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Executive Suite is a 1954 American Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer drama film directed by Robert Wise and written by Ernest Lehman , based on the 1952 novel of the same name by Cameron Hawley . The film stars William Holden , June Allyson , Barbara Stanwyck , Fredric March , Walter Pidgeon , Shelley Winters , Paul Douglas , Louis Calhern , Dean Jagger , and Nina Foch . The plot depicts the internal struggle for control of a furniture manufacturing company after the unexpected death of the company's CEO. Executive Suite was nominated for multiple Academy Awards , including for Nina Foch's performance, which earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination.

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84-795: The Continental Bank Building is a 50-story skyscraper at 30 Broad Street in the Financial District of Manhattan , New York City . It was completed in 1932 in the Art Deco style. It is next to the New York Stock Exchange Building . In 1929, a new 50-story building was announced at 30 Broad Street (location of the former 15-story Johnston Building ) to house the Continental Bank and Trust Company and various brokers. The site extends along Broad Street at 87 feet 7 inches (26.70 m),

168-578: A Buttressed core . Trussed tube and X-bracing: Executive Suite This was Lehman's first produced screenplay, and its plot deviates substantially from the novel. He went on to write Sabrina , North by Northwest , West Side Story , and other films. The film is one of few in Hollywood history without a musical score. While in New York City to meet with investment bankers, 56-year-old Avery Bullard, president and driving force of

252-541: A city consisting entirely of high-rise housing is the 16th-century city of Shibam in Yemen . Shibam was made up of over 500 tower houses, each one rising 5 to 11 stories high, with each floor being an apartment occupied by a single family. The city was built in this way in order to protect it from Bedouin attacks. Shibam still has the tallest mudbrick buildings in the world, with many of them over 30 m (98 ft) high. An early modern example of high-rise housing

336-751: A more classical approach came back to global skyscraper design, that remains popular today. Examples are the Wells Fargo Center , NBC Tower , Parkview Square , 30 Park Place , the Messeturm , the iconic Petronas Towers and Jin Mao Tower . Other contemporary styles and movements in skyscraper design include organic , sustainable , neo-futurist , structuralist , high-tech , deconstructivist , blob , digital , streamline , novelty , critical regionalist , vernacular , Neo Art Deco and neohistorist , also known as revivalist . 3 September

420-420: A newspaper that the man had the initials "A.B." on his clothes and cufflinks, he calls the police to tip them off to the identity of the deceased. Bullard had never named his successor nor had he appointed an executive vice-president since the previous one died. Over the next 28 hours, Tredway's executives vie for the position of president. Company controller Loren Shaw arranges Bullard's funeral and coordinates

504-399: A particularly small surface area of what are conventionally thought of as walls. Because the walls are not load-bearing most skyscrapers are characterized by surface areas of windows made possible by the concept of steel frame and curtain wall. However, skyscrapers can also have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls and have a small surface area of windows. The concept of a skyscraper is

588-420: A product of the industrialized age , made possible by cheap fossil fuel derived energy and industrially refined raw materials such as steel and concrete . The construction of skyscrapers was enabled by steel frame construction that surpassed brick and mortar construction starting at the end of the 19th century and finally surpassing it in the 20th century together with reinforced concrete construction as

672-454: A proto-skyscraper, or to New York's seven-floor Equitable Life Building , built in 1870. Steel skeleton construction has allowed for today's supertall skyscrapers now being built worldwide. The nomination of one structure versus another being the first skyscraper, and why, depends on what factors are stressed. The structural definition of the word skyscraper was refined later by architectural historians, based on engineering developments of

756-412: A proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line. Some structural engineers define a high-rise as any vertical construction for which wind is a more significant load factor than earthquake or weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high-rises but some other tall structures, such as towers . Different organizations from

840-412: A scene late in the movie with Audrey Hepburn standing on the sidewalk outside its entrance. The building and Broad Street are also seen in an early scene when William Holden parks his car out front. The building is also used as a location in the opening scene of the 1954 film Executive Suite , also starring William Holden. A businessman walks out of the building, looks up and down Broad Street for

