skyscrapers - Building the Skyline

May 10, 2018 by Jason Barr Leave a Comment

Ugly Architecture: 130 Years of Manhattan Skyscraper Complaints

Jason M. Barr May 10, 2018

Critics of Manhattan’s new supertall superslim buildings have a laundry list of complaints. One particular trope is that they are ugly and out of scale with their surroundings. While I believe it’s important to debate the pros and cons of tall buildings, it’s also important to keep in mind that today’s beefs continue a 130-year tradition of grousing about skyscrapers.

In this vein, I thought it might be worthwhile to give a short pop quiz. I will give you 10 quotes from architectural critics from 1890 to the present. Try to give (a) the year the quote was made, (b) the name of the architectural critic, and (c) the building under discussion.

The Quiz

Please note a few things. First, the years of the quotes are random, so you cannot infer dates from the order of the questions. Second, each quote was written just around the time the building was completed (or being constructed). Lastly, one quote was made by an anonymous writer.

Ready, set, go!

“[A] lesson in how to be mediocre without really trying. For its bulk, its importance, its effect, and its ballyhoo, it had an obligation to be much better. Size is not nobility; a monumental deal does not make a monument.”

“How disappointing for the rest of us, though, that [the company] has built itself a stolid lump of a building, one that encourages the public to treat the architecture the way more and more people are treating their local paper: by ignoring it.”

“If this [suggested change in design offered by the critic] had been sensitively, that is to say artistically done, would not his building have shown more logic, more organization, more form and comeliness, more variety in a higher unity, than it shows now?”

“This one unravels as a cascade of clunky curves descending toward ribbons billowing into canopies. The conceit is falling water. The effect: a heap of volumes, not liquid but stolid, chintzily embellished, clad in acres of eye-shadow-blue glass offset by a pox of tinted panes, like age spots. It’s anybody’s guess how the building got past the drawing board.”

“Such buildings show one of the real dangers of a plutocracy: it gives the masters our civilization an unusual opportunity to exhibit their barbarous egos, with no sense of restraint or shame.”

“If you don’t look up, you could like this building.”

“But for thoughtful and refined design, one looks everywhere in vain, and the critic finds himself forced to follow the example of the designer—to ‘cuss the thing and quit it’.”

“The two buildings offer stunning proof that art and style alone are a ludicrous measure of successful urban architecture; what kind of ‘art’ assassinates a city?”

“The new building, designed by [the architect], is an elf prancing among men.”

“As presently designed, this fearful instrument of urbicide will be not only the tallest, but unquestionably one of the, ugliest buildings in the world.”

The Answers

How do you think you did? Here are the answers….

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1963, Ada Louis Huxtable, New York Times architecture critic from 1962 to 1983, on the Pan Am (MetLife) Building, just north of Grand Central Station. Article: “Architecture Stumbles On.” New York Times, April 14, 1963, 119.

2007, Justin Davidson, New York Magazine architecture critic, on the New York Times Headquarters on West 41^st Street.

1902, Montgomery Schuyler, critic and journalist, in the Architectural Record, on the Flatiron Building, at Fifth Avenue and 23^rd.

2013, Michael Kimmelman, New York Times architecture critic, on One57, a luxury condo building on West 57^th Street.

1931, Lewis Mumford, The New Yorker architecture critic and urban scholar, in the New Republic, on the Chrysler Building. Article: “Notes on Modern Architecture.” The New Republic, March 18, 1931, 119-122.

2003, Paul Goldberger, currently the architecture critic at Vanity Fair, in the The New Yorker, on the Time Warner Center, at Columbus Circle.

1890, Anonymous, in the Real Estate Record and Builders Guide, on the World Building (demolished) near City Hall.

1987, Ada Louise Huxtable, in the New York Times, on the AT&T (Sony) Building and IBM Building in Midtown East. Article: “Creeping Gigantism in Manhattan.” New York Times, March 22, 1987, Section 2.

2005, Paul Goldberger, in The New Yorker, on a luxury apartment building on Astor Place.

1966, Wolf Von Eckardt, architecture critic for the Washington Post, in Harper’s Magazine, on the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center. Article: “New York’s Trade Center: World’s Tallest Fiasco.” Harper’s Magazine, May 1966, 94-100.

