Reels tagged #architecture
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Firsts
The first skyscraper was only ten storeys
Chicago's Home Insurance Building of 1885 stood about 42 metres tall, but its steel frame — not its walls — carried the load. That idea made every tower since possible.
Inventions
The safety brake, not the elevator, built skyscrapers
Lifts existed for centuries, but nobody trusted them. Elisha Otis's 1853 safety brake stopped a cut cable from dropping the car, and cities began growing upward.
Arts
Zaha Hadid built for years without a single completed building
Her curving designs were called unbuildable and won competitions that were never realised. She became the first woman to win architecture's Pritzker Prize.