“A skyscraper is a boast in glass and steel.”
― Mason Cooley
Skyscraper Quotes
Tall buildings have been built in almost all great civilizations of the past; pyramids in Egypt, medieval cathedrals, and fortresses, etc. The towers have been a standing image of the wealthy. The skyline acts as an icon for the city, hence, architects compete to construct the tallest skyscrapers. It attracts tourists. A demonstration of the modern-day and architectural genius. They symbolize the energy and wealth of a kingdom or country. They are used whilst there’s a scarcity of constructing land. Often industrial homes are built with many floors which stand for the economic achievement of a nation. They can be used to reside a huge population in a small area. Rooftops may be used as gardens and space to store power with solar energy. The following quotes will remind you of the gigantic multitude of these mighty buildings called skyscrapers.
“From torched skyscrapers, men grew wings.”
― Gregory Maguire
“The age of the skyscraper is gone. This is the age of the housing project. Which is always a prelude to the age of the cave.”
― Ayn Rand
“And when God steps in, His working is like the difference between a skyscraper and a star.”
― Charles R. Swindoll
“The skyscraper establishes the block, the block creates the street, the street offers itself to man.”
― Roland Barthes
“By night the skyscraper looms in the smoke and the stars and has a soul.”
― Carl Sandburg”
“Because everyone is the same distance from the sun. Does it really lessen the distance if you live on top of a skyscraper?”
― Anthony de Mello
“Everything that’s born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they’re all on fire, and we’re all trapped.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer
“I am sure that as a woman I can do a very good skyscraper.”
― Zaha Hadid
“I’m still walking around New York like a tourist staring up at all the skyscrapers. I wave at people, I shake hands, I help ladies with strollers.”
― Jack McBrayer
“After twenty annual visits, I am still surprised each time I return to see this giant asparagus bed of alabaster and rose and green skyscrapers.”
― Cecil Beaton
“Asia is still dominated by skyscrapers. I hope that, in European cities, it will become a declining trend. They were almost never necessary.”
― Rem Koolhaas
“I’m amazed every time I come back to Vancouver at how much it’s changed. You go away for a month and there’s three more skyscrapers.”
― Bryan Adams
“Manhattan has no choice but the skyward extrusion of the Grid itself; only the Skyscraper offers business the wide―open spaces of a man―made Wild West, a frontier in the sky.”
― Rem Koolhaas
“A facade of skyscrapers facing a lake and behind the facade, every type of dubiousness.”
― E. M. Forster
“Doing a house is so much harder than doing a skyscraper.”
― Philip Johnson
“Data isn’t information, any more than fifty tons of cement is a skyscraper.”
― Clifford Stoll
“A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous.”
― Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
“Do you have to make me feel like there’s nothing left of me? You can take everything I have, you can break everything I am, like I am made of glass, like I am made of paper.Go on and try to tear me down I will be rising from the ground like a Skyscraper.”
― Demi Lovato
“There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers’ battle with the heavens that cover them. Snow, rain, and mist highlight, drench, or conceal the vast towers, but those towers, hostile to mystery and blind to any sort of play, shear off the rain’s tresses and shine their three thousand swords through the soft swan of the fog.”
― Federico Garcia Lorca
“A skyscraper is a machine that makes the land pay.”
― Cass Gilbert
“The key is to photograph your obsessions, whether that’s old people’s hands or skyscrapers. Think of a blank canvas, because that’s what you’ve got, and then think about what you want to see. Not anyone else.”
― David LaChapelle
“A skyscraper is at the same time a triumph of the machine and a tremendous emotional experience, almost breath-taking. Not merely its height but its mass and proportions are the result of an emotion, as well as of calculation.”
― George Gershwin
“From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man ― the function of his reasoning mind.”
― Ayn Rand
“Our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but how to remain human in the skyscrapers.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel
“The skyscrapers began to rise again, frailly massive, elegantly utilitarian, images in their grace, audacity and inconclusiveness, of the whole character of the people who produces them.”
― Malcolm Muggeridge
“The search for the ultimate skyscraper goes on. … At worst, overbuilding will make urban life unbearable. At best, we will go out in a blaze of style.”
