Wikipedia definition:
A
skyscraper is a tall, continuously
building. There is no official definition or a precise cutoff height above which a building may clearly be classified as a skyscraper. However, as per usual practice in most cities, the definition is used
empirically, depending on the relative impact of the shape of a building to a city's overall
skyline. Thus, depending on the average height of the rest of the buildings and/ or structures in a city, even a building of 80 meters height (approximately 262 ft) may be considered a skyscraper provided that it clearly stands out above its surrounding built environment and significantly changes the overall skyline of that particular city.
The word "skyscraper" originally was a
nautical term referring to a tall mast or its main sail on a
sailing ship. The term was first applied to buildings in the late 19th century as a result of public amazement at the tall buildings being built in
Chicago and
New York City. The traditional definition of a skyscraper began with the "first skyscraper", a steel-framed ten storey building. Chicago's now demolished ten storey steel-framed
Home Insurance Building (1885) is generally accepted as the "first skyscraper".
The structural definition of the word
skyscraper was refined later by architectural historians, based on engineering developments of the 1880s that had enabled construction of tall multi-storey buildings. This definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing
masonry, which passed their practical limit in
1891 with Chicago's
Monadnock Building.
Philadelphia's City Hall, completed in
1901, still holds claim as the world's tallest load-bearing masonry structure at 167 m (548 ft). The steel frame developed in stages of increasing self-sufficiency, with several buildings in Chicago and New York advancing the technology that allowed the steel frame to carry a building on its own. Today, however, many of the tallest skyscrapers are built almost entirely with
reinforced concrete.
Pumps and
storage tanks maintain
water pressure at the top of skyscrapers.
A loose convention in the
United States and
Europe now draws the lower limit of a skyscraper at 150 meters (500 ft).
[1] A skyscraper taller than 300 meters (984 ft) may be referred to as
supertall. Shorter buildings are still sometimes referred to as skyscrapers if they appear to dominate their surroundings.
The somewhat arbitrary term
skyscraper should not be confused with the slightly less arbitrary term
highrise, defined by the
Emporis Standards Committee as "...a multi-storey structure with at least 12 floors or 35 meters (115 feet) in height."
[2] Some
structural engineers define a highrise as any vertical construction for which
wind is a more significant
load factor than
earthquake or
weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high rises but some other tall structures, such as
towers.
The word
skyscraper often carries a connotation of pride and achievement. The skyscraper, in name and social function, is a modern expression of the age-old symbol of the
world center or
axis mundi: a pillar that connects earth to heaven and the four compass directions to one another.
[3]
I know, it is already said, but then the complete version. Sorry
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