Below excerpt is from the book On Architecture by Ada Louis Huxtable. An essay published in The Wall Street Journal in 2002.
Building tall has a price. From the Tower of Babel to the World Trade Center, doing so can invite questions. An enduring obsession, fed by vanity, hubris, and greed, it has produced something astonishingly beautiful, unlike anything ever built before.
The skyscraper is American and so is the technology, the steel frame and curtain wall, the elevator, artificial light, and ventilation all have made immense, multifloored, structures practical and profitable. […]
The prize that is relentlessly pursued and constantly lost is the title of Tallest Building in the World. In the high stakes game of development, glory and profit are equally important. Architecture helps glory along.
We will find ways to build high, as a gesture of faith, an act of defiance, an assertion of control, the refusal to acknowledge the limits of nature or the existence of the enemy, because we need to see our buildings soar as a symbol of prosperity and pride. But they will be vulnerable and we will be vulnerable, whatever we have learned, whether it is about technology or engineering.
Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2002