924-571: A skyscraper today, it was record setting. The building of tall buildings in the 1880s gave the skyscraper its first architectural movement, broadly termed the Chicago School , which developed what has been called the Commercial Style. The architect, Major William Le Baron Jenney , created a load-bearing structural frame. In this building, a steel frame supported the entire weight of the walls, instead of load-bearing walls carrying

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1008-417: A small surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a tubular structure , and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic, and other lateral loads. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks , which in some cases is also structurally required. As of September 2023 , fifteen cities in

1092-515: A taxi, then succumbs to a heart attack, setting the movie's plot into motion. Skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least 100 meters (330 ft) or 150 meters (490 ft) in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise buildings . Skyscrapers may host offices, hotels, residential spaces, and retail spaces. One common feature of skyscrapers

1176-521: A time, the tallest of which is the 97.2 m (319 ft) high Asinelli Tower. A Florentine law of 1251 decreed that all urban buildings be immediately reduced to less than 26 m. Even medium-sized towns of the era are known to have proliferations of towers, such as the 72 towers that ranged up to 51 m height in San Gimignano . The medieval Egyptian city of Fustat housed many high-rise residential buildings, which Al-Muqaddasi in

1260-466: A variety of shapes, and it could be riveted, ensuring strong connections. The simplicity of a steel frame eliminated the inefficient part of a shear wall, the central portion, and consolidated support members in a much stronger fashion by allowing both horizontal and vertical supports throughout. Among steel's drawbacks is that as more material must be supported as height increases, the distance between supporting members must decrease, which in turn increases

1344-469: A vertical tube-like structural system capable of resisting lateral forces in any direction by cantilevering from the foundation". Closely spaced interconnected exterior columns form the tube. Horizontal loads (primarily wind) are supported by the structure as a whole. Framed tubes allow fewer interior columns, and so create more usable floor space, and about half the exterior surface is available for windows. Where larger openings like garage doors are required,

1428-431: Is Bullard's body in the street below their offices. He tells his broker to make a short sale of as much Tredway stock as he can before the end of trading that Friday afternoon. Caswell plans to make an easy profit and cover the sale by buying Tredway stock at "a 10-point discount" on Monday, when news of Bullard's death will push the stock price down. Caswell begins to doubt that it was Bullard who died, but when he reads in

1512-436: Is concerned more with short-term accounting gains and satisfying the stockholders than the quality of the company's actual products and long-term growth. He gains the proxy of Julia Tredway, the daughter of the company's founder, who is a major shareholder and board member. She had been considering selling her stock after realizing the futility of her difficult romantic relationship with and love for Bullard after many years. She

1596-704: Is having a steel frame that supports curtain walls . This idea was invented by Viollet le Duc in his discourses on architecture. These curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete . Modern skyscraper walls are not load-bearing , and most skyscrapers are characterized by large surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames and curtain walls. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with

1680-498: Is having an affair with his secretary, Eva Bardeman, which Shaw uses to blackmail him. Vice President of Manufacturing Jesse Grimm decides to retire instead of seeking the top job. But while he is no fan of Shaw's, he has serious reservations about the relative youth of the only other potential contender, Don Walling, the idealistic Vice President for Design and Development. All these machinations result in Shaw having enough votes to get

1764-406: Is important in most building design, but particularly for skyscrapers since even a small chance of catastrophic failure is unacceptable given the tremendous damage such failure would cause. This presents a paradox to civil engineers : the only way to assure a lack of failure is to test for all modes of failure, in both the laboratory and the real world. But the only way to know of all modes of failure

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1848-433: Is largely from the force of the building material itself. In most building designs, the weight of the structure is much larger than the weight of the material that it will support beyond its own weight. In technical terms, the dead load , the load of the structure, is larger than the live load , the weight of things in the structure (people, furniture, vehicles, etc.). As such, the amount of structural material required within

