Agbar Tower, Singular Masculine

Joan Sabaté 
31/10/2003


A skyscraper is always singular. It does not matter if it stands alone, in a numerous group, or in pairs, like New York’s disappeared Twin Towers; this essential piece of contemporary culture still aims to become an urban landmark and symbol of technological and economic potential. The skyscraper evokes power and reason, or perhaps technical reason at the service of power. It is a typology specific to modernity, a model that appeared in Chicago at the end of the 19th century, with the incorporation of industry to construction, and especially with the development of steel structures, the elevator and the telephone. The skyscraper represents, in this sense, a synthesis between scientific knowledge, development of production processes and architectural typology, and at the same time it becomes a paradigm o f a society that strongly believed in a boundless development based on technique and the industrialization of work...[+]


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