SKYSCRAPERS

The term "skyscraper" was coined in the 1880s, shortly after the first tall buildings were constructed
in the United States -- but the history of tall buildings dates back hundreds of years. Since the
Middle Ages, engineers have engaged in a battle for the sky. Before there were skyscrapers, there
were towers.
Made of heavy stone, towers had thick, sturdy walls, but the rooms were dark and cramped -- too
many windows would have weakened the structure. Soon Gothic cathedrals joined the quest for
height.
Long, stone arms, called flying buttresses, supported the cathedral's heavy
weight, allowing the walls to be filled with colorful glass windows.
With steel came the first modern skyscrapers.
During the Industrial Revolution, engineers began experimenting with two new
materials -- iron and steel. The 10-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago
was the first tall building to be supported by a steel skeleton of vertical
columns and horizontal beams. But even with windows, the closely spaced
Flying buttresses:
columns and deep beams made rooms in the Home Insurance Building feel tight Notre Dame Cathedral
and cramped.
Who wants to climb all those stairs?
In 1857, the installation of the first passenger elevator in the Haughwout Department Store in New
York City made it possible and practical to construct buildings more than four or five stories tall.
New structural designs made skyscrapers even lighter and stiffer.
As skyscrapers grew taller and taller, engineers were faced with a new enemy: wind. Today's tallest
skyscrapers, which are almost 1,500 feet tall, must be 50 times stronger against wind than the typical
200-foot buildings of the 1940s.
Today, the sky's the limit!
As architects and engineers experiment with new styles and building methods, taller and more
innovative structures are springing up around the world. The tallest buildings in the world, the
Petronas Towers in Malaysia, are connected by a flexible skybridge on the 42nd floor -- a design that
improves the circulation of people between the towers and provides an escape route from one tower to
the other in case of emergency.
Skyscraper: Forces

The skyscraper pushes down into

the ground.

But when the wind blows, the columns on the windy side
stretch apart, and the columns on the other side squeeze
together.

How do engineers design skyscrapers to resist wind?

By clustering steel columns and beams in the skyscraper's core,

engineers create a stiff backbone that can resist tremendous
wind forces. The inner core is used as an elevator shaft, and the
design allows lots of open space on each floor.

In newer skyscrapers, like the Sears Tower in Chicago, engineers

moved the columns and beams from the core to the perimeter,
creating a hollow, rigid tube as strong as the core design, but
weighing much, much less.

Petronas Towers
Vital Statistics:
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Completion Date: 1998
Cost: $1.6 billion
Height: 1,483 feet
Stories: 88
Materials: Concrete, Steel
Facing Materials: Aluminum, Stainless Steel
Engineer(s): Thornton-Tomasetti and Ranhill Bersekutu
Until 1998, the world's tallest skyscraper had always been in the United States. But that year,
Malaysia's Petronas Towers laid claim to this distinction. Squeaking past the Chicago Sears Tower by
33 feet, the spires atop the Petronas Towers peak at an impressive 1,483 feet. Yet there's a
controversy. The highest occupied floor in the Sears Tower is actually 200 feet higher than the top
floor of the Petronas Towers, and its antennae stretch higher still. So why are the Petronas Towers
considered the world's tallest buildings? According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat,
spires count, but antennae don't. Spires do not contain floors, but they are counted in the world's
tallest building race for one architectural reason: they're nice to look at. Built over a former
racetrack, the Petronas Towers reflect a unique blend of religion and economic prosperity. The $1.6
billion towers contain more than eight million square feet of shopping and entertainment facilities,
underground parking for 4,500 cars, a petroleum museum, a symphony hall, a mosque, and a multimedia
conference center. Each tower's floor plan forms an eight-pointed star, a design inspired by
traditional Malaysian Islamic patterns. The 88-story towers, joined by a flexible skybridge on the
42nd floor, have been described as two "cosmic pillars" spiraling endlessly towards the heavens.
Fast Facts:

The Petronas Towers were featured in the blockbuster movie Entrapment, starring Sean
Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
It took 36,910 tons of steel to build the Petronas Towers. That's heavier than 3,000
elephants!
It takes 90 seconds to travel from the basement parking lot to the top of each tower.
Together, the towers have 32,000 windows. It takes window washers an entire month to wash
each tower just once!

