same time, generate updated classrooms, offices, and teaching laboratories that were needed for our School of Journalism and many departments within our College of Arts and Sciences.

Thus, as I read through A Celebration of Height, it was not surprising that I eagerly studied the buildings with the older styles that were used while the "courageous beginnings" starting in 1850. (p. 22). Zachary Taylor was president "during the planning and erection of the famed Jayne construction in Philadelphia. Knowing that "Old Rough and Ready" was in charge helps place the birth of the American skyscraper in historical context." (p. 23)

The following buildings included in the Celebration are just a few of those particularly enjoyed by this previous Facilities professional/reviewer! I am sure others will select those more modern.

· The Palmer House Hotel in Chicago; built 1872, by the "first merchant prince of Chicago, Potter Palmer, at the cost of 0,000. (pps. 49-50)
· Madison square organery Tower, 16 floors, 304 feet, New York. (P. 158)
· Women's Temple, Chicago, 1892, home of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. (p. 166)
· Columbus Memorial Building, topped by a giant bronze status of Christopher Columbus, built in 1893. "In an utterly wanton act, this delightful skyscraper was demolished in 1959." (p. 179)
· Trinity Church, New York City. Its steeple once ranked it the tallest buildings on Manhattan Island. (p. 190)
· The Carson Pirie Scott Store's main entrance is marked by a most robust example of foliage This twisting mélange was executed in iron then painted a forest green. This building, completed in 1904, immediately was propelled into the annals of architectural immortality. The Chicago Loop was now home to a large branch store, rising twelve stories, 168 feet. The construction featured some of the most compelling embellishment anywhere. (pps. 231-232)
· City Investing Building, New York City, 1908, 487 feet, and containing one-half million square feet, development it the world's largest office building. "If ever there was a skyscraper that evoked romance, historicism, capitalism, and the optimism of the early twentieth century the City Investing construction was it. Here was a tower that drew upon inspiration from French Baroque sources, and in so doing, cut a delightful profile on New York's skyline. (p. 271)
· Bromo-Seltzer Tower, Baltimore, 1911, 15 floors, 280 feet tall, with a facsimile of the customary Bromo-Seltzer bottle atop its tower! (pps. 294-295)
· Peter Cooper first artificial structural beam for the Cooper Union construction in New York, thus setting the sTAGe for skeleton construction and finally the skyscraper. (p. 25). Also in New York, the mid-19th century marked the age of cast iron architecture and is still concentrated in the "Cast Iron District, as a living museum, near the Greenwich Village. (p. 28)
· And, of course, the history of the skyscraper must also consist of the invention of the elevator. Manhattan's Haughwout construction was the first industrial construction to hire a passenger elevator. "It was capable of lifting one-half ton at the rate of forty feed per itsybitsy and it was the first of its kind anywhere" when it was installed in 1857. Any facilities pro will not be surprised to hear that Elisha Graves Otis who at last founded the Otis Elevator firm installed it. (pps. 28-29)

In expanding to detailed facilities information, I also enjoyed the smaller details Korom added for interest, such as "Probably for the first time unrelated men and women worked side-by-side for eight or more hours in the same one or two rooms...skyscrapers, probably from their very inception, were places where 'advanTAGes were acted upon' or there were rumors of such behavior..." (p. 137) and the assorted interior shots of those men and women Dressed as they were at that time. Truly, The American Skyscraper 1850-1940: A Celebration of Height is a book that is very recommended to all those curious in America's history!

By his buildings great in work on and power...
His doctrine where, in "Form Follows function"
Sullivan has earned his place as one of the greatest
Architectural military in America...

--Memorial Mark to Louis Henri Sullivan (p. 195)

The American Skyscraper 1850-1940:
A Celebration of Height
By Joseph J. Korom, Jr.
Branden Books 2008
540 Pages
Isbn: 13: 978-0-8283-2188-4

The American Skyscraper 1850-1940 - A Celebration of Height is Great Tour of America!

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