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Sincerely,

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Professor of Reading Education
University of Maryland, College Park
 For Richard —L.R.
Copyright © 2017 National Geographic Partners, LLC exist. For example, the Flaxmill Maltings (1797) in
Shrewsbury, England, was the first iron-framed
Published by National Geographic Partners, LLC, building in the world. The Haughwout Building
Washington, D.C. 20036. All rights reserved. Repro- (1857) in New York City was the first commercial
duction in whole or in part without written permis- building with a safe passenger elevator. And the
sion of the publisher is prohibited. Cooper Union Foundation Building (1859) was one
of the first buildings in New York to be supported by
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data rolled wrought-iron beams. These buildings may
not be skyscrapers, but they played a big part in
Names: Romero, Libby, author. history. They are the foundation upon which modern
Title: National Geographic readers. Skyscrapers / skyscrapers were built. On the cover, One World
Libby Romero. Trade Center towers over other buildings in New
Other titles: Skyscrapers York City. Pictured on the title page in dense fog are
Description: Washington, DC : National Geographic the Shanghai World Financial Center, Jinmao Tower,
Children’s Books, 2017. | and the Shanghai Tower in Pudong, Shanghai,
Series: National Geographic readers. Level 3 China. The Table of Contents features the city central
Identifiers: LCCN 2016038840 (print) | LCCN business district of Sydney, Australia.
2016038942 (ebook) |
eISBN 978-1-4263-2684-4 Photo Credits
Subjects: LCSH: Skyscrapers—Juvenile literature. | ASP=Alamy Stock Photo; GI=Getty Images; SS=Shutterstock
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the expert content review of this book by Dr. Antony tu - Imaginechina; 25 (UP RT), David Cannon/GI; 25 (CTR LE), Imagine China/
Newscom; 25 (CTR RT), Imagine China/Newscom; 25 (LO LE), AP Photo/Alan
Wood, RIBA Ph.D., executive director, Council on Welner; 26 (LE), Yay! Design; 27 (RT), Yay! Design; 29 (UP), William Anderson/
Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat; and Marshall GI; 29 (LO), Tupungato/SS; 30, Sean Pavone/ASP; 31, Yay! Design; 32 (UP),
Gerometta, skyscraper database editor, Council VIEW
Pictures/ASP; 32 (LO), Africa Studio/SS; 33, All Canada Photos/ASP; 34-35
on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat; and the (CTR), Alberto Buzzola/GI; 35 (LE), Frank Heuer/laif/Redux; 35 (RT), Arcaid
literacy review of this book by Mariam Jean Dreher, Images/ASP; 36, ITPhoto/ASP; 37, Eugenio Marongiu/ASP; 38-39, Jamie
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design. But they didn’t appear out of the blue. Many Roland Nagy/ASP; 45 (LO RT), Ryan Pyle/GI; 46 (UP), Yay! Design; 46 (CTR
LE), vandame/SS; 46 (CTR RT), Brocreative/SS; 46 (LO LE), The J. Paul Getty
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National Geographic supports K–12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.
Visit natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.
A History of Height 4
Famous Skyscrapers 6
Why Build Skyscrapers? 12
Getting Off the Ground 18
7 Cool Facts About Skyscrapers 24

Working With Nature 26

Going Green 32
What’s Up With Skyscrapers Now? 38
Quiz Whiz 44
Glossary 46
Index 48
Throughout time, people have been
fascinated with tall buildings. Ancient
Egyptians built pyramids for their
pharaohs. Later on, people built tall
towers and giant cathedrals out of
mortar and stone.

The largest pyramid in Giza, Ulm Minster (530 feet) in

Egypt, was 481 feet tall Ulm, Germany, is the tallest
when it was built. church in the world.
 But in the 1880s, two
new ideas changed
everything: One was
using an iron-and-steel
skeleton to support a
building. The other was
the invention of a safe
passenger elevator.
Now buildings could be
bigger, taller, and stronger.
The skyscraper was born.