Top (from left): World Building (1890), Flatiron Building (1902), Chrysler Building (1930), Pan Am (MetLife) Building (1963), Twin Towers (1970/1). Bottom (from left): AT&T (Sony) Building (1984), Time Warner Center (2003), Astor Place (2004). New York Times Building (2007), One57 (2014).

The Spire and the Point

My guess is that, unless you are an architectural historian steeped in the writings of America’s most prominent architecture critics, you had a hard time with this quiz. A phrase here or there, or the writing style, might suggest one time period over another; but there was nothing inherent in any of the quotes to suggest a particular building.

The point is that since day one, skyscrapers have been controversial. Architecture critics seek to provide some indications about whether a building has artistic merit, is new or derivative, achieves the goals of the designer, and/or provides useful urbanism. Naturally, there are buildings that they are going to love and others they are going to hate. To be human is to have an opinion.

But opinions evolve. Take the case of the Pan Am (MetLife) Building. Completed in 1963 it was berated as a monstrous behemoth thrust down amid the Beaux Arts effervescence of Grand Central Terminal and the Helmsely (New York Central) Building. Despite being designed, in part, by Walter Gropius, one the world’s foremost modernist architects, Ada Louise Huxtable, along with many others, hated it for being too large and out of scale with the neighborhood.

Opinions Change

By 2001, however, perceptions reversed. Christopher Gray, author of the Streetscapes column in the New York Times, from 1986 to 2014, aptly quotes John Jurayj, a painter from Brooklyn, who has been involved in preservation efforts:

The old Post Office at the south end of City Hall Park was thought of as garish, and it obstructed a view, and so it was demolished in 1939, but now we’d fight to protect it….It seems that New Yorkers are emotionally connected to what were originally brutal interventions of our skyline. The loss of the World Trade Center shows that buildings that we may not think of as great architecture are important to our sense of ourselves and our city. Aesthetics are dependent upon the passage of time.

Huxtable also hated the AT&T (Sony) Building designed by Philip Johnson (with John Burgee), one of the most creative and influential architects of the 20^th century.^[1]She saw it as another example of the horrors of Manhattan gigantism; yet today the structure is prized for its style. Philip Johnson, in many respects the quintessential modernist, realized it was time to reject the International Style and hopped on the postmodern bandwagon. His “Chippendale” topped skyscraper is a playful “rebuttal” to the black glass box that dominated the skyline for a quarter century after World War II.

In 2017, protests ensued when the current owner, the Olayan Group, from Saudi Arabia, announced its plans for a large renovation. They want to build a glass curtain wall over the street front and replace a glass arcade and annex building with an outdoor garden. These proposed changes generated opposition; today the building is awaiting a review from the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

New York’s Earlier Skyscrapers

Going back in time a bit (and risking hyperbole), is there anyone alive who does not like the Flatiron Building? Today, it’s one of the most beloved and iconic structures on the planet. When constructed in 1902, however, it was called Burham’s Folly, because it was believed that noted Chicago architect, Daniel Burnham, designed a dud that would topple over in the wind. Disliked by critics, it was seen as rising way out of proportion with the neighborhood. Many found its rounded edges and triangular shape disconcerting.

Then there’s the Chrysler Building. While, at the time, most New Yorkers appreciated its steel spire, sleek gargoyles, and soaring height, Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), one of the most-read architectural critics and urbanists of his day, thought the building was a garish example of egos gone wild. His opinions were not that far off the mainstream thinking about the supertall skyscrapers at the time. In the late 1920s, there were many complaints that the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings were “freak” projects, built, as monuments not money makers, and symbolized the worst of human impulses, all the while imposing rampant congestion on the streets.

Today, we look as these buildings quite fondly, as examples of the glory days of the Roaring Twenties. An era when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat; giddy Flappers were sipping bathtub gin while swinging to the musical stylings of Duke Ellington; and Charles Lindbergh was flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Ugly or Not They Make New York New York

Say what you will about the new skyscrapers going up in New York today. Maybe they are ugly, maybe not. But we can’t use aesthetics as a reason to prevent them from being built. Today’s uglies are tomorrow’s gems. Today’s swans are tomorrow’s crows.

