skyscraper

This film tells the story of the unstoppable rise of the skyscrapers. Starting in 1869, in New York and Chicago, elevators, steel, and electricity combined to create a frenzy of tall and taller buildings. Tall traces the experiments of the early skyscraper architects, especially Louis Sullivan, the Chicago architect (and mentor of Frank Lloyd Wright) who pioneered a new skyscraper form. His credo was that "form ever follows function." His elegant buildings, some still standing and featured in the film, bear out his reputation as the father of the skyscraper. Fierce rivals, led by Daniel Burnham, builder of the Flatiron…