The record-union., 1895-01-15
ROYAL RAKINe POWDER.
TALL BUILDINGS.
An Architect Who Thinks They VIII
Run Up to Forty stories.

Run Up to Forty stories.
An interview with Bruce Price, the
architect, Of the American Surety Com
pany's building, corner of Pine and
Broadway, recently appeared in the New
Y York Herald. According to Mr. Prices
vieWs as there presented, the possible
ties for tail buildings exceed very largely
the ordinary expectation on the subject.
he 1eels That structures of thirty and iorty
stories are by no means ditGcult feats,
and that they may be looked tor in the
near future. he says that now the only
check to erecting such buildings is the
elevator, about BOO or 400 feet beng the
limit OF their capacity as at present per-
footed.
Even this requires a piston of fifty feet
IN length, and the friction which the rod
encounters sometimes heats it red hot.
Those who take Offices III these high
buildings, however, are not going to the
trouble OF changing elevators, not at least
until the price Of realty forces rents
lar higher than they are to-day. This is
Is really the greatest drawback to the
present time. ana there is no reason to
suppose that 1t Will remain. Someone
WlIl invent an elevator that will lit car
sincerity to an Indefinite hight. Then we
shall go on building higher and higher
until we roach point beyond which no
one Will care to go. What that point will
be is hard to say.
FIVE years ago many would have hes
ltated 10 have taken an Office on the
twentieth story OF 8 building, just as ten
years ago they would nave hesitated TO
have taken the twelfth or fourteenth.
People become educated slowly to greater
anu greater elevations, and it won't be so
very long before the thirtieth floor will
seem 10 higher than does the twentieth
row.
MIR. Price looks on the construction of
one OF these buildings as but a simple af-
lalf, question, as he puts it, OF ''sIatis-
Ilcs, q computation OF the weight OF the
persons who are occupying il. Then it
resolves itself simply into providing
suHlclenty heavy beams to carry this
however, Mr.. Price looks upon as a
most important problem, as here the
whole strain must eventually come with
very tall buildings. lie says:
However, the plan is to make the
tounuatlon of the same size ana area as
the building itself, and to distribute the
entire weight OF the building evenly over
the foundation. Given this latter broad
enough aud firm enough and we could
rear Il tower so high that we should have
TO take into consideration the fact that the
top OF the tower moved faster than the
base. In truth, the Dag when this latter
calculation must be made is not very far
off,
Architects will remember the exempli-
lcatIon ot his idea shown in 4 tall build
ing exhibited by him three seasons ago.
1hls was built on q base so feet square,
was about 800 feet high, and to contain
thlrty-tOur stories. This imaginative
sketch at the time attracted considerable
attention and comment. Such build
ing, however, Is soon TO appear in Lower
broadway. 1t is to occupy ) and 6, ad-
joining the Field Building, and Will be
thirty stories high. Mr. Price does not
leel that this class of buildings are neces-
sarlly monstroalties and defy the artistic
TASTE OF the professional to overcome their
inherent ugiiness.
Concerning the artistic possibilities Of
the nigh building, Mr.. Price added that,
SO Tar from being necessarily ugly, the
sky-scraper may be made architecturaIly
perfect. Thus, 1or example, a building
may be run up to a hight ten times the
diameter and II will then assume the pro-
portions Ofia Corinthiau column, wfiCh is
the most perfectly symmetrical form
known to architecture.
Incidentally, it is easier to design tall
building with truly artistic lines upon a
narrow base, making it approach the
proportions OF a tower or column, than it
IS to design building OF considerable
hlght upon q broad base.