After World War II, New York was derided as a place where skyscraper design was bland and beholden to the developer’s bottom line. We should celebrate the attempts to bring forth original styles and shapes in the 21^st century. In the long run, they may succeed or fail, but its the striving to produce the new that makes the city so vibrant. New Yorker’s should once again embrace the power of architecture to enhance not only the look of the skyline but also its culture of creativity.

Just to be clear, I’m not against preservation (and will return to this topic in a future post). I strongly believe a city should preserve some of it historical architecture; and, I believe there is a role for the government regulation of tall buildings. But to suggest they are too ugly, too tall, or out of scale is, in a way, an attempt to clip the wings of New York. The historical buildings that we are most proud of were also the ones that got the same complaints as we hear today.

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^[1] Huxtable also complained about the former Huntington Hartford museum (2 Columbus Circle, 1964), disparaging it as a “die-cut Venetian palazzo on lollipops.” Originally designed by Edward Durrell Stone, in 2008 it was renovated and given a new look, but only after calls to landmark it. I personally liked the building before it was changed; it struck me as an example of whimsical modernism with a marble façade, a more pleasing contrast to the cold glass boxes of Midtown.

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March 8, 2018 by Jason Barr 1 Comment

Working High: Who’s on Top in Office Buildings?

Jason M. Barr March 8, 2018

Imagine that one day, walking through a crowded business district, you discover that you have a new power: you can see directly inside a skyscraper office building, as if one of the glass facades had just been removed. Before you is your very own ant farm.

Five thousand men and women are going about their daily work routines, without knowledge that you are observing them. On the 10^th floor, a cluster of cubicle dwellers stares at their screens. On the 20^th floor, three men in a hallway are talking about basketball. On the 30^th floor, a nervous college graduate sits uncomfortably in a leather couch, waiting for an interview. On the 50^th floor, an executive looks out at the vast skyline from her corner office. All the while, six strangers stand awkwardly as the elevator shoots up in its shaft.

You could spend days filling notebooks with anthropological observations about homo operarius, but one question in particular pops into your mind: Who goes where? Do different types of businesses sort themselves on different floors?

X-ray cross-section of office building and workers (Digital composite) : Stock Photo — Source: https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/xray-crosssection-of-office-building-and-workers-picture-id200208703-001

The Vertical City

As a good social scientist, you must first conduct a literature review. To your surprise, you find two recent studies that investigate this very question. The first paper is called “The Vertical City: Rent Gradients and Spatial Structure” (2017) by Lui, Rosenthal and Strange; the second is “The Vertical City Revisited: Rent Premiums and Vertical Sorting in Amsterdam’s Tall Office Towers” (2017) by van Assendelft, Nase and Remøy.

Each asks similar questions. The first is whether there is a height premium within office buildings. That is, do businesses pay higher rents to be on higher floors? Second, if so, who is paying to be up there?

Lui et al. study over 1,900 office buildings throughout the United States; while van Assendelft et al. investigate 33 buildings in Amsterdam. Yet, their findings are quite similar. They both confirm the existence of a height premium. Across the U.S., on average, businesses pay around 0.6% more rent per square foot to be on a higher floor. For example, if one business is on the 10^th floor and another is on the 30^th floor, the higher one would be paying 12% more, on average, for the right to work closer to the clouds.

For Amsterdam, the authors find that on, average, firms on the 11^th to 15^th floors pay 9% more per square meter than those on the lower floors; while those on the 26^th to 31^st floors pay nearly 24% more than those on floors one to five.

My own investigation into the Manhattan office market yields results similar to those of Liu et al. However, I find that the rent premium varies across the island. Those firms in midtown pay, on average, about 0.6% per higher floor; while those in downtown only pay 0.3%, all else equal.

As seen from the Amstel River in Amsterdam: 1. Rembrandt Tower, 2. Mondriaantoren, 3. Breitnertoren. Source: Wikipedia.

Why the Rent Premium?

This apparent universal phenomenon begs the question: Why do businesses pay more to be higher up? One can imagine both costs and benefits to working in the clouds. On the plus side are the greater views and cleaner air. On the downside is that more time is spent riding elevators. Fear of heights or terrorism do not help. Yet, based the strong statistical results, the benefits seem to outweigh the costs.

