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Old Posted Nov 8, 2019, 7:45 PM
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Steely Dan Steely Dan is online now
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Lincoln Square, Chicago
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thinking that there is even a "first" skyscraper is wrong to begin with.

the skyscraper as we know it was born out of an evolutionary process.

picking one lone (and somewhat arbitrary) structure, like the home insurance building, out of dozens of important buildings, each with their own little leaps of innovation, and bestowing the label of "world's first skyscraper" upon it, doesn't really make much sense to me. sure, it makes for a good point of civic pride and something for the local tourism bureau to tout, but it doesn't really mean a whole lot in the real world.

if we want to be honest, there was no "world's first skyscraper", and thus there is no true "birthplace of the skyscraper". though if you are going to make a list of buildings that figured prominently in the evolutionary development of the skyscraper building form, considering both technical and aesthetic innovations, it would be dominated by buildings from NYC and chicago. so if we absolutely must name names, then those two cities really do stand out from the crowd as the two great museum cities of the skyscraper.
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