CTBUH Journal

About the Council The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, based at the Illinois Institute of CTBUH Journal Technology in Chicago, is an international International Journal on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat not-for-profi t organization supported by architecture, engineering, planning, development, and construction professionals. Founded in 1969, the Council’s mission is to disseminate multi-disciplinary information on Tall buildings: design, construction, and operation | 2014 Issue I tall buildings and sustainable urban environments, to maximize the international interaction of professionals involved in creating Tree House Residence Hall, Boston the built environment, and to make the latest knowledge available to professionals in a useful Skyscrapers and Skylines: 1885–2007 form. The Social Sustainability of High-Rises The CTBUH disseminates its fi ndings, and facilitates business exchange, through: the Midcentury (un)Modern publication of books, monographs, proceedings, and reports; the organization of A Year in Review: Tall Trends of 2013 world congresses, international, regional, and specialty conferences and workshops; the Talking Tall: Rem Koolhaas maintaining of an extensive website and tall building databases of built, under construction, New York’s New Delirium and proposed buildings; the distribution of a monthly international tall building e-newsletter; the maintaining of an international resource center; the bestowing of annual awards for design and construction excellence and individual lifetime achievement; the management of special task forces/ working groups; the hosting of technical forums; and the publication of the CTBUH Journal, a professional journal containing refereed papers written by researchers, scholars, and practicing professionals. The Council is the arbiter of the criteria upon which tall building height is measured, and thus the title of “The World’s Tallest Building” determined. CTBUH is the world’s leading body dedicated to the fi eld of tall buildings and urban habitat and the recognized international source for information in these fi elds. Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat S.R. Crown Hall Illinois Institute of Technology 3360 South State Street Chicago, IL 60616 Phone: +1 (312) 567 3487 Fax: +1 (312) 567 3820 Email: [email protected] http://www.ctbuh.org ISSN: 1946 - 1186 Inside News and Events Features 18 History, Theory & Criticism Skyscrapers and Skylines: cities are “strategic substitutes”: if City 2 sees that City 1 is heavily engaged in construction, New York and Chicago, 1885–2007 builders in City 2 fi nd that reducing Architects consider each city to have its own construction is the most profi table response. This paper investigates skyscraper competition between New York City and In general, markets in which a handful of fi rms “style, its own way of shaping its local 02 This Issue 38 Tall Buildings in Numbers Chicago from 1885 to 2007. Skyscraper rivalry between these cities is part of all produce a similar commodity will exhibit environment, its own individualistic U.S. historiography, yet little work has explored the veracity of this belief. Using this strategic-substitutes property. a newly created data set on skyscrapers, a series of statistical tests were contributions to the history of architecture. Yet Companies, for example, are frequently performed to see whether there is, in fact, competitive interaction across moving their corporate headquarters, based these contributions were not developed in Dennis Poon, Trustee 2013: A Tall Building Review cities. First, the results show that each city has “positively” responded to on which city provides the best “bundle” of Jason Barr decisions in the other city, suggesting that residents in each city have a desire offi ce space, employees, and access to isolation. There is a considerable amount of to build more and taller than the other. Second, height regulations for each markets and suppliers (Strauss-Kahn & Vives Author city have periodically reduced the size of each city’s skyline, and have spurred 2009). If these companies see an opportunity competitive interaction between architects, Jason Barr, Associate Professor to move to a city with newer offi ce space, Department of Economics increased building activity in the other city, providing evidence that Rutgers University they will do so. contractors, and developers in both cities. Newark NJ 07102, United States skyscraper space is substitutable across cities. t: +1 973 353 5835 ” f: +1 973 353 5819 However, if building height has non-expressly- e: [email protected] Introduction competition is about luring businesses and economic purposes, such as advertising, local Chicago and New York Chicago in 1885 (see Figure 1), was the fi rst www.rutgers.edu residents, and promoting job growth and pride or ego satisfaction, then relative height to incorporate an iron-skeleton structure to Since the late 1880s, New York and Chicago profi ts. is an important strategic variable. If developers With the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, bear the load of the building; it paved the 04 CTBUH Latest 48 Talking Tall: Rem Koolhaas & Jason Barr Jason Barr is an associate professor of economics have been two of the world’s premier in one city go particularly tall, builders in the and the settling of Chicago in the 1830s, New way for the city’s early skyscraper boom. at Rutgers University, Newark, and the Director of skyscraper cities. By 1929, New York and However, because of their symbolic and other city will respond “positively” by adding York and Chicago became trading partners. Architects, engineers, and builders who “cut Graduate Studies for the economics department. