Skyscraper One Mile High

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28802, 24 January 1959, Page 10

Skyscraper One Mile High

IBV

WESJEY HARTZELL

NEW YORK, January 10. •• A RAPIER, with handle the breadth of the hand, J* set firmly into the ground, blade upright.” That’s an imaginative description by America’s leading architect of the most towering and ambitious structure ever conceived, a skyscraper rising from bedrock, .5280 feet—one mile—into the heavens. Frank Lloyd Wright is the man who says a milehigh building is possible, and his conception of it is tickling the fancy of architects the world over.

Wright has specialised in imaginative —and controversial —building design since the early 1890’s. In addition to fathering several notable advances in the use of glass, concrete and core-cantilever construction, he has designed such landmarks as the . “earthquakeproof” Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, the Larkin Building in Buffalo, the circular Guggenheim Memorial Museum in New York City, and more than 600 homes, commercial buildings, communities, and college campuses. And now, this “mile-high skyscraper.” Ten such structures, Wright says, would take care of the working office staff of all New* York City. Six would do it for Chicago. These first “truly tall buildings,” he insists, will one day remake our cities and allow us to construct parks and play areas where we now have unsightly business sections.

But what about problems of rigidity, of entrance and exit, of fire safety and cleaning? They can all be solved, says Mr Wright, and with materials and power sources already available. The design itself, however, is revolutionary. For instance, the structure’s tremendous weight will not rest on a flat surface, as with conventional buildings, but will be distributed equally around a deepsunk taproot, a sharp wedge descending approximately 1000 feet (one-fifth of the structure’s height) into solid bedrock. “Spinal Column” From this tripodal base, a rigid reinforced concrete “spinal column" will rise, floor by floor, until 528 storeys have been hung “rib-like" from the centre. This central core, and the building itself, would be tripod-shaped, diminishing in circumference as it rises. AU utility lines—Ught, heat, air-conditioning, plumbing —will run through a hollow section of the “spine." And here is Mr Wright’s unique

plan for the actual construction. After the foundation is in, the core will go up one storey. On top of this, the floor wiU be run out on aU sides of the core. (These cantilevered floor slabs will be formed by special high-tension steel, diamond-mesh reinforced, and cast into light concrete slabs.) Then the core will be extended another storey and again the floor run out. From this second floor, the walls for the first will be hung. Wright says that in this way, while work on the third floor proceeds, the first could be occupied. Thus the structure will go up in layers, with most of it

occupied even before it’s completed. The elevators, according to Mr Wright, will not be lifted by cables “because they would weigh • too much.” Rather they will be' self-propelled along vertical, cog-; like tracks, using electric motors ' powered from a central power plant generating electricity from atomic fuel. The elevators will be five storeys high with cabs 12 feet square. Each car will carry 100 people and the entire five-storey unit will rocket to the upper floors at speeds up to 60 miles per hour. Wright insists it will be impossible for the elevators to fall, since they’ll be locked in their cog tracks. A striking feature of the elevator < system is that, above the fiftiethfloor, the shafts will emerge through the sides of the tripodal building and ride up the outside of the structure. Wright says these exterior shafts will add a< decorative touch and give passengers a breathtaking view as they ride to the top floor. 130,000 Inhabitants The mile-high skyscraper will be “more permanent than the pyramids,” says Mr Wright “It will be rigid far beyond present types of structures.” Its 130,000 inhabitants will work in spacious comfort in a net rentable area of 13,047,000 square feet (Empire State Building: 20,000 inhabitants, 2,000,000 square feet). They will park their cars (15,000 of them) , underground. The cost of the mile-high build* ing would be 80 to 100 million dollars at present prices. This would be about half of what orthodox construction to achieve the same capacity would cost. At this date, however, no builder has volunteered to make the dream a reality. Interviewed at Taliesin, his home and school in Spring Green, Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright said he is confident that such buildings—and even taller ones—will be built, “although not while I’m alive. When something like this gets into the bloodstream of a nation, it gets done.” He adds: “Even though it won’t be built” while I’m alive, it doesn’t have to be as far as I’m concerned. I’ve already seen it!”