1932-399: Is the global commemorative day for skyscrapers, called "Skyscraper Day". New York City developers competed among themselves, with successively taller buildings claiming the title of "world's tallest" in the 1920s and early 1930s, culminating with the completion of the 318.9 m (1,046 ft) Chrysler Building in 1930 and the 443.2 m (1,454 ft) Empire State Building in 1931,

2016-419: Is to learn from previous failures. Thus, no engineer can be absolutely sure that a given structure will resist all loadings that could cause failure; instead, one can only have large enough margins of safety such that a failure is acceptably unlikely. When buildings do fail, engineers question whether the failure was due to some lack of foresight or due to some unknowable factor. The load a skyscraper experiences

2100-526: The lobby to the 20th floor and the other from the lobby to floors 21 through 47. The 48th floor is accessed by stairs from floor 47. Total rentable space is announced as 300,000 square feet (28,000 m). The building columns sit on new footings which rest upon rocks. The average depth of the new foundations is 46 feet (14 m) below Broad Street. However, the Broad Street side of the building rests on existing caissons. An adjoining structure along

2184-404: The spandrels . The building footprint rises from street level to the 20th floor, where the first setback is made; another setback exists at the 23rd floor. The building tower then rises from the 24th to 48th floors. The top of the building is flat (having no ornament). The building's lobby runs through from Broad Street to New Street with two elevator banks which serve the building, one set from

2268-643: The " Seven Sisters ", were built between 1947 and 1953; and one, the Main building of Moscow State University , was the tallest building in Europe for nearly four decades (1953–1990). Other skyscrapers in the style of Socialist Classicism were erected in East Germany ( Frankfurter Tor ), Poland ( PKiN ), Ukraine ( Hotel Moscow ), Latvia ( Academy of Sciences ), and other Eastern Bloc countries. Western European countries also began to permit taller skyscrapers during

2352-460: The 10th century described as resembling minarets . Nasir Khusraw in the early 11th century described some of them rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top floor complete with ox-drawn water wheels for irrigating them. Cairo in the 16th century had high-rise apartment buildings where the two lower floors were for commercial and storage purposes and the multiple stories above them were rented out to tenants . An early example of

2436-465: The 1880s that had enabled construction of tall multi-story buildings. This definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry , which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicago's Monadnock Building . What is the chief characteristic of the tall office building? It is lofty. It must be tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch

2520-600: The 1960s now use a tube design derived from Khan's structural engineering principles, examples including the construction of the World Trade Center , Aon Center , Petronas Towers , Jin Mao Building , and most other supertall skyscrapers since the 1960s. The strong influence of tube structure design is also evident in the construction of the current tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa , which uses

2604-603: The 1960s, according to the CTBUH, the skyscraper has been reoriented away from a symbol for North American corporate power to instead communicate a city or nation's place in the world. Skyscraper construction entered a three-decades-long era of stagnation in 1930 due to the Great Depression and then World War II . Shortly after the war ended, Russia began construction on a series of skyscrapers in Moscow . Seven, dubbed

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2688-807: The 26th century BC. It was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 160 m (520 ft) Lincoln Cathedral having exceeded it in 1311–1549, before its central spire collapsed. The latter in turn was not surpassed until the 555-foot (169 m) Washington Monument in 1884. However, being uninhabited, none of these structures actually comply with the modern definition of a skyscraper. High-rise apartments flourished in classical antiquity . Ancient Roman insulae in imperial cities reached 10 and more stories. Beginning with Augustus (r. 30 BC-14 AD), several emperors attempted to establish limits of 20–25 m for multi-stories buildings, but were met with only limited success. Lower floors were typically occupied by shops or wealthy families, with

2772-690: The 57 m (187 ft) tall 1924 Marx House in Düsseldorf , the 65 m (213 ft) tall Borsigturm in Berlin , built in 1924, the 65 m (213 ft) tall Hansahochhaus in Cologne , Germany, built in 1925; the 61 m (200 ft) Kungstornen (Kings' Towers) in Stockholm , Sweden, which were built 1924–25; the 77 m (253 ft) Ullsteinhaus in Berlin, Germany, built in 1927;

