UK seems to have been one of the last major economies in the developed world to genuinely accept and embrace the skyscraper. Puzzling for a small and heavily populated island nation.

Was it:

Culture
Economy
Sense of history
Urban structure
Built form environment

or some kind of snobbery about this American phenomenon, which began to reach new heights as soon as Ochs produced the elevator ??

It is odd, as one of the most important buildings in skyscraper history is a mill (I forget the name) in Shropshire which was the first iron/steel framed building in the world.

I guess it is because British tradition has opted for sprawling low-density cities rather than a condense tall urban area.

We still find it odd that a small city in the USA (pop 50 000 - a town to us) will have tall buildings in its centre - right next to houses!

UK last to accept skyscrapers? Yeah right. Come to Ireland if you want to see a pure anti-development mentality.

UK last to accept skyscrapers? Yeah right. Come to Ireland if you want to see a pure anti-development mentality.


Considered that Malec, but despite the boom of recent years, I hadn't rated Ireland among the major economies. Sorry. :)

I suppose the subsidiary question is whether UK has really embraced it yet. Despite what's happening in London, look at the reaction to this new 60-storey Beethamn proposal near LBT.

btw, I was just reading a speech in which Johnathon Green, London editor of Emporis gave (at award ceremony for 30 St Mary Axe getting the 2004 Emporis Skyscraper award) in which he talks about things changing at the turni of the century. Took a moment to realize he meant this century - just five years ago, Lol.

the cost and it was considered too american by many

Skyscrapers are seen as bad, evil creatures, by many people. A lot this stems from the town plannning strategies developed throughout the country which saw residntial towers built on the outskirts, usually with people from the inner city relocated. Many social and environmental problems arose and many councils have been demolishing them. As a result, there are many people who are anti tall buildings, regardless of location or purpose. From personal experience, such people often don't have any concrete reasoning behind their stance, usually suggesting that it goes without saying, or that tall buildings are morally wrong.

We built a utopian vision based on high rise living in the 1960's and ended up with concrete windswept ghettos, after that experience high rise building never fully recovered until very recently.

As for offices London's historic height restrictions coupled with the greater space available in London compared to New York and other cities meant that there was an emphasis on low level offices.

Yeah the over "modernisation" we suffered in the sixties and seventies presented a reactionairy movement against modern architecture, which has only been reversed by something that is not revolutionairy nor conservative, hopefully just progressive.

I blame it on towering inferno :)

Yep. Doug Roberts has a lot to answer for. :)

For a long time skyscrapers were effectively regulated against because buildings could not be built taller than the reach of a fireman's ladder. Even under the last Tory government buildings above a certain number of stories were banned.

Oh right. I thought you meant countries in general. Sorry :)

Certainly one of the main reasons Glasgow is behind even the rest of the English cities of comparable size is due to what the 1960's has done to the Glaswegian's idea of a tall building: ie a building full of lost souls, criminals and violence round every corner and every floor.

It's gona take a long time before Glasgow can recover from the scurge of the Commie Block.


As for the UK as a whole, this may be partly to blame aswell - afterall every major UK city has been hit by these horrific blocks of flats. They certainly don't do Tall buildings' reputation any good, thats for sure...

It is odd, as one of the most important buildings in skyscraper history is a mill (I forget the name) in Shropshire which was the first iron/steel framed building in the world.

That would be the Ditherington Flax Mill in Shrewsbury. It is in a sorry state of repair but it's been bought by English Heritage who are going to do something with it hopefully.

http://www.mawddwy.freeserve.co.uk/shropshire/maltingsback.jpg

Manchester was one of the first cities in Europe to embrace the Skyscraper, building the 118m CIS in the late 1950's (when built, 2nd tallest in Western Europe). OK, 118m isn't earth shattering now, but back then this would have had implications for the development of future european skylines. I guess.

you just need to go to places like glasgow to see why we didnt really embrace it. that city more than any other british city came close to being ruined by hundreds of commie blocks and their disgusting concrete surroundings. its also probably the reason glasgow is several years behind other cities in the UK in the height stakes, they dont want to repeat the past errors - cumbernauld is a great example of just what you want to avoid.
i think we've almost always embraced tall buildings though. english cathedrals were always taller than their european counterparts, our castle keeps are the largest ever built in europe, victorians loved tall buildings. there was the grand midland hotel (steel framed, complete with working lifts), crystal palace, the imperial institute, westminster, albertopolis, blackpool tower, new brighton tower, wembley tower, all the various town halls... then someone built an apartment block near the mall and they just brought in an arbitary height limit.