SKELETON: The
supporting frame of
something, like a building
SKYSCRAPER: A very
tall building

Empire State Building (1,250 feet) in New York City

People first used the word “skyscraper” to
describe a building in 1885. That’s what
they called the Home Insurance Building
in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. It was 10 stories
(138 feet) tall and had an iron-and-steel
skeleton. Since then, people’s ideas about
skyscrapers have changed.
Many skyscrapers are still built out of steel.
But whether or not a building is called a
skyscraper depends on how it compares to
other buildings in the area. If a building
stands out above other buildings, even if
it is quite short,
people could
consider it to be STORY: A floor of a
a skyscraper. skyscraper

In 1919, a man named J. D.

McMahon showed people plans
for a high-rise building in
Wichita Falls, Texas, U.S.A. He
collected lots of money. But he
didn’t tell people that the plans
showed the building measured
in inches instead of feet. By the
time people found out, it was too
late. Their “skyscraper” was
just four stories tall!
Newby-McMahon Building
Over time, there
have been many
famous skyscrapers.
Some are famous
because of their
height. In 2017,
the world’s tallest
skyscraper is the
Burj Khalifa
(berj kuh-LEE-fah)
in Dubai, United
Arab Emirates. It is
2,717 feet tall and
has 163 floors!

Burj Khalifa
 What did one skyscraper !ereht hgiH
say to the other?

Other skyscrapers are famous because of

their design. The Shanghai World Financial
Center (1,614 feet) in China has a four-
sided hole cut out of its top. Some people
think the building looks like a giant bottle
opener. And the Burj Al Arab (1,053 feet)
in Dubai is shaped like a giant boat sail.

Burj Al Arab

Shanghai World Financial Center

Some skyscrapers are famous because
they create a skyline that makes the city
easy to recognize. Hong Kong is a great
example. There are more skyscrapers
here than anywhere else in the world.
Other cities with famous skylines include
New York City;
Shanghai, China;
Dubai, U.A.E.; and SKYLINE: The outline
of objects, such as
Sydney, Australia. buildings, against the
background of the sky

Hong Kong skyline

Alain Robert is known as
“the French Spiderman.”
He’s climbed more than
100 skyscrapers—most
using just his bare hands
and chalk to keep his
hands from slipping.
When you see a giant skyscraper, one
question you may ask is, “Why would
people build something that tall?”
The answer most likely has to do with
money, space, and technology. That’s why
people first started building skyscrapers.

This drawing shows what

Lower Manhattan looked
like before skyscrapers
and the fire of 1835.
 New York’s Great Fire of
1835 lasted for two days.
Most of the destroyed
buildings were businesses.

In the early 1800s, New York City became

the finance center of the United States.
But in 1835, a giant fire destroyed nearly
700 buildings in a section of the city called
Manhattan. Everything had to be rebuilt.

TECHNOLOGY: The use of scientific tools

and methods for a practical reason
FINANCE: The business of managing money
for a person, company, or government
But land was expensive. And more and
more people kept moving to the city.
There wasn’t much space on the ground.
So, they started to build upward.

People started using powered

elevators in the 1830s.
But these elevators weren’t
safe. If the cable broke, the
elevator would fall to the
ground. In 1853, Elisha Graves
Otis invented a rope-break
safety device. In 1857, the five-
story E. V. Haughwout Building
(79 feet) in New York became
the first building to use Otis’s
passenger safety elevator.
Thirteen years later, New York’s
seven-story Equitable Life
Building (142 feet) became the
first office building to have an
elevator like this. Elisha Graves Otis
explains his elevator
safety device.
 Why did the new elevator refuse .sthgieh fo
to go above the third floor? diarfa saw tI

As they rebuilt, the people of New York

were limited by technology. Bricks and
mortar couldn’t support the height and
weight of very tall buildings. And who
wanted to climb that many stairs, anyway?
For these reasons, the tallest new building
in New York in the 1850s was just five
stories high.

By 1864, much of New York’s

financial district had been rebuilt.
While all this was going on in New York,
the city of Chicago, Illinois, was also
growing quickly. From 1830 to 1870, it
grew from 50 people to nearly 300,000!
Many people came for jobs. Because of
Chicago’s location in the middle of the
United States, the city was a railroad center
for the country. Much trade and business
passed through the city.