2856-613: The 89 m (292 ft) Edificio Telefónica in Madrid , Spain, built in 1929; the 87.5 m (287 ft) Boerentoren in Antwerp, Belgium, built in 1932; the 66 m (217 ft) Prudential Building in Warsaw , Poland, built in 1934; and the 108 m (354 ft) Torre Piacentini in Genoa , Italy, built in 1940. After an early competition between New York City and Chicago for

2940-566: The CTBUH, is the distance between the highest floor and its architectural top (excluding antennae, flagpole or other functional extensions). Vanity height first appeared in New York City skyscrapers as early as the 1920s and 1930s but supertall buildings have relied on such uninhabitable extensions for on average 30% of their height, raising potential definitional and sustainability issues. The current era of skyscrapers focuses on sustainability , its built and natural environments, including

3024-511: The Monday morning: a new executive vice-president is to be elected. Cast notes: Dore Schary , MGM's head of production, originally intended to produce the film himself, but turned it over to John Houseman because he was too busy. Schary intended for the film to have no musical score, using sounds such as "church bells, sirens, the roar of traffic, crowd noises, horns, the squeal of tires, faraway screams of brakes." Executive Suite

3108-590: The Tredway Corporation, a major furniture manufacturing company in the town of Millburgh, Pennsylvania, drops dead in the street. As he collapses, he drops his wallet. A bystander picks it up, steals the cash, and shoves the wallet into a wastebasket. As a result, there is no way to immediately identify the body. George Caswell, a member of the Tredway board of directors and one of the investment bankers with whom Bullard had just met, sees what he believes

3192-1019: The U.S. and Canada, and $ 903,000 in other markets, for a worldwide total of $ 3,585,000 and a profit of $ 772,000. More than two decades later, the film and novel were adapted into a weekly television series with the same title. Airing on CBS in 1976–1977, the TV version changed the fictional corporate setting to the Cardway Corporation in Los Angeles. Mitchell Ryan starred as company chairman Dan Walling, with Sharon Acker as his wife Helen and Leigh McCloskey and Wendy Phillips as his children, Brian and Stacey. Other series regulars included Stephen Elliott , Byron Morrow , Madlyn Rhue , William Smithers , Paul Lambert , Richard Cox , Trisha Noble , Carl Weintraub , Maxine Stuart , and Ricardo Montalbán . Scheduling opposite Monday Night Football on ABC, and then The Rockford Files on NBC, doomed

3276-470: The United States and Europe define skyscrapers as buildings at least 150 m (490 ft) in height or taller, with " supertall " skyscrapers for buildings higher than 300 m (984 ft) and " megatall " skyscrapers for those taller than 600 m (1,969 ft). The tallest structure in ancient times was the 146 m (479 ft) Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt , built in

3360-497: The amount of material that must be supported. This becomes inefficient and uneconomic for buildings above 40 stories tall as usable floor spaces are reduced for supporting column and due to more usage of steel. A new structural system of framed tubes was developed by Fazlur Rahman Khan in 1963. The framed tube structure is defined as "a three dimensional space structure composed of three, four, or possibly more frames, braced frames, or shear walls, joined at or near their edges to form

3444-432: The building in 1943. The building was designed as a skyscraper rising 48 stories, 564 feet (172 m) above street level with a "simple" architecture. According to the architects, the structure is designed to express straightforward business of the highest class without excessive ornamentation. The first three stories of the façade are clad in limestone with the remainder made up of light-colored brick and dark brick at

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3528-633: The building's planners. An "unusual" feature of the building was a sub- basement clearing house where owner-tenants each have floor space and can transact business with other owner-tenants in the building by a system of pneumatic tubes to exchange receipts. Architects Morris and O’Connor completed drawings for the building in 1931. The demolition of the Johnston building was planned from May 5 to July 13. The 15-story structure had exterior masonry that bore walls composed of granite (some pieces weighing as much as 10 tons) that were up to three feet thick at

