60 Fun Facts About Skyscrapers

In which city is the world's tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa?

At 828 metres it nearly doubles the height of the Empire State Building.

Which city has the most skyscrapers over 150 metres in the world?

Its 569 towers put it well ahead of Shenzhen (465) and New York (324).

What is usually called the first steel-frame skyscraper, built in Chicago in 1885?

It rose only 10 storeys and 42 metres, with two more floors added later.

Which architect created the load-bearing frame of Chicago's first steel-frame skyscraper of 1885?

The building also combined fireproofing, elevators and electrical wiring, all staples of skyscrapers since.

Who invented the safety elevator that stops automatically if its hoisting rope breaks?

He demonstrated it dramatically at the New York Crystal Palace in 1854 by cutting the rope.

What was the first New York office block with passenger elevators, finished in 1870?

Advertised as fireproof, it burned down in 1912 in a blaze that killed six people.

Which 16th-century Yemeni city of mudbrick tower houses is an early high-rise city?

Its 500-plus tower houses rise five to eleven storeys, and many still exceed 30 metres.

What 1891 Chicago structure marked the practical limit of load-bearing masonry?

Later definitions of the skyscraper rest on the steel skeleton that replaced thick masonry walls.

Above what height do tall-building organisations classify a skyscraper as supertall?

Megatall begins at 600 metres, a club with only a handful of members.

Which St. Louis work by Adler and Sullivan is called the first skyscraper that truly looked the part?

Frank Lloyd Wright called it the very first human expression of a tall steel office building as architecture.

Who wrote the 1896 essay The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered?

He declared that a tall building must be every inch a proud and soaring thing.

New York's Flatiron Building was originally named after which company?

The nickname comes from its triangular plan, which resembles a cast-iron clothes iron.

Which architect designed the neo-Gothic Woolworth Building, world's tallest from 1913 to 1929?

It remains among the 100 tallest buildings in the United States as of 2024.

What nickname did the Woolworth Building earn in a 1916 booklet?

Woolworth paid for it partly in cash, with a five-year $11 million mortgage covering the rest.

Which structure did the Chrysler Building surpass in 1930 to become the tallest structure ever built?

It was the first supertall skyscraper by pinnacle height, then lost every record to the Empire State Building a year later.

Who designed the Chrysler Building?

Its 61st floor is decorated with eagles and its 31st with replicas of 1929 Chrysler radiator caps.

Which downtown rival raced the Chrysler Building for the title of world's tallest in 1929?

Van Alen had the Chrysler's spire secretly assembled inside the frame so his rival never knew the final height.

For how long was the Chrysler Building the tallest building in the world?

At 319 metres it was also the world's first supertall skyscraper.

Which firm designed the Empire State Building?

Construction started on 17 March 1930 and the building opened just thirteen and a half months later.

The Empire State Building's spire was originally meant to serve as what?

High winds made docking impossible and the idea was abandoned.

What crashed into the Empire State Building's 79th floor in July 1945?

Lieutenant Colonel William Smith was flying in thick fog when he hit the north face.

Which 1933 film first made the Empire State Building a screen icon?

It has since appeared in more than 250 television series and films.

For roughly how many years was the Empire State Building the world's tallest?

It gave way to the World Trade Center, which itself was overtaken by a Chicago tower within two years.

Which engineer is called the father of tubular designs for high-rises?

His framed, trussed and bundled tubes let towers use far less steel while going higher.

The Willis Tower is designed as how many square tubes clustered together?

Seven of the tubes set back at upper floors, giving the tower its stepped profile.

Under what name did Chicago's Willis skyscraper open as the world's tallest in 1973?

The retailer kept its headquarters in the lower half until 1994.

Compared with the Empire State Building, how much less steel does the Willis Tower use?

Tube designs allow more height with less material.

How long did the Petronas Towers hold the world's tallest title after taking it in 1998?

At 452 metres they had edged out Chicago's 442-metre champion of 24 years.

Which architect designed the Petronas Towers?

The towers' cross-section is based on the Rub el Hizb, an eight-pointed Islamic motif.

On which floors is the Petronas Towers' double-decker skybridge located?

It doubles as an escape route between the towers during high winds.

In which year did Taipei 101 open as the world's tallest building?

Its opening on 31 December was followed hours later by its first New Year fireworks show.