But in 1871, fire tore through Chicago.

More than 18,000 buildings were burned.

The Great Chicago Fire burned large parts of the city.

 In 1856, English inventor Henry
Bessemer discovered a new way
to make steel. Before this, it was
a slow, costly process. Bessemer
invented a machine that made steel quickly.
It could make big sheets of steel. And it was inexpensive.

By this time, both safe elevators and

building materials made of iron and
steel were available. Chicago was ready
to build the world’s first skyscraper!
Building a
skyscraper takes
more than steel,
iron, and elevators.
People also need a
plan. Buildings
must be built in a
way that protects
against gravity.
Gravity can pull
tall buildings to
the ground.

GRAVITY: The force that

pulls objects toward
the center of a planet or The Woolworth
other body Building (792 feet) in
New York City is bigger
on bottom than on top.
 Which building has !yrarbil A
the most stories?

Ancient Egyptians built pyramids

that had large bottoms and small tops.
The bottom, or base, of a pyramid
supports its weight. This helps pyramids
fight against gravity. But these pyramids
are in the middle of a desert. There’s a
lot of space there. In a city, there’s less
space and land is expensive. While this
idea worked, it limited how tall new
buildings could be built in a city.

The Giza Pyramids are more than 4,500 years old.

 Workers have lunch on a steel beam during the construction
of the RCA Building (850 feet) in New York City in 1932.

People needed a way to build a tall

building with a smaller base. Steel made
this possible. But steel beams were large
and expensive. They had to be shipped in
and stored. And people needed heavy-duty
equipment to move them.

Because of this, some

people made buildings
out of concrete.

Many walls and floors are made of concrete.

Concrete is solid and fireproof. It also blocks noise.
Concrete is a mixture of cement, sand,
broken rocks, and water. It is cheaper
than steel and it can be made on-site.
Concrete gets very hard when it
dries, so it can support a lot of weight.
But concrete cracks if it’s put under
too much pressure. People needed a
better idea. So they started to reinforce,
or strengthen, concrete with steel bars.

The 16-story Ingalls

Building (180 feet) in
Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A.,
was the world’s first
reinforced concrete
skyscraper. It took
builders two years to get
permission to build this
building. People didn’t
trust the concrete. They
thought the building
would collapse. But
the reinforced concrete
made the building strong.
The Ingalls Building,
completed in 1903, is still
standing today!
 This illustration shows a floor plan of the Chicago Stock Exchange
(187 feet), completed in 1894. Like other skyscrapers built before
reinforced concrete was available, the rooms were very small.

New technologies didn’t just help people

build taller buildings. They also helped
people solve problems inside. If a building’s
frame is made out of steel or reinforced
concrete, its inner walls and floors help
support it. This means the building’s outer
walls don’t have to be as thick. And that
leaves more space inside the building for
bigger rooms.
Getting away from thick, solid, outer
walls also solved the problem of light.
Many older buildings were very dark.
But now there could be more windows.
Builders could even make the curtain
wall, or outer covering of a skyscraper,
out of glass.

CURTAIN WALL: The outer

covering of a skyscraper

modern office buildings in Brussels, Belgium

 The Empire State Building
(1,250 feet) in New York
City was the world’s tallest
skyscraper for 41 years.
No other building has held
that title longer.

People used to use the

word “skyscraper” to
describe anything tall
that stuck up into the air.
That included horses,
people, and even hats!

In 2012, builders
constructed the 30-story
T30 skyscraper (328 feet)
in Changsha, China, in
just 15 days. They made
all of the parts in advance.
All they had to do was
put them together.
In 2005, the helipad of the
Burj Al Arab skyscraper
(692 feet) in Dubai was
temporarily changed into a
tennis court. Andre Agassi
and Roger Federer played
an exhibition match there.

The elevators in the

Shanghai Tower (2,073 feet)
in Shanghai, China, can travel
up to 46 miles an hour. They
take people from the second-
level basement to the 119th
floor in less than a minute.

Before safe elevators

were invented, people
wanted to rent space
on the lower floors of
tall buildings. After
elevators, people paid
more for the top floors,
which had better views.