3612-424: The classical designs of the early skyscrapers , instead embracing the uniform international style ; many older skyscrapers were redesigned to suit contemporary tastes or even demolished—such as New York's Singer Building , once the world's tallest skyscraper. German -American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became one of the world's most renowned architects in the second half of the 20th century. He conceived

3696-439: The company's public reaction. In so doing, he undercuts treasurer Frederick Alderson, one of Bullard's close friends, and this effectively diminishes Alderson in his own eyes so that he does not seek the presidency. Shaw also releases the upcoming quarterly report so that the news of big profits can counter the effect of Bullard's death and perhaps even raise the stock price when the market opens. Ambitious, but narrowly focused, Shaw

3780-428: The conflicts and collisions that give business its true drama." The film has received critical acclaim from modern day critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives a score of 100% based on 9 reviews, with an average score of 8/10. The film was number one at the U.S. box office for four consecutive weeks during May 1954, grossing $ 1,845,000. According to MGM records, the film eventually earned theatrical rentals of $ 2,682,000 in

3864-648: The creation of a significant number of early skyscrapers, though none of these were steel reinforced and few remain today. Height limits and fire restrictions were later introduced. In the late 1800s, London builders found building heights limited due to issues with existing buildings. High-rise development in London is restricted at certain sites if it would obstruct protected views of St Paul's Cathedral and other historic buildings. This policy, 'St Paul's Heights', has officially been in operation since 1927. Concerns about aesthetics and fire safety had likewise hampered

3948-651: The development of skyscrapers across continental Europe for the first half of the 20th century. By 1940, there were around 100 high-rise buildings in Europe ( List of early skyscrapers ). Some examples of these are the 43 m (141 ft) tall 1898 Witte Huis (White House) in Rotterdam ; the 51.5 m (169 ft) tall PAST Building (1906–1908) in Warsaw ; the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool, completed in 1911 and 90 m (300 ft) high;

4032-402: The early 1960s Bangladeshi-American structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan , considered the "father of tubular designs " for high-rises, discovered that the dominating rigid steel frame structure was not the only system apt for tall buildings, marking a new era of skyscraper construction in terms of multiple structural systems . His central innovation in skyscraper design and construction

4116-416: The environment and loaded structures with decorative elements and extravagant finishes. This approach to design was opposed by Fazlur Khan and he considered the designs to be whimsical rather than rational. Moreover, he considered the work to be a waste of precious natural resources. Khan's work promoted structures integrated with architecture and the least use of material resulting in the smallest impact on

4200-454: The environment. The next era of skyscrapers will focus on the environment including performance of structures, types of material, construction practices, absolute minimal use of materials/natural resources, embodied energy within the structures, and more importantly, a holistically integrated building systems approach. Modern building practices regarding supertall structures have led to the study of "vanity height". Vanity height, according to

4284-528: The first building in the world to feature a metal-framed glass curtain wall , a design element which creates light, airy interiors and has since been used the world over as a defining feature of skyscrapers". Further developments led to what many individuals and organizations consider the world's first skyscraper, the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, built in 1884–1885. While its original height of 42.1 m (138 ft) does not even qualify as

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4368-479: The glass façade skyscraper and, along with Norwegian Fred Severud , designed the Seagram Building in 1958, a skyscraper that is often regarded as the pinnacle of modernist high-rise architecture. Skyscraper construction surged throughout the 1960s. The impetus behind the upswing was a series of transformative innovations which made it possible for people to live and work in "cities in the sky". In

4452-473: The hundred-story John Hancock Center and the massive 442 m (1,450 ft) Willis Tower . Other pioneers of this field include Hal Iyengar , William LeMessurier , and Minoru Yamasaki , the architect of the World Trade Center . Many buildings designed in the 70s lacked a particular style and recalled ornamentation from earlier buildings designed before the 50s. These design plans ignored

4536-438: The ideal of stouter furniture and a happier furniture corporation doesn't cause the blood to run hot." Crowther does praise the "quality production and general quality acting of the film", and calls it "a fair endeavor" but notes that "dramatically, it doesn't add up." In its January 1995 issue Fortune magazine published a four-page article, "The Executive as Hero", which praised the film, commenting that it "has set in motion

