Born in the 19th century, the skyscraper came to symbolise the 20th, and now it grows evermore widespread, and ever-taller, in the 21st.
There are nearly 5,000 skyscrapers around the world. That's 5,000 buildings over 40 storeys high, as anything lower doesn't even count as a skyscraper these days.
From the start,there was admiration and enthusiasm in the USA for these dramatic symbols of the country's dynamic growth.
They were also detested by many people for their impact on America's cities, and they were scorned by some as the first new building form in history to be dedicated entirely to the vulgar business of making money.
Where will it end? That's a question well outside this talk's scope. But where, and when, did it begin? And what has this mill building in Shropshire got to do with it? Find out when you hear the talk!
Join me for an entertaining tour through skyscraper history. From the time when "a skyscraper seven storeys high" was an object of wonder, we'll look at the canyon cities of 20th century America, and venture around the world to see the immensely tall towers that are now proliferating.
LOVE THEM OR LOATHE THEM....
YOU CAN'T IGNORE THEM!
Lower Manhattan in 1885..... .....in 1920.....
We'll certainly not neglect the huge impact that skyscrapers have had on the popular imagination and on popular culture:
from Nelson Mandela House in Peckham to the Towering Inferno in San Francisco......
and from King Kong climbing the Empire State Building to Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
THIS IS A TALK NOT TO BE MISSED