On August 7, 1974,
Frenchman Philippe
Petit put a steel cable
between the two towers
of the World Trade Center
in New York City. For
45 minutes, he walked
across the cable that was
1,300 feet off the ground.
 steel column

ground level concrete cap

concrete support

solid ground

STEP 1: A strong base is needed

when building a skyscraper.

When building a skyscraper, people must

think about nature. The first thing to
consider is the ground below. You need a
strong, stable base. So when people build
a skyscraper today, they dig until they
hit hard, solid ground. They fill the holes
with concrete to build supports. They put
concrete caps on the supports.
 What did the skyscraper !noteleks A
dress up as on Halloween?

beam

STEP 3: Glass, stone, concrete,

STEP 2: Columns and beams and other materials cover the
make the building’s skeleton. outside of the building.

Once the base is sturdy, they start to

build up. They make a skeleton out of
concrete, steel, or a combination of these
materials. Columns go up. Beams go
across on each floor. The strong base
and strong skeleton work together to
help the skyscraper resist the natural
force of gravity.
Builders must also consider the weather.
Changes in temperature, for example,
can affect metals. Metals expand when
temperatures are hot and contract when
they are cold. Over time, this can cause
metals to crack or change shape.

Wind can cause problems, too. Wind moves

skyscrapers back and forth. Skyscrapers
must be strong. But they must also be
flexible. If the tall buildings don’t move
when the wind blows, pressure from the
wind will damage them. To keep this from
happening, builders sometimes cross steel
beams between columns like an X.
The X’s brace the
building against
the wind.
EXPAND: To pull apart
and get bigger
CONTRACT: To push
together and get smaller
New York’s Empire State
Building (1,250 feet) was
completed in 1931. It was
designed to be a giant
lightning rod for the
surrounding area. It gets
struck by lightning about
23 times every year!

In the 1960s, engineer Fazlur

R. Khan thought of a new
way to build skyscrapers.
He connected giant tubes, or
columns, of steel to make one
big building with several giant
sections. The Willis Tower
(1,451 feet, and formerly
the Sears Tower) in Chicago,
Illinois, was built in 1974.
It is made of nine tubes.
The tubes support one
another and work together
to make the building
strong. The tubes are
different heights. This
breaks up the force of
the wind as it blows on
the building.
Earthquakes are another big problem for
buildings. Earthquakes make the ground
move. This can cause buildings to get badly
damaged. Builders add parts to skyscrapers
to try to keep this from happening.

Taipei 101 is a 1,667-foot-tall skyscraper in Taipei,

Taiwan. This photo shows the skyscraper’s giant steel
damper between the 92nd and 87th floors. A damper
is a part that helps the skyscraper sway less during
an earthquake or strong winds. This damper is 18 feet
across and weighs 728 tons.
 with standard base with rubber pads or rollers

ground movement rubber pads or rollers

Sometimes builders use dampers or other

parts called shock absorbers. These parts
keep the skyscraper steady and limit
movement in an earthquake. Builders can
also put rubber pads and rollers between
a skyscraper and its base. These parts
move sideways during an earthquake.
They carry the weight of the building
with them. So the building moves, but it
doesn’t fall over.
 Grattacielo Intesa Sanpaolo (545 feet) in Turin,
Italy, is an energy-saving green building.

Big buildings use lots of energy. Since

the year 2000, people have designed
skyscrapers that use less energy. They
have also found ways to save energy in
skyscrapers that were already built. One
simple idea is to change the lightbulbs.
New types of lightbulbs use
less energy than old ones.

New energy-saving lightbulbs can use 70–90

percent less energy than other lightbulbs.
Another way to save energy is to replace
the windows. At one time, all skyscrapers
had windows that didn’t open. Now many
do open. This means natural air can help
cool the buildings instead of only using air
conditioning. The windows are also tinted
like sunglasses. They reflect light and heat.
So people use much less electricity to
control the temperature inside.

