Skyscrapers, Part Two: An Arms Race to the Sky

Published May 30, 2024, 12:00 PM

Once society became convinced that you could build skyscrapers without them immediately collapsing, cities across the United States -- and, soon the world -- scrambled to build their own structures. In part two of this two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max explore the continuing race to build the tallest, the strongest, and the most iconic skyscrapers.

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in. That's our super producer, mister Max Williams.

Max sky High Williams.

Have you talked about the poop yet?

The pop Day?

That's Noel Brown. I've been bowling Noel. This is a two parter.

Yeah, yeah, if you can tell already, I think I think it earned two partner. Lots of really fun stuff to talk about when it comes to skyscrapers and man's inherent need to outdo himself, themselves, ourselves others. Yeah, there's a bit of a bit of a historical flex episode if you think about it. Let's jump right in.

The whole Insurance building did not just stand up on its own. It became a symbol something that stood for an entire architectural movement. We loosely call this the Chicago School, and this gave birth to all of those amazing skyscrapers in Chicago from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. And if you go to Chicago now and you go downtown or you're around the Loop, it's still very much a skyscraper City. You can take the little architectural river tour and they on a boat and they go.

If you're lucky, the Dave Matthews Band's tour bus will pull under the overpass bridge and dump the contents of its toilets on you.

Not guaranteed with the price of the ticket, but always a chance.

It will happen. It has been known to happen. The very least was I saw the fun This is really all by the way, look it up. I saw where it was like a meme where it was just a picture of a cassette like a fish concert, you know, taping kind of thing where it's like bootlet, but it just said Dave Matthews Band tour bus toilet dumping incident audio. And it was like someone was like, that was a fire set right there there. It is. Yeah.

And around this time the construction of the Home Insurance building. Around this time, in the eighteen eighties, people came up with a specific term to describe these types of towers. It was a name as bold and as ambitious as the buildings themselves.

Skydnswers scraper, No scrapers, not Skuys scrapers, s Guy's scrape doesn't it give us a record scratch.

Perfect? Weird side note, skyscrapers at this point was not entirely a new term. It used to mean a lot of other things.

So weird. I had no idea. In the seventeen eighties it was used to describe a particularly tall horse. I almost wonder if it was like a particularly famous, very tall horse that was named skyscraper. But I can't imagine people thrown around lots of skyscraper, right, I don't. That just doesn't sound right. Skyscraper sounds like the name of a race horse, you know what I mean? Yeah, it sounds very specific. But there's more right. It even was used now this I can't. I don't know why this is. This makes more sense to me. I just don't feel like as tall as a horse might be, there is no danger of it even even appearing to scrape the sky in any way, shape or form. However, the mast of a very large ship, when viewed from the horizon coming in that absolutely gives skyscraping. I'm trying to talk like the kids, you know, they just say it gives that's the new thing. It's not even new. But I would always say it gives skyscraping vibes. But the kids just drop vibes. It's just implied. It's just it gives skyscraper. Yeah.

Uh, tall hats or very tall bonnets.

I don't know why that's funny to me.

Yeah, like a top hat, like a stovepipe and stovepipe.

Yeah, good old aby linky.

A ball that was hit high into the air would be called a skyscraper.

That makes sense totally, like in like a you know, a big old pop fly or whatever you know in best Ball.

Oh, don't mention baseball around Max. He hates that stuff, does he?

I thought he likes the sporting.

I'm just lost reading about the Stave Matthews fan Chicago.

You're not aware of this?

Yeah?

Can you imagine relaxing water taxi tour of the beautiful architecture of Chicago only to be drenched in pope.

Hundred pounds of it? Oh god, how long are they storing this cause waste? It's the violinists bus alone.

Yeah, he wasn't in it.

The guy was driving around, but it said, uh and estimated eight hundred pounds of human waste.

Like, first of all, they get they each get their own full sized bus. The violinist gets his own pay. He has passed away, let's be respected. That's right.

Well, when he lived, he pooped a lot. Yeah, it's just like, oh, it's terrible.

Do you see anything in your research there? Max really quickly not to derail this too much. But was there legal action taken? Because I would argue, oh, yeah, they had.

