Manawatu Daily Times Scraping The Sky

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6944, 25 June 1929, Page 6

Manawatu Daily Times Scraping The Sky

With the experiences of the last few days still vividly before them New Zealandei's arc not likely to show any enthusiasm for skyscraping architecture. But both in Europe and America the problems of housing the enormous aggregations of population in the great cities arc forcing architects to go up higher and higher. Chicago, which is threatening New York’s supremacy in the world of big things, has just announced that plans are completed for a 75-storey building. This tremendous structure, planned to rise SBO feet above the street level, promises to be not alone the tallest building in the world, but indeed the largest. For many years the record for height has been held by the Woolworth Building in New York City, which is 792 feet tall, with fifty-eight storeys. The Chrysler Building, now under construction in the same city will be 808 feet tall and contain sixty-three storeys. But the Chrysler Building had been under construction but a few months when the new Bank of Manhattan Building was announced, 840 feet high with sixty-three storeys and a tower.

The tremendous heights of these buildings may he appreciated when it is remembered that the Washington Monument is but 556 feet high and the Eiffel Tower but 999 feet. Height alone, however, is no fair measure of the size of a building. The Woolworth Building contains 13,200,000 cubic feet, the Equitable Building in New York City measured 24,000,000 cubic feet, whereas the Merchandise Mart, now being built in Chicago, although only thirtyfour storeys high, will measure 28,000,000 cubic feet. This new seventy-five storey building for Chicago will, it is planned, measure 63,000,000 cubic feet.

It is preposterous to believe that structures such as these arc built for their advertising value alone. Buildings costing £12,000,000 or more are not used in that w r ay. They would not be erected unless there existed good economic reasons for them, and if skyscrapers are economic, then how high is the limit of economic return on the investment ? This is a subject that has been given careful study by numerous building experts. Among architects and structural engineers the eighty-five storey building is most frequently spoken of as the maximum of economic height. If built higher, the structure, it is believed, would entail too great expenditures for steel, would require columns too large to build, and would necessitate too many elevators. And furthermore, the occupants would not be willing to spend the time necessary to go from the first to the higher storeys.

Skyscrapers are much like cities. Unless they offer conveniences not otherwise found, they will not he occupied. They must have easy access and easy egress. The offices and rooms must be reached readily and without loss of time by visitors. In other words, while they tend to bring together under one roof a large number of persons, they must not unduly congest their population nor spread out in such a fashion as to make it difficult to a isit the offices. These stupendous structures also must he built with a view to offering comfortable access to the tenants. The seventy-five storey building ior Chicago will be built over the tracks of the Illinois Central Railroad. The larger buildings now being constructed in all cities are planned so as to give easy access to subways, street cars, ’bus iincs and the other established means of transportation. Their occupants, very largely, are able to come and go without entering the streets upon which they arc erected. The modern trend in skyscraper building, however, is leaving an impress upon city planners. The development of skyscrapers raises for municipal authorities problems as to their height, size ancl spacing. Granting, as the fabricators of structural steel contend, that the material is perfectly safe for any economic height or size, still the question arises whether it would not be politic to impose some restrictions.