― Ada Louise Huxtable
“[New York] is a city largely based on great skyscrapers, and they will always be the essence of New York. That won’t change, just as the character of the people who live here will not be altered by this tragedy.”
― Donald Trump
“There’s a kind of beauty to a skyscraper.”
― Lisa Joy
“The skyscraper establishes the block, the block creates the street, the street offers itself to man.”
― Roland Barthes
“I think it’s necessary to evaluate a skyscraper at multiple scales, since that’s how we experience it: from right next to it on the street to from across the river, as well as at all kinds of points in between. It’s important to think of it as an element in a larger skyline, but also as an element in an immediate streetscape.”
― Paul Goldberger
Quotes on Tall Buildings
Humans are obsessed with pushing the limits and creating new records that are constantly broken one after the other. In fact, throughout history, the horizon of our city has always been determined by the strengths of the people in power. At one point, the cathedrals and the churches left their marks on the city skylines, then came the Government agencies with the parliament houses and other official complexes. And in the past few decades, commercial skyscrapers have become synonymous with the success of a nation.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat is an international body, headquartered in Illinois, United States, having its own set standard of identifying and naming the tallest building based on sustainability. It’s a non-profit organization and is often considered authority to name the official height of tall buildings. According to them, Burj Khalifa in Dubai is currently the tallest amongst all, standing with 163 floors with a total height of 2,717 ft (828 m).
Quotes on the tallest building will surely let you admire the building designs and engineering brilliance.
“I’m amazed every time I come back to Vancouver at how much it’s changed. You go away for a month and there’s three more skyscrapers.”
― Bryan Adams
“I want to show you that you can leap tall buildings, walk through walls, and change reality.”
― Elan Lee
“The skyscraper and the twentieth century are synonymous; the tall building is the landmark of our age. … Shaper of cities and fortunes, it is the dream, past and present, acknowledged or unacknowledged, of almost every architect.”
― Ada Louise Huxtable
“The skyscraper style first advocated by Louis Sullivan – a tower of strongly vertical character with clear definitions among base, shaft, and crown – has remained remarkably consistent throughout the history of this building type.”
― Martin Filler
“The skyscraper and the twentieth century are synonymous; the tall building is the landmark of our age. … Shaper of cities and fortunes, it is the dream, past and present, acknowledged or unacknowledged, of almost every architect.”
― Ada Louise Huxtable
“The skyscraper style first advocated by Louis Sullivan – a tower of strongly vertical character with clear definitions among base, shaft, and crown – has remained remarkably consistent throughout the history of this building type.”
― Martin Filler
“The chief characteristics of the tall building is that it is lofty. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation so that from bottom to top it should be a unit without a single dissenting line.”
― Louis Sullivan
“A man attains greatness by his merits, not simply by occupying an exalted seat. Can we call a crow an eagle (garuda) simply because he sits on the top of a tall building?”
― Chanakya
“We built tall buildings, but we have not become any taller.”
― Dejan Stojanovic
“Without knowing it, he had constructed a gigantic vertical zoo, its hundreds of cages stacked above each other. All the events of the past few months made sense if one realized that these brilliant and exotic creatures had learned to open the doors.”
― J.G. Ballard
“I think there will be a 200-story skyscraper someday. However, it will require a developer who will not think in conventional terms and for whom economic restraints won’t apply.”
― Helmut Jahn
“A man in the skyscraper needs to feed a pigeon from his window to remember what great thing missing in his life: The touch of nature!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan
“In the later nineteenth century, the tops of skyscrapers often took the shape of domes, surmounted by jaunty gilded lanterns; later came ziggurats, mausoleums, Alexandrian lighthouses, miniature Parthenons. These charming follies contained neither royal corpses nor effigies of gods and goddesses; rather they contained large wooden tanks filled with water.”
― Brendan Gill
“There can be little question that the tall building presents one of the most difficult challenges to the architect.”
― Martin Filler
“The Anasazi did manage to construct in stone the largest and tallest buildings erected in North America until the Chicago steel girder skyscrapers of the 1880s.”