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University Chicago contained 68% of the nation’s aesthetic nature, skyscrapers can also be used height to their buildings. In this case, building Capital, imports, and settlers fl owed west, while their teeth” on Chicago’s fi rst generation of in 1992, and his PhD from Columbia University in buildings of 20 stories or greater in height to express psychological or sociological heights can be called “strategic complements,” agricultural goods fl owed east. But as the skyscrapers were later employed in New York 2002. His research interests include urban and real Antony Wood, David Gianotten estate economics. In particular, Dr. Barr studies the (Weiss 1992). Of the 10 current tallest needs. A tall building can be a monument to in the sense that heights in the two cities relationship developed, they also became rivals. as well. This interaction has lead John economic determinants of skyscraper height since buildings in the United States, four are in local pride or a work of civic art that enhances move together. Since Chicago and New York Zukowsky to write: “Chicago and New York the late 19th century. His work has appeared in prominent economics journals, such as the Journal Chicago and four are in New York; six would citizens’ sense of place. The skyscraper can were the fi rst skyscraper cities in the United In 1871, Chicago’s Great Fire destroyed much of – these are often thought to be the two of Regional Science, the Journal of Economic History, be in New York, if the Twin Towers had not advertise the city, as a form of “urban States and were linked economically, we can the city’s offi ce space, and gave it the chance great superpowers of American architecture. and Real Estate Economics. He is currently writing a book on the history of the Manhattan skyline. been destroyed (Skyscraper Center 2013). boosterism,” drawing tourists, and placing it look to these two cities to test these to build a modern, fi reproof business district. Architects consider each city to have its own Executive Director The New Context of Tall within the national and international competition theories. The Home Insurance Building, completed in style, its own way of shaping its local Ever since the telegraph and railroad created a conversations on cities. environment, its own individualistic national market in the mid-19th century, contributions to the history of architecture. businesses and residents have had much Additionally, tall buildings can be used to Yet these contributions were not developed greater mobility and locational choices. Given express developers’ desire to engage in in isolation. Throughout the 19th and 20th the ability of labor and capital to go where the conspicuous consumption (or investment) to centuries there has been, and still is, a returns are greatest, we would expect this to project economic strength, and achieve a considerable amount of competitive generate some competition between leading higher social status. But the need for pride-, interaction between architects, contractors, cities. If residents of one city see its rivals ego- or advertising-based construction is also and developers in both cities” (Zukowski growing rapidly, they may feel compelled to a competitive process, since the height and 1984:12). 05 Debating Tall: respond. size of these projects mainly serve their purposes only relative to the height and size The list of past and present interactions is Historically, skyscrapers have embodied two of other projects. long, but here are a few important examples. types of competition. The fi rst is regional In the early period, Louis Sullivan, arguably Antennas vs. Spires competition for employment and industrial The two forms of competition can lead to two Chicago’s most famous skyscraper architect, growth. Economic activity must be housed diff erent outcomes. On the one hand, if designed one of his signature buildings in somewhere; if developers don’t provide the developers in City 1 go on a building spree, it New York – the Bayard-Condict Building, in space in one location, developers in another will reduce the price of building space. If 1899 (see Figure 2). Builder and skyscraper place will. As the economy evolves, buildings developers in City 2 see a falling price, the pioneer George Fuller and his fi rm built age and become functionally obsolete.

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