They had to pay two hundred thousand dollars in environmental protection. They donated another one hundred thousand dollars to like like the river side, like like nonprofit crews.

But what did the people covered in filth get paid?

I am looking into that detail.

Now.

The bus driver, uh, did have to plead guilty to dumping waste April two thousand and five.

Let's just say it wasn't Boyd Tinsley, and that was the name of the violinist that pulled the trigger. It was. It was not in the bus right.

If anything, it's disparaging to his character to call it his bus. It is a bus that he rode, you know what I mean.

Oh, but by the way, just want those They did take the boat back to doc and issue everyone a refund. Oh kind of that, and then quickly swapped out his crew cleaned everything and then having a one tour they got they didn't miss their next tour.

Which is weird because there are some tours where people would pay for that. You know what, it's all about them, It's all about the framing of the experience.

I know. But I just feel like damages would have had to have been paid if that happened to me. I mean, that is a PTSD type moment, y'all. That is what if it got in your mouth? Who knows disease could have been spread.

I mean a lot of questions if people have to go to the hospital for that fear alone.

Oh I'm sure. How does this take us back to skyscrapers?

Oh yeah, you know where we're looking at the beautiful architecture before being blasted from our architectural reverie. But let's get back into it and just talk about the evolution of the concept of skyscrapers.

Yeah, because we were talking about this off air a little bit. The definition of skyscraper. It is no longer a weirdly big horse, nor a very tall bonnet or hat. It is now specifically architecture, and the definition is a bit changeable. The idea of what constitutes a skyscraper, like the burden of proof gets higher and higher and high.

Literally. By the late twentieth century, the term was used to describe what we would now maybe maybe more refer to as high rise buildings, but particularly high high rises generally greater than forty or fifty stories, because if we'll recall back, you know, in the early days of this type of construction, ten stories was a big deal. Twelve stories was a big deal. So the scale is sliding now. In order to be considered a skyscraper, boy, you got to be a minimum forty stories.

Wow. Yeah, that's a lot of stories, stories and anthology. So the historians sometimes will just describe skyscrapers of this period as the commercial style. But the architects of the Chicago School they had a common interest. They said, we can use new material science, we can use steel, we can use electricity, we can create these buildings that solve very real problems of urban density. And you know, they had elevators. Now, it doesn't make sense to build a skyscraper without elevator technology, you know. I like, what's the old joke about Manhattan. I got a great place. It's a fifth story walk up.

That's the joke. Where's the punchline? That just sounds terrible.

No, I think the guy was just mad about it. His calves were great.

Yeah, the place I stayed recently, a dear friend of the show, Jordan Runtag, allowed me to crash in his pad in Brooklyn, and it's a three story walk up, which it definitely makes you think twice about leaving. They coming back, even with three stories with no elevator. And you know, I'm just you know, I'm not exactly female, most athletic of types, but I can't imagine a five story walk up. That is very much a thing. And these are very narrow stairways. I've never personally helped anyone or moved myself into one of these apartments, but can you imagine just just lugging your furniture, your bed frame, all this of turning those corners just seems like a nightmare.

I'll say. So, as you guys know, I'm taking a trip to New York and here the next few weeks.

And that's, by the way, on your first trip to New York City.

Yeah, I bet in Chicago many years ago he did not have poop dumped on me.

Though New York's great, you're gonna have a fantastic time.

Well poopy dumped out town.

Possibly there's places for that if you would like.

There's always a non zero chance of being pooped on.

But to continue on, we were gonna book this thereby and being at booked like the morning right before we got it, and we ended up getting a different one, more expensive, And I'm actually kind of hapy about it because the first one had a five story walk up. Well the second one has a one. So yeah, I'm like, you know, but I'm kind of glad we're paying extra for a nicer place with a one story.

It just really makes you considerately, do I really want to go outside?

Right?

Right?

And this is first off again Max, You're gonna have a wonderful time. Sorry I can't be there with you. But next time, let's take a road trip together. What do you say?

Yeah, but only if we're going to like North Dakota, fair enough, or back to Montana's Montana's not the best day in this country?

All right?

Well, I was talking about New York, but sure.

I mean upstate New York. You can go to Maine, Connecticut.

Never been to Maine?

You guys just want to start talking about Skyrm again. Since all things are on the table, apparently.