― Jared Diamond
“Right after 9/11 it looked as if the idea of a huge skyscraper might be considered obsolete. It came back, but I think that’s more closely connected to the rise of Asian and Middle Eastern cities in the world economy (Dubai, Shanghai, Taipei, etc.) than anything else.”
― Paul Goldberger
“Who’s afraid of the big, bad buildings? Everyone, because there are so many things about gigantism that we just don’t know. The gamble of triumph or tragedy at this scale — and ultimately it is a gamble — demands an extraordinary payoff. The trade center towers could be the start of a new skyscraper age or the biggest tombstones in the world.”
— Ada Louise Huxtable
“Raising a child is very much like building a skyscraper. If the first few stories are slightly out of line. no one will notice. But when the building is 18 or 20 stories high, everyone will see that it tilts.”
— Jim Bishop
Quotes about Buildings and Architecture
The design of office buildings, museums, airports, train stations, and apartments is not always revolutionary; in fact, most buildings are composed of these trivial themes that are essential to urban and human development. Nevertheless, an almost ubiquitous building emerges every now and then in some parts of the world, leading the common architectural practice in a new direction.
Take for instance The Apple Park, from a completely solar-panel covered roof to the ability to maintain indoor temperatures between 20 and 25 degrees Celsius through the natural outdoor air intake and exhaust, it has revolutionized the design of the company’s headquarters.
Similarly, due to its strict building codes and architectural heritage, Paris is one of the most demanding places in the world for the successful design of modern buildings. The list is unending and words from these passionate geniuses are sure to light the flame in you to do great things too.
“Go on and try to tear me down I will be rising from the ground.”
― Demi Lovato
“Manhattan, one of the most moneyed spots on the planet, also has one of the greatest concentrations of people in its skyscrapers. It’s also, of course, the place where every architect wants to build his tower.”
― Norman Foster
“As a kid growing up in a small town in Washington State, my only exposure to New York City was through movies. The town with its towering skyscrapers, fascinating people and teeming energy absolutely captivated me.”
― Robert Osborne
“The only things that the United States has given to the world are skyscrapers, jazz, and cocktails. That is all. And in Cuba, in our America, they make much better cocktails.”
― Federico Garcia Lorca
“In any city with lots of skyscrapers, lots of skyline, the moon seems bigger than it is. It’s called the moon illusion.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson
“With everything that I design, from a church to a plate to skyscraper to a spoon. I am always thinking about voluptuous volumes and spaces.”
― Greg Lynn
“I’m very optimistic about the future. I’m just not optimistic about the skyscraper as a building typology that is suited for the future.”
― James Howard Kunstler
“I like going for walks in the western harbour, a newly-built area of Malmo where the old harbour used to be. It is surrounded by canals and waterways and the architecture is modern and innovative – the landmark Turning Torso skyscraper, designed by Santiago Calatrava, is the star of the show.”
― Sofia Helin
“Beauty or beast, the modern skyscraper is a major force with a strong magnetic field. It draws into its physical being all of the factors that propel and characterize modern civilization. The skyscraper is the point where art and the city meet.”
― Ada Louise Huxtable
“If you look at the entrance halls of the skyscrapers of the 1920s and 1930s, they are very welcoming. They are public spaces with enormous amounts of display and marble and so on. They were havens off the street.”
― Joseph Rykwert
“There’s the downtown area of Tupelo. Did you see the skyscrapers? Two stories.”
― Bobby Heenan
“The bias among architecture critics isn’t against skyscrapers per se, but against the way in which their design is so heavily dictated by economic considerations – the way in which skyscrapers are real estate before they are architecture.”
― Paul Goldberger
“Art deals with profound and simple moods. Let us suppose that the artist – in this instance (the artist) Picabia – gets a certain impression by looking at our skyscrapers, our city, our way of life, and that he tries to reproduce it. He will convey it in plastic ways on the canvas, even though we see neither skyscrapers nor city on it.”
― Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
“The skyscraper – any building over seven stories really – will come to be seen as an experimental building type that doesn’t work well in an energy-starved economy.”