However, more than just great views is at work (no pun intended). Something deeper is going on, and whether it is an economic, psychological, or sociological phenomenon remains unknown. The differences that I find between midtown and downtown Manhattan rents also suggest views is only one part of the equation.

Who is paying the premium? Both studies find that one type of business systematically pays to be on higher floors. Can you guess who? Here are some choices:

(a) Advertising
(b) Law
(c) Insurance
(d) Finance
(e) Management Consulting

The answer is…

The left graph shows the increase in rents versus floor height for the Amsterdam office market (based on two different analyses). For example, offices on floors six to ten rent for 10% more per square meter than those on floors one to five. The right graph shows which industries pay the most in rents. The greater the rent, the higher those firms tend to be within a building. Source: van Assendelft, N., Nase, I., and Remøy, H. (2017). “The Vertical City Revisited: Rent Premiums and Vertical Sorting in Amsterdam’s Tall Office Towers.” Unpublished manuscript.

(b) Law Firms.

Why the Sort on High?

For some reason, lawyers are much more likely to be found on higher floors, in both the U.S. and the Netherlands. In regard to floor choices, Liu et al. conclude, “Law offices dominate, however, and make up 43 percent of establishments above floor 40.” At this point, the reasons for the sort on high remain something a mystery. Nevertheless, here are several possible theories.

The Peacock’s Tail

The first is that of signaling. We can imagine that potential clients do not have full information about the quality of different law firms. If, to the random client, one law firms appears the same as the next, then particularly successful firms might use some of their large incomes to rent the higher floors to convey their success to would-be clients. This is analogous to the peacock’s feathers: the large and brightly colored tail signals fitness and strength, which is then used to attract a mate.

The Pool

If fantastic views are an amenity, then those with more money will outbid the rest for the right to the prize. In the housing market, for example, a home with a pool might sell for thousands of dollars more. Only those households with large enough incomes can afford to pay. Perhaps it is the same with law firms and views—they use their large revenue streams to pay for the benefit.

The Product

There is a large literature in economics on the benefits of clustering and business density. Perhaps law firms, in particular, find that being up high makes them more productive. That is, there is something specific about the way lawyers work that allows them to better interact with each other and clients when they are high up. In this case, lawyers will pay to move up so they can get more work done. Then, what is the role of views? Does it make lawyers more contemplative or calm and therefore more productive? Or, is it something about the vertical nature of the working, separate from the vistas?

The Props

One important aspect of human behavior, springing from our evolutionary history, is that of power and status. Humans naturally form hierarchies. However, if there are multiple claims to be at the top, there must be some method to decide who gets to be king. In modern societies, these urges are resolved with currency not combat.

The legal profession–the interpreters of what society members can and cannot do–may draw those personalities eager to sit atop the social hierarchy. So in this case, the profession lures in the “alphas” who, by renting kingdoms in the sky, are then accorded the social status they seek.

This theory suggests that the height premium is, essentially, independent of the views. Lawyers would pay to be at the top of a windowless building, simply to get their props.

The View from Inside

Neither of the two studies investigates in a detailed fashion which theory might be the most important. Liu et al. do try to determine some of the factors that affect floor choices. They find, for example, that a key variable is sales revenue per worker. On average, across all firm types, a company that has double the sales per worker is likely to increase its floor height by 1.5%, all else equal.

And, there’s something special about law firms; they are even more sensitive to revenues—the larger the revenues of law firms, the greater their jump to higher floors, as compared to other types of businesses. But, beyond that, we don’t know the motivation.

To get an insider’s perspective, I first spoke with a lawyer, who has been practicing for over 40 years in Manhattan. His firm currently leases space on the 40^th floor of a midtown tower. His view (no pun intended) was that being on a high floor was important for both recruiting purposes and impressing clients; which suggests both the signaling and amenities theories.

“Several years ago, I went to work for a startup law firm and we took a high floor—the 35^th floor—in a building in midtown. We wanted to impress clients that we were a big league outfit and being on high floor was part of that strategy.”