No, I was in Connecticut just like a couple of weeks ago or last I can't remember last week. Maybe anyway, Yes, if everything is on the table, then let's introduce a couple of architects. One of my favorite names from the Chicago School. I don't know if you're ready for this, dank Mar.

Adler, the dankest of dank Mars.

Dank Mar d A n K M A R.

Yeah. Usually I think of that name as being a Dagmar. This guy is dank Mar. He is like the dankest of the dank and his buddy Lewis Sullivan, their firm, gave Frank Lloyd Wright another name, well not nearly as dope as dank Mar, that you may have heard of. They gave him his first shot architectural stardom, along with a guy named Daniel Burnham, who in nineteen oh two designed New York City's still standing flat iron building, which is it's very cool. Yeah, it's it's it's it's you love to see that it's still around.

And the Chicago School really in fluenced, the influenced and popularized the idea of skyscrapers, but perhaps more importantly, the way humans started building cities. You know, previously unthinkable levels of density are suddenly possible with the elevator, with the building up and building down instead of out. We also know we also know that other cities picked up the trend.

First.

New York makes sense, right because the whole insurance company is based in New York, so they want to get in on this. You know what happened. It became an arms race to build the tallest building.

Oh, we've already been in that, right, even since, dating as far back as the Pyramids. Right, everyone's trying to outdo everyone else there is now but now no longer it is there this dry I have to build as close to heaven as possible. It's a much more monetary drive. Right. But then, of course there is that prestige of making a name for yourself as a city. You know, we possess the largest building, the world's tallest building, the United States tallest building, what have you. It does seem though, that the honor of world's tallest building is never going to be in the United States ever.

Again, well, the odds are not great.

We'll see, there's a lot of money invested in some of these other countries we're going to talk about into being the most literally the most doing the most, being the most. Ley what if we built the world's tallest building and also covered it in gold leaf?

Folks, you may have heard it ridiculous historians. My cat, doctor Venkman, one of my cats, agreed with that so hard that he co signed what I was about to say, which is, really it depends on the record for tallest building, depends on how many buildings stay standing over time. Right, It's like the old joke about inflation. One time I asked my dad, Hey, do you ever think I'll be a millionaire? And he said, inflation's crazy. You might be a millionaire tomorrow, which is yeah, disturbing thing to say to a child.

Question, does it count that are you a millionaire if you've earned a million dollars over the course of your life?

Well, by that definition, a lot of people would be millionaires.

I think that's right. It's just funny to think about when you think about things like inflation. I think a lot of people in like upper middle class, over the course of a lifetime have likely earned a million dollars or more. But I guess maybe a million dollar a millionaire is more termed for people's net worth, right.

Yeah, And there were a lot of millionaires in the world of architecture where it would lead to a lot of millionaires because they like buying skyscrapers. They're super in to it. It's one of their things.

And just really quickly to take a sidebar and talk about an interesting concept that's kind of wrapped up in the question of does the antenna count, you know, like who owns the air There is a legal concept wrapped up in this, the idea of air rights, referring to a real estate owner's license over the vertical space extending above their property, and it is something that has to be procured. There's a real cool article on a blog called mansion Global that says property owners gain the rights to the land beneath the physical property as well as the air space above it, which can offer significant development opportunities. Vertical development does, though, have to consider air traffic and the interests of neighbors and use and development of that air space can't hang over into a neighbor's airspace or else the neighbor has the right to remove the structure that could involve things like antennae or satellite dishes that maybe you're jutting off to the side. As we know, a lot of you know, New York real estate buildings that are owned by separate entities are real close to one another. But I've always found the idea of like owning the air sort of like owning the moon or something. It's very interesting. Air rights are known today as transferable development rights, and they can be leased or bought or sold just like physical property, and are are incredibly valuable, as you know, as as available space on the ground continues to be scarcer and scarcer.

Yeah, agreed, right, And it's a it's it reminds me a bit of space Balls, that famous film wherein they talk about selling air right, remember that they can this.

Also, you can't say Spaceball. Don't expect me to jump in. Did you know Tuvak is in that movie, the guy who plays Tim Russ, who plays Tubac Tubac and of course he has the greatest line of all time when they're like comb the planet and they go through like, no, we found nothing. They ask like the the two Black stormtroopers who have a pick and Afro pick. Yeah, yeah, screens, we found. That's pretty about it.

