Today when most people think of the big cities we think of lots of people and skyscrapers. Before the 1880’s a building that stood so tall would have been unheard of. The earliest structures that would have qualified for the name skyscraper would have been pyramids and other structures that would have been made of the too heavy stone. When Henry Bessemer patented a way to make steel quickly and efficiently, they became much more plausible for open buildings. This process made iron into steel by blowing air onto the molten iron thereby removing the carbon and creating steel which was a lighter and stronger metal. This became one of the most crucial elements in the building of skyscrapers.Because people now had steel, they were able to build taller self supported structures by building the main structure of the building out of this new metal. This meant that the outside walls of the building didn’t support the weight of the entire building as previous ones have done. Most of the weight was held by the steel structure inside of the building and therefore the buildings were stronger and able to be built higher than the average person would have thought possible at the time. This style of building was often referred to as “Chicago Skeleton building”.Building this way wasn’t quite the best way however because it needed a wide base to support the building and would gradually come to a point. This caused floor space to slowly increase as the building rose and eventually would cause it to define the height of the building. This caused one man to think about new design possibilities in the early 1960’s. His name was Fazlur Khan and he came up with a new tube design. This design allowed steel to be put together in many different ways instead of the usual square design. This is the design that many people today use to design the ever taller skyscrapers of today.Top 5 Tallest Skyscrapers Today1.Burj Dubai- United Arab Emirates2.Willis Tower (Sears Tower)- United States3.Taipei 101- Taiwan4.Shanghai World Financial Center- China5.Petronas Twin Towers- MalaysiaSorry the hyperlink isn't working again but here are my sourceshttp://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blskyscapers.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraperhttp://architecture.suite101.com/article.cfm/traces_the_history_of_the_skyscraperFlatiron Building
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