This lawyer also suggested that things might be changing. After the financial crash of 2008, clients began scrutinizing law firms’ expenditures and their high fees. “Being high up can be good for advertising to clients—but there’s a real tension as you also don’t want to be seen as throwing your client’s money away.”

This sentiment was echoed by Bob Chodos of Newmark Knight Frank in Chicago. He’s been in the real estate business for 35 years and specializes in finding office space for law firms. Mr. Chodos says lawyers want to be high up because it produces happier lawyers. The amenities of natural light and views, combined with smaller floors up high, increases the fit between the built environment and the nature of legal work, which makes lawyers more productive. “Today the ideal office size is 28,000 square feet, with floor-to-ceiling glass, and are 40 feet from window to core.”

When asked about the “king of the hill” theory, he also said that law firms would not pay to be high up for that reason. “Clients want to know that law firms are not spending money on unnecessary luxuries.”

Fitness

Based on my conversation with Mr. Chodos, the theories discussed above need to modified somewhat (at least for lawyers): those who pay are seeking a better match between building form and workers’ needs and wants. This can also explain the demand that high-tech firms have for old loft buildings in central cities–it’s to please their energetic millennials, who reject the glass box office.

But a question remains: Does being high up improve productivity or enhance reputations for other types of tenants? It may be that they are outbid because of lawyers’ larger revenues, despite wanting to also work in the clouds. This problem could be solved if someone invents a floating building in the sky, with views on every floor.

January 2, 2018 by Jason Barr 1 Comment

Why Was 2017 Another Record-Breaking Year for Skyscrapers?

Jason M. Barr January 2, 2018

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) recently issued its 2017 Year in Review for skyscraper construction around the world. As in prior years, the report has lead to a flurry of excited headlines. From The Times UK: “Taste for High Life Gives Rise to More Skyscrapers”; from ArchDaily.com: “The Results Are In: 2017 Was Another Record-Breaking Year for Skyscrapers,” and from CNN: “World Skyscraper Construction Hits All-time High.”

Implicit in these statements is that something is not quite right; that the world is being flooded with supertall structures must be due to nefarious, decadent, or irrational objectives. But, the truth, alas, is quite mundane. The increase in supertalls is a direct response to global economic growth.

This fact holds as true today, in the early 21^st century, as it did a century ago. If we take a step back and look at the long history of skyscrapers, we can get a better perspective on when and where they are constructed. The first skyscrapers were built in Chicago and New York City starting in late-1880s as a way to accommodate the demand for office space in their respective central business districts.

The skyscraper was invented as a “machine that makes the land pay.” That is to say, land prices in New York and Chicago were so high at the time that developers aimed to build taller structures as a way to recoup the expense of paying for the land. However, the reason that land values were so high was that the Loop and Wall Street were booming at the end of the 19^th century. These two cities were growing rapidly to accommodate the increasing trade and commerce that were contributing to America’s wealth.

The Threshold

Once a city or nation achieves an economic threshold, it then has the resources and economic demand to build a skyscraper. Technological progress over time makes the definition of “tall” creep up, but the logic of tall has not changed. It emerges from the supply and demand calculus. Increasing business, trade, and urbanization draw people to cities. Because of the strong forces of agglomeration, some locations become very valuable. This then incentivizes developers to build tall, which further increases the value of these central locations, increasing demand for more skyscrapers.

We can see this in America in the early 20^th century. Figure 1 shows, for 72 cities, large and small–from Albany to Youngstown–the relationship between a city’s population and the number of tall buildings it hads. The left graph shows the number of structures that are 10 stories or taller in 1929 versus its 1920 population; the right graph shows the number of 21-story or taller structures versus its 1920 population (all variables are in natural log format).

Number of tall buildings in 72 U.S. cities in 1929 versus their 1920 populations. Sources: Number of taller buildings is from Weiss, M. A. (1992). “Skyscraper Zoning: New York’s Pioneering Role.” *Journal of the American Planning Association*, 58(2). Population data is from Gibson, C. (1998). “Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in The United States: 1790 TO 1990,” or from a respective city’s Wikipedia entry.