Last thing that I just want to say that the up until the nineteen hundreds, air rights were considered to reach indefinitely into the heavens until a little thing called air travel became increasingly viable and popular. So now the Federal Aviation Administration actually has what's called a public easement for air transportation at high altitudes above all real estate. So there you go. Just thought i'd mentioned that because I think it's an interesting concept.

Yeah, it's it's an innovation that becomes necessary or an idea that becomes necessary with the construction of things like skyscrapers, which get higher into the air.

Right.

And then also the question is the same as or it's similar to the question of medieval architecture, right, where they would build two story buildings and then the second story would jut out from the first, right, which is part of why the streets looked so weird. It's because if you lived on the second story of these buildings in medieval Europe at least, you would commonly throw your poop out I'm doing a Dave Matthews call back, or throw your poop out into the street, and you would who would stop you? Because you were there, you had the rights to that air well.

And just swear to God. Last thing. This is fascinating for some reason. You probably already thought about this. But one way that developers can capitalize on their air rights if they're not building up, they've reached a cap kind of anything above that is going to be impractical, Well, they can lease it out to advertisers, you know, for billboards.

And the innovations with the skyscrapers continue. In the first decade of the twentieth century, there was this demand for office space. They had a lot of white collar staff we could call them, that are growing all these office jobs, right, so where are we going to put all these offices for all these people. Engineering developments made it easier to build and live in ever taller buildings. Chicago kept building new skyscrapers, and New York was more experimental. This is where we see, you know, the FLATIRN building, which we mentioned earlier, is where we see the Singer Tower, is where we see the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company tower, and the Woolworth building. And I have to tell you it's weird to me that multiple skyscrapers are the property of insurance companies. I guess that's a good billboard, yeah.

For sure. And I guess it is sort of an old industry as well. These skyscrapers were largely commercial successes, but this idea of these kind of towering structures started to feel to some like eye sores. They broke up the city skylines and created issues with kind of neighboring streets and buildings being shrouded in shadow because of these giant, looming structures. There was, of course, we know was coming. We all saw it, maybe not the time, but a serious economic depression coming that led to zoning restraints in New York City in nineteen sixty. Up until this point, guys, it was kind of wild westy you know, in terms of like with the unfettered development and being able to build up. So zoning became much more of a thing. And as many folks that are interested in city planning, no zoning is very very important. It can be a real pain in the butt in terms of like what is this space zoned for? You know what type of use? And you have to get permits based on all of these things to build and unless you're Greece and some palms, which as we know, certainly is a thing. It can't hold you up, it can hold up development, and definitely if you're not, you know, ticking the boxes.

And people love a good idea, right at least in the world of engineering, And so between World War One and World War Two, skyscrapers spread to most major US cities. And if you look around the world at this time, you'll see skyscrapers popping up in Japan and China, Argentina, Italy, Poland, Spain. Of course the United Kingdom. They took our comments about the Tower London person, yeah, and built things like the Strand. So the economic boom of the nineteen twenties and all the real estate speculation encouraged a new wave of skyscraper projects in New York and Chicago. They also did something pretty smart. We talked about it a little bit, the exoskeleton concept. So our old architect Jenny figured out this idea of a curtain wall. That's where you build this skeleton of metal and then you sort of tack masonry on it and it looks like it's a stone building, but the actual internal structure is steel. And skyscrapers mimic that design today.

Kind of reminds me of like the you know, traditional home building where you got like a wood sort of strain, you know, with studs and all of that, and crossby that's then covered with drywall.

And this is the story of the skyscraper. This has turned into a two parter. Spoiler, folks. We also know that now skyscrapers, which were once commercial architecture, they're residential at this point, Like a lot of people live in what we would call skyscrapers. And you may be asking yourself what happened to that famous home insurance building. Well, it was demolished in nineteen thirty one and replaced with an even taller skyscraper.

Of course it was yeah, forty five stories, the Lesalle Bank building. Well, I guess that kind of does bring us to the presence we should probably talk about some absurdlyly phallically dog swinging skyscraper flexes.