― James Howard Kunstler
Funny Architecture Quotes
With amazing innovation, comes greater responsibilities. And as architects too are human beings, making mistakes is only too commonplace. The best part is they know how to overcome the shortfalls and improve the quality of their work with determination. They know how to laugh at the shortcomings and enjoy the task at hand. These funny quotes will make you giggle and appreciate the efforts made by these marvels of the world.
“A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advice his clients to plant vines.”
― Frank Lloyd Wright
“I think to be shot in a mountain valley somewhere or other is altogether less glorious than crashing an airliner into a skyscraper.”
― John Keegan
“This (America) is a land of rich diversity, from the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan all the way to the towering mounds of garbage piled up next to the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan.”
― Dave Barry
“I’d get demolitions experts to rig mother to implode like a skyscraper.”
― Doug Stanhope
“Architects believe that not only do they sit at the right hand of God, but that if God ever gets up, they take the chair.”
― Karen Moyer
“It’s certainly strange to do sketch comedy with cue cards at midnight in a skyscraper as opposed to in a basement with your friends.”
― Casey Wilson
“Nothing makes me more productive than the last minute.”
― Anonymous
“The pencil and computer are, if left to their own devices, equally dumb and only as good as the person driving them.”
― Norman Foste
“Architects always have plans.”
― Anonymous
“All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.”
― GK Chesterton
“Architecture is the art of how to waste space.”
― Philip Johnson
“No security guard can stop a refrigerator falling off a skyscraper.”
― Jadakiss
“Every night I pray that clients with taste will get money and clients with money will get taste.”
— Bill Gardner
“The details are the very source of expression in architecture. But we are caught in a vice between art and the bottom line.”
— Arthur Erickson
“Architecture begins where engineering ends.”
— Walter Gropius
Inspirational Quotes for Architects
From the Oculus by Santiago Calatrava in New York to the Louvre Abu Dhabi by Jean Nouvel, these structures transcend their vertical height and redefine the ever-changing architectural world. The great architects have reconceived the architectural drawing board, time and again by their awe-inspiring imagination and handy work. These magnificent buildings are the proofs of their sky-high creativity and the determination to give wings to innovation. Read these quotes to get motivated and look through their mind’s eyes.
“The accent today is on results, not on how well you work. You can’t build a skyscraper in a day, but you can build a shack.”
― Arrigo Sacchi
“We have had the stone age; we have had the iron age; and now we have the sky age, and the sky telegraph, and sky men, and sky cities. Mountains of stone are built out of men’s visions. Towers and skyscrapers swing up out of their wills and up out of their hearts.”
― Gerald Stanley Lee
“A great city with water barriers and no bridges is like a skyscraper with no elevators. Bridges are a monument to progress.”
― Joseph Straus
“New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village ― the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up!”
― E. B. White
“In ‘Swimming Pool,’ all the colors are very warm, sunny, the pool and all that. In ‘Love Crime,’ everything is so cold, and it’s all inside skyscrapers.”
― Ludivine Sagnier
“Waves, sky, trees, Essrog ― I was off the page now, away from the grammar of skyscrapers and pavement.”
― Jonathan Lethem
“I just need green. I need to wake up and see grass and squirrels. I don’t want to see skyscrapers.”
― Andre Leon Talley
“It’s an old-fashioned, very outdated, non-functioning idea that we can drain all the resources from directly around us and skyrocket to the top of a skyscraper, and that’s success. We have to understand that when one has to leech from others to that degree, then that’s something we need to watch and stop.”
― Jimmi Simpson
“Not only did America invent the skyscraper, it invented the skyline.”
― Santiago Calatrava
“Like the skyscraper, the automobile, and the motion-picture palace, neon signs once symbolized popular hopes for a new era of technological achievement and commercial abundance. From the 1920s to the 1950s, neon-lit streets pulsed with visual excitement from Vancouver to Miami.”
― Virginia Postrel
“As people flock to urban centers where ground space is limited, cities with green walls and roofs and skyscraper farms offer improved health and well-being, renewable resources, reliable food supply, and relief to the environment.”
― Diane Ackerman
“New York means so much to people. If you’re inclined to leave the nest, New York is where most people think they have to go, and it’s been that way since the first skyscraper.”