While the relationships are not one-to-one, it is clear that larger, more productive cities have more tallr buildings (the same would be shown with each city’s gross city product, but I could not find such data). On average a 10% increase in population lead to having an 8.6% increase in the number of 10-story or taller buildings. Furthermore, a 10% increase in population increased the probability of having a 21-story or taller structure by 2.5 percentage points. Once a city’s population hit about 315,000 there was a 100% chance it had at least one very tall structure (except for Washington DC, which had strict building height laws).

That was nearly a century ago. Let us scale this up to nations today. Barely any poor countries have skyscrapers. North Korea, which has been trying to finish the Ryugyong Hotel since the late 1980s, stands as a monument to the exception that proves the rule. Skyscrapers, rather, emerge in rapidly growing countries.

Not every rich country embraces skyscrapers—there are none in Norway or Denmark, for example—but again they are the exceptions. By and large, most rich countries find they have a need for them. Figure 2 shows the relationship between the number of 150-meter or taller buildings in 177 countries versus their respective GDPs (again in natural log format).

Number of skyscrapers (150m+ buildings) versus gross domestic product (GDP) for 177 countries. Source: Skyscraper data is from the Skyscraper Center. 2016 GDP data from the World Bank. Note GDP is adjusted for purchasing power parity.

The figure strongly suggests that there is a threshold, here about $34.5 billion, which, once passed, leads to more skyscrapers. Once hit, there is very strong relationship between the size of an economy and the number of skyscrapers. In fact, on average, across countries, a 1% increase in a country’s GDP leads to a nearly 1% increase in number of skyscrapers.

The Global Growth in Skyscrapers

We can, in fact, zoom out one step further and look at this from a global perspective. Imagine that planet earth was one country. We can look at how the total number of skyscrapers completed on the planet each year is affected by global income growth.

To this end, I collected data on the number of tall building completed each year since 1960 (where here a tall building is one that is 190 meters or taller), and three other important variables: global gross domestic product (GDP), global population, and the fraction of the human population that lives in urban areas. I have created detailed notes on the data sources and analysis for the interested reader.

In short, global GDP, population growth, and urbanization can account for 92% of the variation in the number of skyscrapers completed each year. In other words, these three variables are the key to understanding why tall buildings are becoming both more numerous and taller. I find that, at the global level, a 1% increase in global economic growth leads to a more than 1% increase in skyscrapers, on average.

In 1960, global GDP was $11 trillion; today it is $72 trillion. What’s more, since 1960, global GDP has only declined in one year (in 2009 after the Great Recession). This is worth stressing again: despite the ups and downs of national economies, such as that of the U.S. and those in Europe, planet earth, as a whole, has experienced a rise in incomes every year for the last 56 years, save one. Each year that the world increases its income means that it will continue to add more and more skyscrapers.

December 10, 2017 by Jason Barr 1 Comment

Skyscrapers and Happiness: An International Comparison (Part I)

Jason M. Barr December 10, 2017

While skyscrapers are primarily built for their occupants, they, perforce, impose themselves on the urban fabric. We can, for example, look at the prices that people pay to rent or buy space within them to estimate their value to the tenants. However, what measures do we have about how they affect citizens more broadly?

It is important to know how skyscrapers contribute to the quality of life and our sense of well-being. Do they make us happy? While there are many angles to approach this question, the goal here is to take a “satellite view” and look at skyscrapers and the happiness of nations.

Economic Growth and Happiness

Arguably, the world’s first economist, Adam Smith, in 1776, advocated for individual entrepreneurship and competition as the road to national wealth. Since then, economists have seen their primary mission as understanding and promoting capitalism as the means to human prosperity. Of lesser concern has been that of happiness, and whether wealth leads to contentment.

Over the last several decades, however, economists have turned to this topic after economist Richard Easterlin discovered, in 1974, the so-called Easterlin Paradox: once nations achieve a certain threshold of income, happiness levels flatten, even though their gross domestic products (GDPs) continue to grow. In other words, once the anxieties of procuring food, clothing, and shelter dissipate, more incomes does not translate into more happiness, on average.

In 2012, the first edition of the annual World Happiness Report was published. Each year it provides a Happiness Index that measures the average life satisfaction of citizens of nations around the globe. The index is derived from seven variables: (1) per capita GDP (average income), (2) amount of social support given to citizens, (3) healthy life expectancy, (4) freedom to make life choices, (5) national generosity, (6) lack of corruption, and (7) national base-line levels (culture). These seven factors are shown to each contribute to residents’ sense of life satisfaction (see Figure 1).

