On Verticality

Ever since humans descended from the trees and out onto the savannah, we’ve gazed upward in wonder at the sky and the stars. Until fairly recently in our history, this space above our heads was a mystery. Our ancestors would witness the diurnal movements of the Sun and the Moon, and the brilliance of a glowing sunrise or sunset. The clouds would drop water and thundering bolts of light and energy. At night, they would witness a spectacular tapestry of light-emitting dots, and connect them into elaborate shapes. The sky has been a continual source of wonder throughout our history, and we’ve spent countless hours thinking about the world we see above our heads.

-René Daumal, French author and poet, 1908-1944.

There’s a need among humans to occupy and build on the highest places around. These places act like magnets for anyone living around them. There are many reasons for this, but they all boil down to verticality. Occupying or building on a high place means you’ve done battle with gravity, and you’ve won.

The above illustration originally appeared in the 1962 book The Earth from the Life Nature Library. It does a masterful job of explaining the complex layers of the earth’s atmosphere, and it puts the scale of each layer in perspective.

Pictured here is an etching by artist Nat Lowell, showing the southern tip of Manhattan, circa 1940. The perspective is from the harbor, and Lowell focuses on three towers, which are the tallest of the bunch. From left to right, they include 40 Wall Street, 20 Exchange Place, and 70 Pine Street. The composition isn’t literal, and Lowell has taken some liberties to arrange the buildings into a mountain of sorts, with the three aforementioned towers at the summit.

Pictured above is a 1904 proposal for an Imperial Monumental Hall and Tower in London. It was proposed by architects Edward Beckitt Lamb and John Pollard Seddon. The main feature of the proposal was a 167 meter (548 foot) Gothic tower, which dominates the entire site and its surroundings. It’s an ambitious proposal, and it uses verticality to elevate the monumentality of the site in three ways.

Pictured above is a proposal for the Washington Monument, designed by Robert Mills sometime around 1845. It was the winning entry of a design competition established in 1835 by the Washington National Monument Society. This design is the second of three structures that Robert Mills proposed or built for a monument to G.W., and each is based on verticality in some way.

The caption for the illustration shown above reads: Puck’s suggestion for the World’s Fair - the “Colossus of Chicago” would knock out the Eiffel Tower. It was drawn by Louis Dalrymple for the 8 October 1890 issue of Puck magazine, a popular humor and satire publication. With Colossus, Dalrymple was mocking a series of proposals leading up to the 1893 World’s Fair that sought to out-do the Eiffel Tower from the previous World’s Fair in Paris. Eiffel had become so popular that the organizers of the 1893 World’s Fair wanted to re-create its success in Chicago.

In the field of early aviation, there are standout figures, such as the Wright Brothers or Otto Lilienthal. There’s also figures that work to push the field forward, and exist with and among other greats. Augustus Moore Herring is one such individual. Throughout his career as an aviation pioneer, his story is woven into the careers of many other pioneers of flight, while unfortunately remaining much less well-known.

The Traveling Companion is a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1835. It follows the travels of a man named John, and how he comes to marry a princess. Along the way, he meets a traveling companion who helps him in various situations, and one of his defining features is his ability to fly.

Pictured here are three postcards from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Each shows the Federal Building, which featured three fluted towers. These towers represented the three branches of the US government, and together they created an icon for the fairgrounds.

Pictured above is an exhaustive collage of early dirigible designs, circa 1885 by E. Morieu. As far as I can tell, there’s forty-five designs in total, and many of them seem quite unique. Most likely the original print was paired with a descriptive list, but unfortunately this link has since been broken. Even so, there’s great beauty in the variety of the designs shown here, as well as the creative spirit that led to all of them. A collage like this is evidence of the human need for verticality, that all these individuals would put so much time and effort into achieving human flight.

Pictured here are two photographs from 1931 showing a winged glider designed by Madame Helene Alberti. Alberti was a well-known opera singer who studied human flight after retiring from the opera. She believed in the Ancient Greek laws of cosmic motion, and believed humans can fly by their own strength after learning to use these laws.

I was recently on a trip to Washington DC, and I went for a run on the National Mall. The centerpiece of the entire complex is the Washington Monument, which is a 169 m (555 ft) stone-faced obelisk. The monument is strikingly simple and quite effective at announcing its presence to the surrounding area. It got me thinking about the obelisk form, and how it’s meaning has changed over the centuries. What was once an integral part of a temple complex has become a singular expression of verticality.

Pictured above is an illustration by Gustave Doré showing a scene from Dante’s Purgatorio. The scene takes place in Canto IX, as Dante is carried by an Eagle to the entry point of Purgatory. As I’ve previously written, the entire structure of Dante’s Divine Comedy is rooted in verticality, and this scene is just one example of this. Purgatory is a mountain which Dante must ascend in order to reach Paradise, or heaven.

Pictured here is a proposal to put a colossal hotel at the base of the Eiffel Tower. It was proposed as part of the 1900 World’s Fair, called the Exposition Universelle, but it never got built. This elevation is the only drawing we have, which makes sense because most people who see the drawing would dismiss it immediately. The idea of filling up the void under the structure would destroy much of the Eiffel’s charm.

-John Muir, Scottish naturalist and mountaineer, 1838-1914

Daniel Burnham once said, make no small plans. This is especially true in New York City, and the proposal pictured above fits right into both these molds. It’s a proposal for a monument to George Washington, and it would’ve dwarfed the height of the next tallest building in the city at the time (and also the tallest building in the world), Trinity Church.

Pictured above is an illustration by Arthur Rackham showing a scene from the Thomas Ingoldsby legend The Witches’ Frolic. The story follows a young man Robin as he interacts with a group of witches, and verticality is featured throughout the tale.

The Story of the Singer Building is a dark patch in the history of New York Architecture. It was the world’s tallest building when it was built, and just 50 years later it was the world’s tallest building to be demolished by it’s owner. This demolition coincided with a period of change in American cities, and it serves as a cautionary tale when compared to other, very similar buildings nearby.