Huh yeah, yeah, you want to talk about the top five, Maybe we start with number five and get together.

I think we should number five. Oh boy, I'm not gonna do an amazing Joba pronouncing. Actually, Ben, maybe you should do this one. You've got a little bit more grasp of Chinese pronunciation than oh no, no.

Just spelled PI n G Space A in the ping On Finance Center in Shenzhen, China, built in twenty seventeen. It's a little bit south of two thousand feet tall and it has one hundred and fifteen occupied floors nine hundred and sixty five feet tall. We are fund at parties.

Yeah, and this is I guess the name says it all right, it is. Oh, it's a it's a real cool looking building. Very it looks like some sort of like crystal, you know, like with the tip of it, like a like a very giant sort of like energy crystal. Some guy. It's considered actually a many of these are considered like superstructures, like super tall skyscrapers. Right. And it was commissioned by ping On Insurance and designed by an American architect actually American architectural firm Kohne Patterson Fox Associates, and was finished in twenty seventeen. And it's the tallest building in Shenzen and the second tallest building in China, but only the fifth tallest in the world.

Yeah. To look at the next tallest building, We're traveling to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. The Macaw Royal Clock tower. It was built in twenty twelve, so it's older than the ping Alan Finance Center. It is one nine hundred and seventy two feet tall. It has one hundred and twenty occupied floors. So again we see this. These people are edging each other out by margins.

You know. Wow. And to be fair, I've never been in this building, but it does have a bit of a topper, almost like a hood ornament type deally bob on the top. That doesn't seem occupiable to me. There's in a big chunk of it is the clock face in and of itself. So this one seems to be hedging a little bit. I don't know, guys, what do you think?

Well, it still has more. That's that's why I wanted to put the occupied floors.

Okay, okay, so that's taking into account, thank you.

So it as five war occupied floors, right, non antenna, non clock, dally bops.

Uh.

The next window is even taller.

That's right. It is the Shanghai Tower in Cleveland, Ohio. That's a joke. That's fun. It's a funny joke.

Did it work?

Do you guys know? The deal with Ohio? It is the thing the kids are saying like, is Ohio good or bad? You know if you're you've got skibbity Ohio riz? Do you guys know about this? Okay? I think Ohio's lame. I think I think Ohio is considered kind of milk toast, kind of like no swag, not cool.

I mean the Buckeye state think think about it.

You are fun at parties, aren't you've been?

I do that one not too actually, but that's some universal mission fan. It's like, let's make a swamp, make it completely flat, and then make it cold. Are you talking about DC or Ohio? H DC is also really hot as well.

Yeah, he's different.

I mean DC's a different level of swamp.

We're keeping all of this, of course.

We are, because I thought Cleveland rocks. The kids don't appreciate rocket.

Have you ever seen the hastily made Cleveland tourism videos. No, it's an early early YouTube jokes type of stuff. There's some stuff, and of course that's age like milk. But I'll send them to y'all later.

Please, But you guys are familiar with this idea that the kids are slandering Ohio on the regulars lo key Okay, So no, it's not actually in Cleveland, Ohio. It's in Shanghai. Oh.

The tower yes, built in twenty fifteen, being a little bit north of two thousand feet tall, one hundred and twenty eight occupied floors. How would how would we describe the appearance?

Yeah, let's uh, let's let's do that. Oh boy, uh, very very Lord of the ringsy. It looks kind of like the like it's got a weird bowing structure on the inside, like it tapers kind of. I don't know, it's giving souron vibes to me for some reason. It just needs that eye floating over the top. By the way, I've always thought this been and there's one in particular I want to say it's in It's a city that we've been to a couple of times. I think Austin maybe, But there's like a building that does have these two two towers kind of that you could picture like electricity tesla coiling between. And there's something kind of sinister about the designs of some of these buildings, especially.

When we consider that the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings right was made in two thousand and one. So whoever built the Shanghai Towers in twenty fifteen, knew about the Tower of Surai and the adaptation of it, and they must have said it was cool. They also they always.

Kind of you know what the tapering comes from, Ben, I'm seeing it only from aside, But if you look at like a three sixty shot, it kind of twists. It sort of has like a weird half twist as it goes up. God, that is in the architecture is so cool, Like, how'd you accomplished that? I just couldn't even begin to answer that question.

