Skyscrapers

A skyscraper is a continuously furnished building taller than 100 m (330 ft), though the term can be used for lower buildings in cities where tall buildings are less common.

While structures such as TV towers, observation towers, chimneys, wind turbines and bridge pylons might reach similar heights, they are usually excluded, as most levels of these are not used for human activity.

Skyscrapers are mainly used for corporate and government offices, hotels or residences. Many of them have an observatory floor, or a hospitality section at ground level.

There has been a fascination with tall, impressive structures since antiquity, as reflected by the presence of the 100-meter Lighthouse of Alexandria (now ruined) and other tall structures among the 7 Wonders of the World as considered by the ancient Greeks. Even before that, tall pyramids were built in ancient Egypt, and also by several peoples in Mexico and Central America, with the Mayan pyramids being the best known in the Americas today.

In the Middle Ages, the skyscrapers were towers and Gothic cathedrals, which dominated the views of travelers for days while they walked to the cities where they were built. Many of them still exist today.

The development of the modern elevator in the 19th century led to the proliferation of taller buildings, though even 12-story buildings were considered skyscrapers through the 1910s. A landmark in skyscraper construction was the completion of the Woolworth Building in New York in 1912. A 55-story structure, it was the tallest in the world until 1930, when it was surpassed by the 70-story 40 Wall Street and then the 77-story Chrysler Building, the first over 1,000 feet and 300 meters tall, which was in turn eclipsed by the Empire State Building, completed in 1931, that remained the tallest in the world until 1971.

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