Vital Statistics:
Location: Paris, France
Completion Date: 1889
Cost: $1.5 million
Height: 986 feet
Materials: Wrought iron
Engineer(s): Gustave Eiffel

Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower, built in commemoration of the French Revolution, was the tallest building in the
world when it was unveiled at the Paris World's Fair in 1889. Although it has been surpassed in height
by nearly a dozen skyscrapers since then, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel's chocolate-brown, 984-foot
open-lattice wrought-iron tower remains one of the world's premiere tourist attractions. Before the
Tower's construction, critics called Eiffel's design an eyesore and predicted that the Tower would
cost too much to build. Eiffel knew better. His crew assembled the 18,000 pieces of iron in just 21
months, under budget and in time for the fair's opening day. With the completion of the Tower, Eiffel
earned the nickname "magician of iron." Eiffel was one of the first engineers to recognize the
importance of wind forces on tall structures. He designed the surface of his Tower to be so minimal
that the wind has virtually nothing to grab onto. All pieces of the Tower form an open lattice of light
trusses through which the wind can blow. The Eiffel Tower was one of the first tall structures in the
world to contain passenger elevators, and tourists loved them. Elevator ticket sales in the Eiffel
Tower regained almost the entire cost of the structure -- in just one year!
Fast Facts:
The Eiffel Tower is repainted every seven years -- with 50 tons of dark brown paint.
Since it was unveiled at the Paris World's Fair in 1889, more than 167 million people have
visited the Eiffel Tower.
The names of 72 French scientists and other famous individuals are permanently affixed to
the sides of the tower in 60-centimeter letters just beneath the first platform, with 18
names per side.
Counting from the ground, there are 347 steps to the first level, 674 steps to the second
level, and 1,710 steps to the small platform on the top of the tower.
On a clear day, it is possible to see 42 miles in every direction from the top of the Eiffel
Tower.
The Eiffel Tower is twice as tall as the Washington Monument and weighs 70,000 tons less!

World Trade Center

Vital Statistics:
Location: New York, New York, USA

Completion Date: 1972 (Tower One), 1973 (Tower Two)

Cost: $400 million
Height: 1,368 feet (Tower One), 1,362 feet (Tower Two)
Stories: 110
Materials: Steel
Facing Materials: Aluminum, steel
Engineer(s): Skilling, Helle, Christiansen & Robertson
Constructed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the early 1970s, the World Trade
Center towers were, for their time, the best known examples of tube buildings. Tube buildings are
strengthened by closely spaced columns and beams in the outer walls. The closely spaced columns and
beams in each tower form a steel tube that, together with an internal core, withstand the tremendous
wind loads that affect buildings this tall. Aside from withstanding enormous wind loads, the World
Trade Center towers were also constructed to withstand settlement loads. Because the towers were
built on six acres of landfill, the foundation of each tower had to extend more than 70 feet below
ground level to rest on solid bedrock. The two towers were unable to survive the effects of a direct
hit by two hijacked commercial jetliners during terrorist attacks on the morning of September 11,
2001. Although they were in fact designed to withstand being struck by an airplane, the resultant
fires weakened the infrastructure of the building, collapsing the upper floors and creating too much
load for the lower floors to bear. Shortly after the attack, both towers collapsed. You can explore a
comprehensive site on why the Twin Towers fell, including interviews with an engineer, a survivor, an
interactive explanation of how metal behaves when heated, and much more, at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/. At the time of their completion in 1973, the World Trade
Center towers were the two tallest buildings in the world. Two years later, the Sears Tower in Chicago
seized the coveted title.
Fast Facts:
One World Trade Center featured Windows on the World, an elegant restaurant
with a magnificent view of New York City. Two World Trade Center featured two
observation decks, both more than 1,300 feet above the city.
Each tower had 104 passenger elevators, 21,800 windows, and roughly an acre of
rentable space on each floor.
From the observation deck on Two World Trade Center it was possible to see 45
miles in every direction.
Each tower swayed approximately three feet from true center in strong wind
storms.
If all the glass used in the construction of both towers were melted into a ribbon
of glass, 20 inches wide, it would run 65 miles long.
The twin towers were often called "Lego-blocks" by critics.
On Friday, February 26, 1993, at 12:18 p.m., a bomb exploded in the underground
garage of One World Trade Center, creating a 22-foot-wide, five-story-deep
crater. Six people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured. The towers were
cleaned, repaired, and reopened in less than one month.