Arts 330

ART 330 Module 3 AVP Transcript Title: Skyscrapers Slide 1 Slide Content: An immigrant family looks out over the New York skyline as they arrive in the USA from Germany aboard the SS Nieuw Amsterdam, ca. 1930s. [Image] Bettmann/Corbis. New York City. (2005). In Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and

History. Retrieved with permission from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/abcgeamrle/new_york_city

Narrator: The skyscraper was first invented by Louis B. Sullivan in Chicago, but after World War I, the skyscraper became associated with international corporations in New York. In the first quarter of the twentieth century skyscrapers began to appear throughout New York City. Slide 2 Slide Content: The Woolworth Building, Lower Manhattan, New York, USA, which rises in 60 stories to an overall height of 241 m/792 ft. It was designed by US architect Cass Gilbert in 1908. [Image] Woolworth Building, Lower Manhattan. (2009). In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia

with Atlas and Weather Guide. Retrieved with permission from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/heliconhe/woolworth_building_lower_manhattan

Narrator: The following is a short list:

 The Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, built in 1909 by Napoleon Le Brun and Sons, rises to 699 feet with 51 floors. It was the tallest building in the world 1909-1913.

 The Woolworth building designed by Cass Gilbert. Construction began in 1910 and finished in 1913. It rises 794 feet with 58 floors. It was the tallest building in the world 1913-1930.

 The Chrysler building built in 1930 by William van Alen. It rises to 1,045 feet with 77 floors. It was the tallest building in the world 1930-1931.

Slide 3 Slide Content: Empire State Building, New York City. Built in 1930, the Empire State Building was the highest building in the world until 1972. The building is situated in midtown Manhattan. In this picture, 223 foot television antenna mast, added in 1950, is hidden from view. [Image] Empire State Building. (2009). In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and

Weather Guide. Retrieved with permission from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/heliconhe/empire_state_building/1

Narrator: The Empire State building built in 1931 by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates. It rises to 1,250 feet with 102 floors. It was the tallest building in the world 1931-1972. Slide 4 Slide Content: [Image] Elements of a Skyscraper. (2009). Stokstad Digital Library. Reprinted with permission from

Pearson Education/Prentice Hall.

Narrator: Steel reinforced concrete and elevators made possible the construction of these cathedrals of commerce. Concrete has a fairly high degree of compressive strength; meaning it can bear very heavy weights without being compromised. The same cannot be said of concrete’s tensile strength: the ability of a material to span a distance without failing. However, if steel rods (which have a high degree of tensile strength) are embedded in concrete, the resulting material is extraordinarily durable. Concrete has the further advantage of being able, in its liquid state, to take virtually any shape imaginable. Slide 5 Slide Content: The skyscrapers of Manhattan, with the distinctive tapering Chrysler Building top right, and behind it Brooklyn Bridge. The Chrysler Building, built in 1930, is one of New York's tallest buildings (1,046 feet in height, with 77 stories). [Image] Manhattan. (2009). In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide.

Retrieved with permission from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/heliconhe/manhattan/1

Narrator: Brothers in obsession, Medieval and Modern architects wanted the same things: tall buildings that reached both physically and visually to the heavens and buildings with as many glass-sheeted windows as possible. Reinforced concrete allowed modern architects to construct buildings that were twice the height of even the tallest Medieval cathedrals.

When pylons of reinforced concrete carry the weight of the building, walls carry none of the weight; this means that the walls can be made of almost anything – including glass. To the modern mind, a building of glass was something that inspired paroxysms of poetry. Witness what the architect Paul Scheerbart wrote in 1914: “The surface of the earth would change totally if brick buildings were replaced everywhere by glass architecture. It would be as if the Earth clothed itself in jewelry of brilliants and enamel. The splendour is absolutely unimaginable… and then we should have a paradise on earth and would not need to gaze yearningly at the paradise in the sky.” Slide 6 Slide Content: Colin Campbell Cooper, Fifth Avenue, New York, 1913, Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France [Image] Fifth Avenue, New York, 1913. Bridgeman Art Library. Retrieved with permission of Credo

Reference from http://www.xreferplus.com.ezproxy.saintleo.edu/entry/bridgeart/fifth_avenue_new_york_ 1913#F/201653.JPG

Narrator: Europeans admired, even rhapsodized, about America’s skyscrapers. In the words of Spanish poet and playwright, Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936): “There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers’ battle with the heavens that cover them. Snow, rain, and mist highlight, drench, or conceal the vast towers, but those towers, hostile to mystery and blind to any sort of play, shear off the rain's tresses and shine their three thousand swords through the soft swan of the fog.” Regardless of European fascination with the skyscraper, the structure never caught on in Europe the way it did in America. Indeed, as regards the first quarter of the 20th century one can say without hesitation that the skyscraper was a distinctly American phenomenon. Slide 7 Slide Content: Alfred Stieglitz at his gallery “291” in 1934; behind him is a painting by his wife, Georgia O'Keeffe. [Image] Stieglitz, Alfred. (2006). In Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Retrieved with permission from

http://www.credoreference.com/entry/ebconcise/stieglitz_alfred

Narrator: Skyscrapers inspired artists from virtually every field of artistic endeavor. For instance, photographer Alfred Stieglitz and his wife Georgia O'Keeffe both made numerous works of art inspired by these buildings.

Slide 8 Slide Content: [Image] O'Keeffe, City Night, 1926, Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Reprinted with permission from

Pearson Education/Prentice Hall.

Narrator: Sometimes they captured the image from the ground looking up, a sort of worm’s eye view. Other times, they used the vantage point afforded them from their 30th floor apartment in the Sheldon Hotel. Slide 9 Slide Content: [Image] Stieglitz. The Flatiron Building, 1903, Metropolitan Museum on Art. Stokstad Digital Library.

Reprinted with permission from Pearson Education/Prentice Hall.

Narrator: Other artists who contributed their impressions of the skyscraper form were Childe Hassam, Paul Strand, Margaret Bourke-White, Edward Steichen, Joseph Pennell, John Marin, George Bellows and John Storrs. Slide 10 Slide Content: [Image] Burnham, Daniel. The Flatiron Building, NYC, 1902. (2008). Stokstad Digital Library. In The

Bridgeman Art Library Archive. Retrieved with permission from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/bridgeart/the_flatiron_building_completed_1902/1

Narrator: Through interpretations such as these, the romance of the skyscraper was brought to people who might never see such a building in person. Slide 11 Slide Content: Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand, Manhatta, 1920 Retrieved from Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/details/Manhatta_1921 Public Domain Narrator: One such interpretation was made in 1920 by Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand. Their film Manhatta, the first avant-garde film to be made in America, is based on portions of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.”

Manhatta shows an average day in the life of New York City beginning with commuters riding the Staten Island ferry into work and closing with the sun setting over the Hudson River. As you watch this film, think about how the brief shots and dramatic camera angles characterize life in the bustling Big Apple. End of presentation