Every year, the Nordic counties score the highest. This year it is Norway, last year it was Demark. Why? Because, first, they are rich countries, but, just as importantly, they also score high on social services, generosity, and trust. Interestingly, however, these countries have no skyscrapers (buildings taller than 150 meters).

Figure 1: Top 20 happiest nations on planet earth (and their causes). Source: World Happiness Report (2017).

Skyscrapers and Happiness

Is there a relationship between happiness and skyscrapers? If so, what is the direction of causality? Do skyscrapers affect people’s sense of well-being? Or, does happiness (or sadness) drive people to choose some kinds of building types over others? Here, I aim to explore the possible relationships by looking at each nation’s Happiness Index value and the height of its tallest building. An additional post, will focus on national happiness and the number of skyscrapers. Future posts will zoom in to look at the evidence at the city or individual level.

A key point here is that we can see if there are patterns across the world that might allow us to make some inferences, and lead to more specific investigations based on what the data show.

I offer the following hypotheses, and will then discuss theories that lead to them: (1) taller buildings increase people’s happiness; (2) taller buildings decrease people’s happiness; (3) happier people build taller buildings; (4) happier people build shorter buildings; (5) there is no relationship between the two.

Figure 2: Height of the tallest buildings in each country around the world. Source: https://i.redd.it/rq7e73n7q5fz.png.

Let’s start with the hypothesis #1. Tall buildings may engender national pride, as do sports arenas and other local monuments. That a nation can muster the resources to have a very tall building may give people a sense of place, which enhances their happiness levels.

Regarding hypothesis #2, if tall buildings are wasteful or simply just for plutocrats, they might engender feelings of anger and shame (as seems to be a common emotion with the super-tall luxury condos going up in Manhattan).

What about the other way around? For hypothesis #3, presumably, happier people express themselves more freely, and, it may be that taller buildings are expressions of this happiness.

Finally, for hypothesis #4, perhaps happier people are less concerned with conspicuous consumption, and the consumption rat race; super-tall structures may be seen as a form of this type of investment. As a result, happier people might eschew them and use their resources for experienced-based activities, such as say going out with friends or traveling.

The Evidence

We now turn to the evidence. For the interested reader, I provide details of the data sources, preparation, and statistical analysis. First, Figure 3 shows there is, in fact, a positive correlation between measured happiness levels and the tallest building completed in each of 141 countries around the world.

Figure 3: Scatter plot of tallest building in each country (in natural logs) versus its Happiness Index value. Note the correlation coefficient is 0.47. Trend line in black. Sources: Skyscraper Center and Emporis (for building height) and World Happiness Report.

In other words, the Nordic countries notwithstanding, happier countries also tend to have taller buildings, on average. The relationship is not, of course, one to one, and there is a significant amount of variation around the trend line, but the trend is there. For example, we would predict that a 10% increase in happiness from one country to another would be associated, on average, with a 14.6% increase in the height of that nation’s tallest building.

However, correlation is not causation; the next step is to perform a deeper statistical (regression) analysis to see if this relationship still holds after controlling for other factors that might, in fact, be driving both happiness and height.

Take national income (as measured by per capita GDP). It is a strong possibility that income is the true causal variable. If richer countries, on average, are happier than poorer ones, and if richer countries build taller buildings, then happiness-height relationship might, in fact, be specious.

To this end, I collected data on several key variables that are related to either happiness and/or skyscraper height and included them in the statistical analysis. The idea is to see if, after controlling for other important factors, such as population, income, human development (the HDI), and regional differences, the happiness-height relationships still appears.

And the answer is “yes.” In fact, I find evidence for a positive, two-way relationship between the two. That is to say, after controlling for other important variables, and performing a series of tests to make sure I carried out the correct statistical procedures, I find that taller buildings are positively linked with happiness, and that happiness is also positively linked with building height, on average.

So let me conclude by offering a possible theory, which further analysis can help confirm or deny: happier countries, on averages, express themselves by building taller, which, then, in turn, gives them a sense of national pride, which increases their happiness.