4620-406: The job even before the board meets. Treasurer Alderson and Walling, however, are determined to thwart Shaw. Walling convinces Alderson to back him. Walling is a strong believer in developing new, higher quality products and more efficient manufacturing methods, although his wife, Mary, is against his giving up his dream of being a full-time designer. At an emergency board meeting on Saturday evening,

4704-539: The length of Exchange Place runs 149 feet 8.5 inches (45.631 m) from New Street , and runs 88 feet (27 m) along New Street. The building site was once owned by the Dutch Reformed Church which had erected the city's second almshouse on the site before 1659. The estimated cost of the new building was $ 20 million. The project was the largest single cooperative building venture undertaken to that time. Cross and Cross were announced as

4788-454: The lower levels of a skyscraper will be much larger than the material required within higher levels. This is not always visually apparent. The Empire State Building 's setbacks are actually a result of the building code at the time ( 1916 Zoning Resolution ), and were not structurally required. On the other hand, John Hancock Center 's shape is uniquely the result of how it supports loads. Vertical supports can come in several types, among which

4872-429: The lower walls. The exterior was ashlar granite while the interior was common brick backup laid in cement mortar. Its steel internal skeleton was only designed to carry the floor loads, because the exterior was self-supporting. The building opened for occupancy on April 27, 1932. The commercial real estate services company Cushman & Wakefield established a branch office here in 1932. The City Investing Company bought

4956-464: The machinations, bargaining, and maneuvering culminate in Walling's enthusiasm, vision, and his stirring boardroom speech eventually swaying Grimm, Dudley and Julia Tredway to his side. He is elected unanimously after Shaw accepts his defeat. Shaw then tears up a letter endorsing Caswell's share purchase, much to Caswell's dismay. Walling and his wife embrace. Before leaving, he orders a board meeting for

5040-674: The most common for skyscrapers can be categorized as steel frames, concrete cores, tube within tube design, and shear walls. The wind loading on a skyscraper is also considerable. In fact, the lateral wind load imposed on supertall structures is generally the governing factor in the structural design. Wind pressure increases with height, so for very tall buildings, the loads associated with wind are larger than dead or live loads. Other vertical and horizontal loading factors come from varied, unpredictable sources, such as earthquakes. By 1895, steel had replaced cast iron as skyscrapers' structural material. Its malleability allowed it to be formed into

5124-435: The most complex encountered given the balances required between economics , engineering , and construction management. One common feature of skyscrapers is a steel framework from which curtain walls are suspended, rather than load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Most skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables them to be built taller than typical load-bearing walls of reinforced concrete. Skyscrapers usually have

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5208-406: The performance of structures, types of materials, construction practices, absolute minimal use of materials and natural resources, energy within the structure, and a holistically integrated building systems approach. LEED is a current green building standard. Architecturally, with the movements of Postmodernism , New Urbanism and New Classical Architecture , that established since the 1980s,

5292-728: The price of steel decreased and labor costs increased. The steel frames become inefficient and uneconomic for supertall buildings as usable floor space is reduced for progressively larger supporting columns. Since about 1960, tubular designs have been used for high rises. This reduces the usage of material (more efficient in economic terms – Willis Tower uses a third less steel than the Empire State Building) yet allows greater height. It allows fewer interior columns, and so creates more usable floor space. It further enables buildings to take on various shapes. Elevators are characteristic to skyscrapers. In 1852 Elisha Otis introduced

5376-484: The safety elevator at the E. V. Haughwout Building in New York City, allowing convenient and safe transport to buildings' upper floors. Otis later introduced the first commercial passenger elevators to the Equitable Life Building in 1870, considered by some architectural historians to be the first skyscraper. Another crucial development was the use of a steel frame instead of stone or brick, otherwise

