1,001 Skyscrapers [Illustrated] [Spiral-bound]

Jeannie Meejin Yoon (Author), Eric Höweler (Author), Eric Howeler (Author), Jeannie Meejin Yoon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 20, 2000

This playful book offers the most fun path to designing your own skyscraper. Twenty-five of the most famous skyscrapers have been scaled to the same size and cut into three pieces; these can be recombined to make 15,625 new buildings of your own creation. Fashion the Empire Trade Center or the Chrysler Hancock Tower by mixing and matching the pages. Each building is identified by name, date, and architect and includes a brief history, so this book is educational as well as interactive. The results are sometimes humorous, sometimes fortuitous, and always educational and entertaining. Colorful and affordable, 1,001 Skyscrapers is fun for builders of all ages.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The world's love of skyscrapers is so great that architectural book publishers never will stop thinking of ways to create new books about them--as evidenced by this clever, colorful, and fun Filofax-shaped interactive number. It takes vertical shots of 27 of the world's most famous tall buildings; scales them all equally; cuts them into bottom, middle, and top; and, then, through the magic of a loose-leaf ring binder, allows you to flip around their various three parts to see, say, what New York's 1913 Woolworth Building--Cass Gilbert's legendary faux-Gothic "cathedral of commerce"--would look like with the base of its neighbor from a few blocks away, Emery Roth and Sons' 1972-3 World Trade Center (schizophrenic, to say the least)... or how Skidmore Owings & Merrill's 1969 Hancock Center in Chicago would look if it were topped off by the richly patterned minaret-like crowns of Cesar Pelli's twin Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (a perfect geometric fit, actually (if not a stylistic stumper), thanks to the Hancock's ever-tapering shaft). The funny thing is that so many of the towers of the past few years look like Deco by LEGO, with their stepped-back stories and sexy chevron-like styling. Take, for example, Murphy Jahn's 1990 Messeturm in Frankfurt; or SOM's fabulous "space-age pagoda," the 1998 Jin Mao Building in Shanghai--these actually line up very nicely with the Chrysler and the Empire State, while that midcentury-modern chock-a-block batch in the middle of the book (Seagram, Sears, and Pei's Boston Hancock are among the usual suspects) truly don't jibe with the "phabulous phalli" of either today or the pre-WWII era.

Thanks to those brainy folks at Princeton Architectural Press, each 'scraper comes with some annotation that ranges from the very sharp (they astutely call the hastily erected and artfully set-back Empire State "a spectacular surrender of architecture to economic forces and zoning restrictions") to the academically overcooked (the small, 18-inch windows of the WTC's twin towers "minimize the occupants' acrophobia," we are gratefully informed, "thereby inscribing the notion of vertigo into the buildings themselves"). It's also hard to get a clear view of any one building whole, as the three parts of each wobble on their rings--suggesting rather chillingly what the edifices might look like moments after cracking into three pieces under the force of an earthquake--but, no matter, as you probably have seen coherent versions of all of these longtime and recent classics elsewhere. And the book is so much fun to play with that it's the perfect gift both for kids--whom it might turn into architects--and architects--whom, to the benefit of their careers, it might turn back into kids. --Timothy Murphy

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 64 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (December 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568982291
• ISBN-13: 978-1568982298
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,698,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a good guide to skyscrapers, June 27, 2003

By 

"bcbethany" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1,001 Skyscrapers (Spiral-bound)

This is a book for 5 year-olds and that's about it. I really regret buying it.

3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 1,001 Skyscrapers, November 30, 2000

By 

"[e-mail]" (Calgary, AB, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1,001 Skyscrapers (Spiral-bound)

Whoa, if its archiecture, and skyscrapers that your looking for, this could be the one for you! this particular book is crammed with pictures, information and stats about skyscrapers! i was very impressed with the great detail they used to brig this book together,