― Griffin Dunne
“A skyscraper built within your own mind may never crumble.”
― Kazuki Nakashima
“The world is a skyscraper! Don’t always stay on the same floor! Go upstairs, go downstairs; visit the lives of other tenants! Visit eagles; visit mushrooms!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan
“Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation – not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.”
― Barack Obama
Why is architecture the mother of all arts?
The interior space and the architect together create an almost dynamic experience; a harmony of openings, surfaces, shapes, articulation, textures, light, sound, and vision. No other art can use so many methods in its works. Perhaps because of this, architecture deserves the praise to be called “Mother of All Arts.”
Why is architecture so important?
In essence, architecture is about creating the physical environment in which people live, but architecture is not only an environment. It is also a part of our culture; it is the expression of our self-image and appearance.
What is the role of architects?
Architects design projects for new construction, renovation, and restoration. They use their special knowledge and high-level drawing skills to make the building functional, safe, sustainable, and aesthetically pleasing.
What is the role of Color in architecture?
Colors play an important role in the perception of space in the human mind. If you use lighter tones, the room will appear larger. In this way, the color can be used to adjust the proportion of the building area. Excessive stimulation depends on the color used.
What do skyscrapers symbolize?
Skyscrapers symbolize the unity and pride of citizens, and their vertical orientation reflects their desire for the growth of the surrounding population.
What is the importance of skyscrapers?
As population density increases and technology advances, height limits are being reconceived and readdressed around the world to maximize the habitable space for commercial and residential buildings. More height will automatically transverse to more housing.
How did skyscrapers impact cities?
High-rise buildings not only make cities more accessible and architecturally more interesting, they are also more environmentally friendly than spacious buildings and promote social capital and creativity.
What are the disadvantages of skyscrapers?
The disadvantages of high-rise buildings include:
- More people live in small spaces
- The complexity of congestion avoidance.
- There are many human and social problems.
- Due to overpopulation, public utilities such as water, sanitation, and electricity are not balanced.
Are skyscrapers good for the economy?
The height of high-rise buildings is most likely to be related to the general economic conditions and real estate fundamentals. The height of the tower is also related to profit maximization. Studies proved the connection between the construction boom and the financial collapse, especially established that the construction of skyscrapers stimulated the stock market. Building the tallest skyscraper will bring a subsequent return on investment because it shows overconfidence in the nation.
How do skyscrapers not collapse?
Because of gravitational pull, building a higher vertical trajectory is always a challenge. But based on the “Cheerleaders Pyramid” theory, where the base is created with more materials to support the combined weight of the vertical layers, a building does not collapse. But the addition of more material too comes with space restraints. Thus, with the advancement of technology and higher production of iron and steel, narrower beams of metals replaced the bulky materials and allowed for sturdier bottoms than bricks with a fraction of spaces. Resulting in the tallest high-rises with stronger bottoms at fraction of spaces.
EndNote
Great architecture is always the starting point. On the one hand, it is a structure inspired by functions in the past. At the same time, it looks forward to improving its role in the world. In fact, culture develops periodically with these innovative designs. Seeing revolutionary architectural works means traveling through the not-too-distant past and entering the near future.
Buildings like Rafael Vignoli 432 Park Avenue is the tallest completed residential building in the Western Hemisphere and requires attention that has never been seen in residential buildings. This 1,396-foot-tall skyscraper is located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan and can be seen from all five boroughs, from all angles of cars, trains, and airplanes. Its silhouette dominates the New York skyline. This fact has not been ignored by the world-famous Uruguayan architects.
Then there is the 2,073-foot-tall Shanghai Tower (center) with a seemingly endless record: the tallest building in China, the second tallest globally, the tallest observation deck in the world, and the second-fastest elevator system globally designed by Gensler and completed in 2015. However, surprisingly, the list pales in comparison to the fact that the company’s architectural design an asymmetrical shape with rounded corners-saves about $58 million in material costs compared to a traditional corner design of the same size.
These great designs are not only sustainable but also proved to be economically viable. Great building designs are the future of our world where the scarcity of space is increasing by the day. Hence, the skyscrapers are here to stay and make their presence felt in times to come.