5460-643: The safety elevator, allowing convenient and safe passenger movement to upper floors. Another crucial development was the use of a steel frame instead of stone or brick, otherwise the walls on the lower floors on a tall building would be too thick to be practical. Today major manufacturers of elevators include Otis , ThyssenKrupp , Schindler , and KONE . Advances in construction techniques have allowed skyscrapers to narrow in width, while increasing in height. Some of these new techniques include mass dampers to reduce vibrations and swaying, and gaps to allow air to pass through, reducing wind shear. Good structural design

5544-413: The southern property line required triple cantilever plate girders to provide headroom for the elevator doors. There are three floors below ground. The total building weight is estimated at 55,000 tons (7,000 tons of steel). 30 Broad Street appears as the "Larrabee Building" in the original 1954 version of the movie Sabrina , as the headquarters of the family business empire. Its address is prominent in

5628-731: The studio had to set an "inflexible" starting date two months in advance of shooting, the first time that MGM had ever done so. The film was planned to have 145 speaking parts, a record for MGM , however only 66 actors were listed in the credits. Variety noted the overall enthusiastic reviews: “In nearly all keys [key cities] the pic has drawn enthusiastic crix [critics’] approval. This has helped considerably in smaller cities where reviews are followed faithfully.”. However, Bosley Crowther , writing in The New York Times called it "[A] pretty chilly succession of echoing rooms", and commented that "for all of Mr. Holden's fine oration

5712-438: The title for six years. The design and construction of skyscrapers involves creating safe, habitable spaces in very tall buildings. The buildings must support their weight, resist wind and earthquakes, and protect occupants from fire. Yet they must also be conveniently accessible, even on the upper floors, and provide utilities and a comfortable climate for the occupants. The problems posed in skyscraper design are considered among

5796-715: The tube frame must be interrupted, with transfer girders used to maintain structural integrity. Tube structures cut down costs, at the same time allowing buildings to reach greater heights. Concrete tube-frame construction was first used in the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartment Building , completed in Chicago in 1963, and soon after in the John Hancock Center and World Trade Center . The tubular systems are fundamental to tall building design. Most buildings over 40 stories constructed since

5880-482: The tube structure was the Chestnut De-Witt apartment building, considered to be a major development in modern architecture. These new designs opened an economic door for contractors, engineers, architects, and investors, providing vast amounts of real estate space on minimal plots of land. Over the next fifteen years, many towers were built by Fazlur Rahman Khan and the " Second Chicago School ", including

5964-478: The upper rented to the lower classes. Surviving Oxyrhynchus Papyri indicate that seven-stories buildings existed in provincial towns such as in 3rd century AD Hermopolis in Roman Egypt . The skylines of many important medieval cities had large numbers of high-rise urban towers, built by the wealthy for defense and status. The residential Towers of 12th century Bologna numbered between 80 and 100 at

6048-465: The walls on the lower floors on a tall building would be too thick to be practical. An early development in this area was Oriel Chambers in Liverpool , England, built in 1864. It was only five floors high. The Royal Academy of Arts states, "critics at the time were horrified by its 'large agglomerations of protruding plate glass bubbles'. In fact, it was a precursor to Modernist architecture, being

6132-617: The weight of the building. This development led to the "Chicago skeleton" form of construction. In addition to the steel frame, the Home Insurance Building also utilized fireproofing, elevators, and electrical wiring, key elements in most skyscrapers today. Burnham and Root 's 45 m (148 ft) Rand McNally Building in Chicago, 1889, was the first all-steel framed skyscraper, while Louis Sullivan 's 41 m (135 ft) Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri, 1891,

6216-814: The world have more than 100 skyscrapers that are 150 m (492 ft) or taller: Hong Kong with 552 skyscrapers; Shenzhen , China with 373 skyscrapers; New York City , US with 314 skyscrapers; Dubai , UAE with 252 skyscrapers; Guangzhou , China with 188 skyscrapers; Shanghai , China with 183 skyscrapers; Tokyo , Japan with 168 skyscrapers; Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia with 156 skyscrapers; Wuhan , China with 149 skyscrapers; Chongqing , China, with 144 skyscrapers; Chicago , US, with 137 skyscrapers; Chengdu , China with 117 skyscrapers; Jakarta , Indonesia , with 112 skyscrapers; Bangkok , Thailand , with 111 skyscrapers, and Mumbai , India with 102. As of 2024, there are over 7 thousand skyscrapers over 150 m (492 ft) in height worldwide. The term "skyscraper"