How heavy is the steel pendulum that damps sway inside Taipei 101?

The ball is visible to visitors from the 88th to the 92nd floor.

Taipei 101 stands roughly how far from a major fault line?

Outrigger trusses at eight-floor intervals tie the core columns to the exterior for extra stiffness.

Before its inauguration, the world's tallest skyscraper went by what name?

It was renamed to thank the UAE president who arranged a financial bailout during the Great Recession.

Who was chief architect of the Burj Khalifa at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill?

He got the three-wing idea by looking out of his office window at Chicago's Lake Point Tower.

What floor geometry does the Burj Khalifa use to optimise hotel and residential space?

The tower also holds the record for most floors, with 163.

Which fashion house runs a 304-room hotel in the Burj Khalifa's lower floors?

Sky lobbies on the 43rd and 76th floors house swimming pools.

Which building became the world's second-tallest when it topped out at 678.9 m?

Its 118 storeys stand in Kuala Lumpur, and its spire was completed in December 2022.

Which design firm created the 632-metre, twisting Shanghai Tower?

It stands with the Jin Mao Tower and Shanghai World Financial Center as the world's first trio of adjacent supertalls.

What symbolic height in feet does One World Trade Center reach with its spire?

The figure marks the year of the US Declaration of Independence.

What was One World Trade Center's colloquial name before the Port Authority dropped it in 2009?

David Childs of SOM designed the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

Which I. M. Pei design was the first supertall skyscraper outside the United States?

It was the tallest building in Asia from 1990 to 1992 and the first outside the US to pass 305 metres.

Which Italian architect designed The Shard in London?

At 309.6 metres it is the tallest building in the UK and Western Europe.

Which state owns 95 percent of The Shard?

Sellar Property Group holds the remaining 5 percent.

Which Saint Petersburg tower is the tallest building in Europe at 462 metres?

It is also the northernmost skyscraper in the world.

Which Chicago-based organisation announces the official World's Tallest Building?

Founded at Lehigh University in 1969, it dropped its roof-height category in 2009.

Which Saudi skyscraper was designed to be the first structure 1 kilometre tall?

Its architect also designed the Burj Khalifa; work stalled from 2018 to 2023.

Which Saudi skyscraper hotel complex has the world's largest timepiece dials?

Guinness ranks it the world's tallest clock tower, and the top four floors house a clock museum.

Which Seoul skyscraper was the first in South Korea to top 100 storeys?

At 555 metres it is the tallest building in any OECD country.

Which retailer occupies the base of Central Park Tower on Billionaires' Row?

The residential tower rises 1,550 feet, though its top storey is numbered 136.

Roughly what share of skyscrapers taller than 150 metres are in Asia?

China alone has built more skyscrapers than any other country.

Buildings taller than what height are classed as 'megatall' skyscrapers?

The same bodies set 150 m as the floor for a skyscraper at all, with supertall beginning at 300 m.

Oriel Chambers, the first building with a metal-framed glass curtain wall, stands in which English city?

Built in 1864 and only five floors high, it horrified critics with its 'protruding plate glass bubbles'.

Which English town's 1797 Flaxmill has been called the 'grandfather of skyscrapers'?

Its fireproof mix of cast-iron columns and beams evolved into the steel frame that made modern towers possible.

Which 1889 Chicago work by Burnham and Root was the first all-steel framed skyscraper?

At 45 m it was modest, but it dispensed with the iron and masonry mixes of earlier frames.

Moscow's Stalin-era skyscrapers built between 1947 and 1953 are known collectively by what nickname?

One of them, Moscow State University's main building, was Europe's tallest building for nearly four decades.

Which 1958 Mies van der Rohe tower is often called the pinnacle of modernist high-rise architecture?

Mies designed it with the Norwegian engineer Fred Severud, having pioneered the glass-facade skyscraper.

On which date is the global commemorative 'Skyscraper Day' observed?

Modern definitions start a skyscraper at 150 m, with supertall and megatall tiers above that.

Uninhabitable 'vanity height' accounts on average for what share of a supertall building's height?

Vanity height is the gap between the highest floor and the architectural top, excluding antennae.

The 97.2 m Asinelli Tower is the tallest of the medieval towers in which Italian city?

The city's wealthy built 80 to 100 residential towers in the 12th century for defence and status.