What is it like to live on floor one twenty eight or have your office on the one hundred and twenty eighth floor. I feel like there's a diminishing return, like at some point that elevator ride becomes uncomfortable, or you ride multiple elevators, like you have to go to floor fifty and switch and then switch again. Eventually it's like taking a bus trip.

Guys. Apparently this was a giant economic flop. Apparently due to a bureaucratic red tape, safety concerns and issues from local fire authorities who were concerned about this giant flexy height. It took several years for the tower to gain all of its fire certifications. While operating at losses, the tower ran a deficit of more than one point five billion dollars. Cool, nothing weird. I guess that's the gamble though, right every time you build a skyscraper, you're taking an enormous risk. You might end up with something like number two right now. The second tallest skyscraper the merdeca Ie eighteen in Malaysia. This was built in twenty twenty three, just last year. It's two two hundred and twenty seven feet tall, but it only has one hundred and eighteen occupied floors, which leads me to once again ask should we.

Count the antenna? Should we count the part of the building where people can actually.

Go I'm with you both, Well, I'm with you Max, and I think you're probably on the same I know you're just being Devil's advocate here, but I think we all agree that, you know, unless you're one of those Spiderman type figures who can like crawl the top of that antenna to do a crazy panoramic YouTube video that makes me want to vomit. You see those these crazy Russian kids that go out and do these and they hang off the top of these things. Absolutely terrifying just watching the video. I can't even do the VR, you know, stepping off the edge of the plank game without getting a little bit of a cold sweat. But I think one thing we're learning clearly here is that past a certain point, this stuff does become risky, as evidenced by the Shanghai towers and ability to get those permits because of safety concerns. So you do get to a point where this is literally a d measuring contest.

Yeah, and we know that this contest continues right now as we are recording on May twenty first, twenty twenty four. The Berje Khalifa in the UAE United Arab Emirates is the tallest building in the world. It was built in twenty ten. It's two thousand, seven hundred and seventeen feet tall. There are one hundred and sixty three occupied floors. However, this will be number two pretty soon if everything else, if everything goes to play in Saudi Arabia, is going to make the world's newest tallest building. The Jetta Tower.

Located in Jetta, Saudi Arabia, which is a port city bordered by the Red Sea. It's the second most populated city in Saudi Arabia. When complete, this skyscraper will be the tallest skyscraper in the world. But that's going to be quite a way away though, right Do we have an ETA on completion? Everything I'm seeing is just kind of artists rendering. It looks here, oh, it has. It is under construction. It started back at twenty thirteen, took a pause in twenty eighteen because they switched contractors, I believe due to some political issues. It is predicted to be completed. Jeez, it doesn't really say.

They don't really know. They just have construction restarted in September.

Speaking of stuff that's been under construction for ages, I'm really excited. I'm going to Barcelona, Spain for the first time, and I'm looking forward to seeing the gaudy church that has been under construction for like one hundred years. It is called the Sagrada Familia. It is the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world, designed by Antony Gaudi, and it is just about to be officially finished and you can take a tour, and I'm really looking forward to checking it out. It looks like something out of like an alien movie. It's very otherworldly.

And the construction continues. Humans like making stuff. This is our week on skyscrapers, folks. It ended up as a two parter because we just kept building. I'm doing references and talking about poop. Well, Max, it needs to be mentioned.

Not throw me under the bus. No, you brought up skyrm beforehand. You brought up the poop.

I know, but then you just double down every time. Max, You're incorrigible, you're encouraged.

That's my job. That's what y'all pay me to do.

Fair enough, fair enough, and worth every penny.

And thank you to our super producer, mister Max Williams, Thanks to aj Bahamas Jacobs, thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance and of course thinks that Eves Jeff goat here in spirit.

And thanks to you Ben for rocking this incredible outline, taking us on this incredible water taxi tour through the history of skyscrapers, and we emerged unscathed by the fecal matter of the Dave Matthews Band, So thank you for that as well, maybe slightly slightly scathed.

You know, he's a big fan of Dave Matthews. Jonathan Strickland aka the quister.

I wonder if he's such a monster. We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.