Windows open
to cool the air in
Manitoba Hydro
Place (377 feet)
in Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada.
Big buildings also use a
lot of water. An easy way
to save water is to update
the faucets and fixtures
people use to get water.
Newer fixtures use less
water. So the owners
replaced the fixtures at
Taipei 101 (1,667 feet).
Now people in the
building save 7.4 million
gallons of drinkable
water each year.

Taipei 101
Some buildings don’t just save water.
They save energy by using water in different
ways. There’s a three-story waterfall in the
Hearst Tower (597 feet) in New York City.
The water comes from rain outside.
The waterfall cools the area inside.

The waterfall in the

Hearst Tower flows
around escalators.

Hearst Tower
Some skyscrapers
make their own
energy. The Pearl
River Tower
(1,015 feet) in
Guangzhou Province,
China, does this with
wind. The building
has four giant
openings. As wind
moves through the
openings, giant
turbines inside the
building turn to Giant openings let
air flow through the
make energy. Pearl River Tower.

TURBINE: An engine with a part that

has blades. The blades spin when
water, air, or steam moves past them.
 What did the skyscraper !em evom uoY
say to the wind?

Some skyscrapers use nature in different

ways. Bosco Verticale, or “vertical forest”
in Italian, is the name of two skyscrapers
(380 feet and 279 feet) in Milan, Italy.
These skyscrapers are covered with plants
and trees. The plants make oxygen and
reduce smog. They also block outside noise
and help keep the
buildings cool.

The balconies of Bosco

Verticale hold hundreds
of trees and plants.
Many things have changed since

the world’s first skyscraper

was built. One thing is location.

For many years, most of the tallest

buildings were in North America.

Not anymore.
Today, the world’s tallest buildings are

rising in Asia and the Middle East.

That’s because these places have lots of

people and open land. They also have

the money to build tall skyscrapers.

Shanghai, China,
skyline in 2015
 Petronas Twin Towers
(1,483 feet) in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Chrysler Building
(1,046 feet) in New York City

One World Trade Center

(1,776 feet) in New York City
Another thing that has changed since
the first skyscrapers were built is height.
Today, skyscrapers are much taller than
they used to be.

The first building to change people’s ideas

about height was the Chrysler Building
in New York. Completed in 1930, it won
the title of “World’s Tallest Building.”
It was the first “supertall” skyscraper ever
built. Today, any building taller than
984 feet (the height of the Eiffel Tower
in Paris, France) is called a supertall.
There are now more than 100 supertalls.

In 2013, sunlight
bounced off of
the windows of
a skyscraper in
London, England.
It was so hot that it
melted parts of a car!

Walkie Talkie Building (525 feet) in London, England

 1913 1930 1930 1931 1972 1974 1996 2003 2008 2018
Woolworth 40 Wall Chrysler Empire One World Sears Petronas Taipei Burj Jeddah
Building Street Building State Trade Tower Towers 101 Khalifa Tower
Building Center
(original)
SKYSCRAPERS SUPERTALLS MEGATALLS

But supertall doesn’t seem to be tall enough

anymore. People have started to build
“megatall” skyscrapers. These buildings,
which are at least 1,968 feet tall, are more
than twice as tall as the shortest supertall.

For now, just three megatalls rule the skies.

But that will change. Builders hope to finish
the Jeddah Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia,
in 2018. It will be at least 3,281 feet tall!
The sky isn’t the limit anymore.
This illustration shows
what the Jeddah
Tower will look like
when it’s finished.
How much do you know about skyscrapers? After reading this
book, probably a lot! Take this quiz and find out.
Answers are at the bottom of page 45.

When was the word “skyscraper”

first used to describe a building?
A. 1607
B. 1885
C. 1903
D. 1972

What two inventions made it

possible to build skyscrapers?
A. steel and glass
B. iron and steel
C. steel and elevators
D. concrete and glass

The ___________ is the supporting

frame of a skyscraper.
A. curtain wall
B. story
C. skyline
D. skeleton
 As of 2017, ______________ is the
tallest skyscraper.
A. the Empire State Building
B. the Home Insurance Building
C. Burj Khalifa
D. Taipei 101

In which city was the first

skyscraper built?
A. Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
B. New York City, U.S.A.
C. Shanghai, China
D. Dubai, United Arab Emirates