That would be the Ditherington Flax Mill in Shrewsbury. It is in a sorry state of repair but it's been bought by English Heritage who are going to do something with it hopefully.

http://www.mawddwy.freeserve.co.uk/shropshire/maltingsback.jpg

That's the fella! One of the most important buildings in thw world...

You Salopians have done a lot you know - not content with being the birthplace of the industrial revolution, you have to go and become the forefather of just about every large building built in the modern age! :)

Don't forget Liverpool's Liver Building, which was Britain's first office skyscraper and the first large reinforced concrete framed building.

http://jonathan.rawle.org/pg/liverpool/images/liver.jpg

Designed by Aubrey Scott Thomas, it was based on the Auditorium Building in Chicago. It has a height of 295' making it the tallest office building in Europe for many years.

I'm sure I heard somewhere that St Georges Tower on the Palace of Westminster was the tallest secular building in the world when built (1830ish). Thus placing it ahead of many of those skyscraper history timeline things. Whats in a name.

On the subject of Glasgow, the city centre is so complete in its Victorian/Georgian architecture that it hardly needs any skyscrapers. Tall is not always good is it? Besides which, everything is relative and a building is 'tall' if those around it are smaller, so why must we constantly compare ourselves to the likes of New York or Dubai? Sheffield town hall is only 64m but because of its position it looks incredible.

Mainly the 60's which ruined the perception of tall buildings among your average person in the country, and we're only recently pulling away from that I think.

The original Lincoln Cathedral was immense. Incredible to think a 500ft + building existed 500 odd years ago in the U.K. A lot of buildings in U.K city centres were built before the elavator was invented - maybe if we'd just been a bit later in our industrial boom U.K cities would look more like New York and Chicago and we wouldnt be asking why the U.K never embraced skyscrapers.

I don't know how scholarly it was, but Alan yentob;s BBC1 programme Imagine reckoned it was all to do with British architects championing cheapo rip-offs of brutalist Le Corbusier instead of the slender Mies van der Rohe-type buildings.

We have a Van der Rohe copy in Cov and it's very nice. Shame it's not in the centre, which is dominated by an awkward twin concrete tower.

you have to remember that the skyscraper boom in America was a unique response to the a unique situation, where a zonal planning system (put into place for racist reasons) resulted in the economic advantage of taller buildings. Look at the early 20th century grand plans for Chicago... not a skyscraper in sight. So America was very unique in terms of skyscraper development.

I don't know how scholarly it was, but Alan yentob;s BBC1 programme Imagine reckoned it was all to do with British architects championing cheapo rip-offs of brutalist Le Corbusier instead of the slender Mies van der Rohe-type buildings.

We have a Van der Rohe copy in Cov and it's very nice. Shame it's not in the centre, which is dominated by an awkward twin concrete tower.

Remember that the government actually subsidised every floor built over a certain level too... 5 stories i think

no wonder there was a frantic rush job with pre-fabricated units and poor urban design

Remember that the government actually subsidised every floor built over a certain level too... 5 stories i think

no wonder there was a frantic rush job with pre-fabricated units and poor urban design

And in some places, corruption was rife. That's the subject of Peter Flannery's 'Our Friends in the North'.

And in some places, corruption was rife. That's the subject of Peter Flannery's 'Our Friends in the North'.

he was a friend of my parents when they were at school... luckily newcastle was spared a destruction of glaswegian proportions but demolishing a lot of the old newcastle west-end, along with the royal arcade in the city centre, was horrendous. t dan smith (the corrupt council leader at the centre of all this) also had some crazy plans for the historic core of newcastle, he wanted it razed and the city turned into "the brasilia of the north" with a dual carriageway over Grey Street:

http://static.flickr.com/38/84301888_0ab607363e.jpg?v=0

You could look at it as the Brasillia of the north, but more likely, if it was to go ahead, the Milton Keynes of the north.

I don't know how scholarly it was, but Alan yentob;s BBC1 programme Imagine reckoned it was all to do with British architects championing cheapo rip-offs of brutalist Le Corbusier instead of the slender Mies van der Rohe-type buildings.

We have a Van der Rohe copy in Cov and it's very nice. Shame it's not in the centre, which is dominated by an awkward twin concrete tower.

Are you talking about that the empty office block by the station? (Station Tower, oddly enough.)

actually england and america were pretty much matching themselves development for development until one thing happened in england that didnt happen in america - fire regulations.