The Future of the Skyscraper

Engines of industry, expressions of ego or will, tall towers are nonetheless - when they pierce the shared skies - intensely public. In this volume, Bruce Sterling describes four possible futures that might shape future towers, presenting a choose-your-own-adventure of potential futures for architecture, some of them terrifying in their nearness. We peer up at skyscrapers old and new, visit their highest floors, turn them this way and that to see them clearly through the psychology (Tom Vanderbilt) and physiology (Emily Badger) of living and working on high, and through the lens of policy in the low-rise counterexample of Washington, DC (Matthew Yglesias). Diana Lind tests the idea of tall against the more sprawling needs of industry. Will Self looks back in literature, film and recent urban history to write towards a new understanding of the tower in the popular imagination. Dickson Despommier shares a comprehensive vision of an ecological future, in which towers, perhaps supertalls, would necessarily play a crucial role.