What is a skyscraper called that

is taller than 984 feet?
A. megatall
B. supertall
C. mightytall
D. verytall

Where are most of the skyscrapers

being built today?
A. North America and South America
B. Europe and Asia
C. Australia and Africa
D. Asia and the Middle East

D )7 ,B )6 ,A )5 ,C )4 ,D )3 ,C )2 ,B )1 :srewsnA
 CONTRACT: To push together
and get smaller

FINANCE: The business of GRAVITY: The force that pulls

managing money for a person, objects toward the center of a
company, or government planet or other body

SKYSCRAPER: A very STORY: A floor of

tall building a skyscraper
 CURTAIN WALL: The outer EXPAND: To pull apart
covering of a skyscraper and get bigger

SKELETON: The supporting SKYLINE: The outline of objects,

frame of something, such as buildings, against the
like a building background of the sky

TECHNOLOGY: The use of TURBINE: An engine with a

scientific tools and methods part that has blades. The blades
for a practical reason spin when water, air, or
steam moves past them.
 M
Boldface indicates illustrations. Manitoba Hydro Place, Canada 33, 33
McMahon, J. D. 7
B
Bessemer, Henry 17, 17 N
Bosco Verticale, Milan, Italy 37, 37 New York City
Burj Al Arab, Dubai, United Arab Emirates 9, 9, 25, 25 fire and rebuilding 12–15, 13–15
Burj Khalifa, Dubai, United Arab Emirates 8, 8, 42 skyscrapers 5, 18, 18, 20, 24, 24, 25, 25, 29, 29,
35, 35, 40, 41, 42
C Newby-McMahon Building, Wichita Falls, Texas 7, 7
Chicago, Illinois
fire and rebuilding 16, 16–17 O
skyscrapers 6, 6, 22, 22, 29, 29, 42 Otis, Elisha Graves 14, 14
Chrysler Building, New York City 40, 41, 42
Concrete 20–21, 20–21, 26, 26
P
Pearl River Tower, Guangzhou Province, China 36, 36
D Petit, Philippe 25, 25
Dampers 30, 30, 31 Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 40, 42
Pyramids 4, 4, 19, 19
E
Earthquakes 30–31, 31 R
Egypt, ancient 4, 4, 19, 19 Reinforced concrete 21, 21
Elevators 5, 14, 14, 25 Robert, Alain 11, 11
Empire State Building, New York City 5, 24, 24, 29,
S
29, 42
Sears Tower, Chicago, Illinois 29, 29, 42
Energy-saving buildings 32–37, 32–37
Shanghai, China 9, 9, 25, 25, 38–39
F Skeleton 5, 27, 27, 47, 47
Famous skyscrapers 6–11, 6–11 Skylines 10, 10–11, 47, 47
Skyscrapers
G cool facts 24–25, 24–25
Grattacielo Intesa Sanpaolo, Turin, Italy 32, 32 definition 5, 7, 46
Gravity 18–19, 46 smallest 7, 7
Green buildings 32–37, 32–37 tallest 8, 8, 24, 24, 38–39, 41, 42, 42
word usage 7, 24, 24
H
Steel 17, 17, 20, 20
Hearst Tower, New York City 35, 35
Home Insurance Building, Chicago, Illinois 6, 6 T
Hong Kong 10, 10–11 T30 skyscraper, Changsha, China 24, 24
Taipei 101, Taiwan 30, 30, 34, 34, 42
I
Ingalls Building, Cincinnati, Ohio 21, 21 U
Ulm Minster, Germany 4, 4
J
Jeddah Tower, Saudi Arabia 42, 42, 43 W
Jokes 9, 15, 19, 27, 37 Walkie Talkie Building, London, England 41, 41
Walls 22–23, 47
K
Water-saving buildings 34, 34–35, 35
Khan, Fazlur R. 29
Weather 28
L Willis (Sears) Tower, Chicago, Illinois 29, 29, 42
Lighting 23, 32, 32 Wind 28
Lightning 29, 29 Windows 23, 33, 33
Woolworth Building, New York City 18, 18, 42
World Trade Center, New York City 25, 25, 40, 42