The American Skyscraper

Of the two images of the American landscape most often published in European architectural journals in the 1920s – the grain silo and the skyscraper – it was the latter that was more intriguing to European observers. More so than the automobile and the ocean liner, more so than the airplane and the assembly line, the skyscraper served as a quintessential metaphor for American modernity, even if European building codes and zoning laws would not permit its construction at home. It was an icon of industrial prowess, of technological innovation and advanced assembly methods, of the new, more dynamic, more prosperous world. After a “Gothic” design won the Chicago Tribune competition of 1922, however, it was also seen by many Europeans as a sign of American architectural confusion and cultural backwardness.

This view was not restricted to Europeans, for American practice had its share of homegrown critics during these years. Henry-Russell Hitchcock, in his Modern Architecture (1929), saw the skyscraper as America's singular calling but also its greatest architectural failing: “The skyscraper therefore awaits the first American New Pioneer who will be able to take the engineering as a basis and create directly from it a form of architecture.” The bold drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright had failed Hitchcock; the art deco designs of the 1920s had failed him; the visionary explorations of Hugh Ferriss had failed him.