San Antonio College Library

"From Ada Louise Huxtable - America's most acclaimed architecture critic, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and a MacArthur Prize Fellow - here is an energetic defense of cities and a brilliant consideration of the skyscraper as art, as business, as the product of politics and speculation. Despite the fact that the skyscraper has existed for a century, the question of how to design the tall building has never been resolved. In a vivid account of the search...

In 2003, Moscow's Triumph Palace became Europe's tallest building. What is striking about this luxury residential block is not so much it's height but the fact that it resurrects an architectural style closely linked with the city's turbulent political past. In the 1940s Josef Stalin commissioned a series of seven tall towers that would compete with the skyscrapers of New York. Known as the Seven Sisters, the towers were created to inspire Russian...

Behind the glistening façade of Boston's John Hancock Tower lies one of the most embarrassing moments in architectural history. The insurance company wanted to express their corporate might by building a modernist skyscraper in the heart of Boston's historic core, threatening to pull their financial weight out of the city if they faced opposition. Little did they know that this act of arrogance would haunt them forever. Their dream tower turned...

With the highest roof on earth, the sleek Shanghai World Finance Center stands in the city that has overtaken New York and Chicago as skyscraper capital of the world. Setting the standard for a new generation of super tall skyscrapers, this Japanese-developed tower, built on Chinese land, also symbolizes a new era in relations between the two previously hostile countries after Japan's violent invasion of China in the 1930s. This troubled history meant...

As the tallest residential skyscraper in the UK, Manchester's distinctive Beetham Tower is turning heads-and dividing opinion. Heading up a new generation of skyscrapers that are regenerating Britain's post-industrial cities, Beetham is at the heart of a battle between traditionalists and modernists-because despite producing some of the world's leading high-rise architects like Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, Britain isn't exactly enamored with...

Moscow has become Europe's skyscraper capital, with the Naberezhnaya Tower holding the title of the continent's tallest building. It represents a new era for the city, one in which Moscow can finally compete with the other major financial centers of the world. Further skyscrapers, such as Norman Foster's 500 meter tall Russia Tower, are currently being built-pushing the parameters of both height and skyscraper design in Europe. These extraordinary...

1180 Peachtree is a striking icon on the Atlanta skyline, its huge fins making it distinct from other skyscrapers in the city. But it's not all about good looks - 1180 is creating a new era for the city's towers. Back in the 1980s, when crime and racial tension were rife in the city, architects designed skyscrapers that existed independently of street life, connecting to parking and shopping malls with sky bridges that made sidewalks completely redundant....

Stunning skylines are fuelled by money-and Hong Kong has one of the most stunning in the world. With a lack of land on the island, the only way is up. The most prized-and expensive-plot is the financial district of Central where one skyscraper towers above the rest, star of Batman movies and gleaming white pillar of capitalism, 2 International Finance Center. To ensure the developers made a healthy return on their investment, 2IFC's architects had...

A look up at the symbol of the American Century--the skyscraper, the construction of which is a triumph of engineering and capitalism. Climb to the top of the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Sears Tower, and World Trade Center to see how.