6300-664: The world's tallest building for forty years. The first completed 417 m (1,368 ft) tall World Trade Center tower became the world's tallest building in 1972. However, it was overtaken by the Sears Tower (now Willis Tower ) in Chicago within two years. The 442 m (1,450 ft) tall Sears Tower stood as the world's tallest building for 24 years, from 1974 until 1998, until it was edged out by 452 m (1,483 ft) Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, which held

6384-432: The world's tallest building, New York took the lead by 1895 with the completion of the 103 m (338 ft) tall American Surety Building , leaving New York with the title of the world's tallest building for many years. Modern skyscrapers are built with steel or reinforced concrete frameworks and curtain walls of glass or polished stone . They use mechanical equipment such as water pumps and elevators . Since

6468-476: The world, although only partially iron framed, is The Flaxmill in Shrewsbury , England. Built in 1797, it is seen as the "grandfather of skyscrapers", since its fireproof combination of cast iron columns and cast iron beams developed into the modern steel frame that made modern skyscrapers possible. In 2013 funding was confirmed to convert the derelict building into offices. In 1857, Elisha Otis introduced

6552-671: The years immediately following World War II. Early examples include Edificio España (Spain) and Torre Breda (Italy). From the 1930s onward, skyscrapers began to appear in various cities in East and Southeast Asia as well as in Latin America . Finally, they also began to be constructed in cities in Africa , the Middle East , South Asia , and Oceania from the late 1950s. Skyscraper projects after World War II typically rejected

6636-462: Was finally heartbroken after coming second behind the company for both her father and Bullard. Shaw buys Caswell's vote in exchange for allowing Caswell to purchase 4,000 shares of company stock at the Friday closing price to cover his unscrupulous short sale. If Caswell does not get those shares, he will be in serious financial trouble. Meanwhile, Walt Dudley, the back-slapping Vice President of Sales,

6720-621: Was first applied to buildings of steel-framed construction of at least 10 stories in the late 19th century, a result of public amazement at the tall buildings being built in major American cities like New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Chicago , Detroit , and St. Louis . The first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building , originally 10 stories with a height of 42 m or 138 ft, in Chicago in 1885; two additional stories were added. Some point to Philadelphia's 10-story Jayne Building (1849–50) as

6804-424: Was in 17th-century Edinburgh , Scotland, where a defensive city wall defined the boundaries of the city. Due to the restricted land area available for development, the houses increased in height instead. Buildings of 11 stories were common, and there are records of buildings as high as 14 stories. Many of the stone-built structures can still be seen today in the old town of Edinburgh. The oldest iron framed building in

6888-454: Was the concept of the "tube" structural system , including the "framed tube", "trussed tube", and "bundled tube". His "tube concept", using all the exterior wall perimeter structure of a building to simulate a thin-walled tube, revolutionized tall building design. These systems allow greater economic efficiency, and also allow skyscrapers to take on various shapes, no longer needing to be rectangular and box-shaped. The first building to employ

6972-613: Was the first steel-framed building with soaring vertical bands to emphasize the height of the building and is therefore considered to be the first early skyscraper. In 1889, the Mole Antonelliana in Italy was 197 m (549 ft) tall. Most early skyscrapers emerged in the land-strapped areas of New York City and Chicago toward the end of the 19th century. A land boom in Melbourne , Australia between 1888 and 1891 spurred

7056-419: Was the first film written by Ernest Lehman , who was a journalist, although he had shared an original story credit for Republic Pictures ' 1948 film The Inside Story . The film was also the first film that director Robert Wise made for MGM. The all-star cast created problems in scheduling, since only a handful of the lead actors had any commitment to MGM. The logistics of scheduling were so complex that

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