Editor's Note:
Sam Jacob is Director of the Sam Jacob Studio for Architecture and Design, Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture.
His work has been published at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and at the MAK in Vienna.
He was also curator of the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2014. The opinions expressed in this article are his alone.
(CNN) -
If you look at a drawing prior to the Great Fire of London, you can see a low-rise, messy city.
An urban miasma of houses and inns pierced by an incredible number of spiers pointing skyward.
It is an image of a city whose skyline contained the hustle and bustle of worldly life, while its vertical dimension was dedicated to higher ideals.
Before the Great Fire of London, the capital was a low-rise, messy city. Pictured is a 17th century replica of London. On a barge on the Thames it is lit at an event to mark the 350th anniversary of the fire. (Credit: JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP / AFP / Getty Images)
So it was for most of the history of high-rise architecture.
The towers were structures that had a special role: symbolic, monumental, even mythological.
They acted as symbols of power, of devotion, or in the case of the Biblical story of Babel, to exceed ambition.
It was only at the beginning of the 20th century that the earthly world of human life began to occupy the sky.
And it happened in Chicago, where a new tower phenomenon emerged in the super-flat landscape of the American Midwest.
As the size and population of the city exploded in the late 1800s, building technologies combined with Chicago's supreme pragmatism to invent the modern skyscraper typology.
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Chicago's Home Insurance Building in 1926. It was demolished in 1931. (Credit: Chicago History Museum / Contributor)
Chicago's 42-meter-high Home Insurance Building opened in 1885 and was the first tall building to use steel frames in its frame.
Others quickly followed, and the Chicago School, as it became known, developed a new typology that combined modernity with decoration and ornament.
The Monadnock Building, on the left, is featured in this photo. It was photographed from a neighboring skyscraper in 1895. (Credit: Hulton Archive / Stringer)
In those buildings you can see old architectural ideas about which buildings should be stretched thanks to modern possibilities.
Other examples include the Monadnock Building (the largest commercial building in the world at the time of its construction in 1892), the Reliance Building (famous for developing large glass windows), and the Marquette Building (with its intricately designed terra cotta exterior ).
Each of those buildings helped develop the skyscraper typology.
Enabled by technology, those new American commercial buildings also played a role in the economy.
Building tall meant developers could multiply parcels of land vertically, stacking floor after floor to multiply the value over and over again.
This means that the types of speculation familiar to the Chicago and New York stock exchanges could apply to the act of building.
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The Reliance building, Chicago. (Credit: Chicago History Museum / Contributor)
In Europe, architects looked at the possibilities of high rise differently.
Instead of commercial value, the early modernists saw how a different kind of social value could be created.
Advances in technology, they hoped, could be harnessed to create a more equitable social good.
The Marquette Building, Chicago (built in 1895). (Credit: stevegeer)
Emerging as part of the postwar reconstruction, the towers became an important part of the provision of public housing.
Symbolically, these welfare state towers offered something new, something modern with light and air that represented an escape from the grimy industrial city of the past, liberation from the old order.
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Tallest Spiral Towers in the World - The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) published a comprehensive list of the tallest spiral buildings in the world that are already completed or under construction.
From Shanghai to Dubai, CNN takes a look at these spectacular spiraling skyscrapers, as well as some of the tallest buildings in the world.
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Shanghai Tower, Shanghai, China - Topping CTBUH's list in terms of height is the Shanghai Tower that rotates 632 meters into the sky.
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Shanghai Tower, Shanghai, China - The Shanghai Tower is also the tallest building in China and the second tallest skyscraper in the world after the famous Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
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Shanghai Tower, Shanghai, China - Located in Shanghai's burgeoning Lujiazui financial district and designed by Gensler architects Marshall Strabala and Jun Xia, its twisted shape accommodates strong typhoon winds.
The tower was completed in late 2015.
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The Lakhta Center, Saint Petersburg, Russia - Although not finished yet, the second tallest spiral building on the CTBUH list is the Lakhta Center, a tower in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
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The Lakhta Center, Saint Petersburg, Russia - It was designed by British architect Tony Kettle in conjunction with Gorproject.
The tower has a projected height of 462 meters and is expected to be completed by the end of 2018.
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Ocean Heights, Dubai, United Arab Emirates - It is a residential skyscraper in the Dubai Marina.
Ocean Heights is 310 meters high and 83 stories high.
This is the world's second tallest spiral tower completed and was designed by American architect Andrew Bromberg of Aedas.
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Cayan Tower, Dubai, United Arab Emirates - Completed in 2013 and designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the Cayan Tower reaches 306 meters.
It is the third tallest tower in the world in a completed spiral, according to the CTBUH.
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Evolution Tower, Moscow, Russia - A white ribbon borders Moscow's impressive Evolution Tower, which reached 246 meters in height when it was completed in 2015.
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Evolution Tower, Moscow, Russia - Inspired by the city's St. Basil's Cathedral and the never-finished Talin Tower, the main design architect was Philip Nikandrov of Gorproject.
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'Turning Torso', Malmo, Sweden - The world's first tallest building in a spiral was the 190-meter 'Turning Torso', designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and completed in 2005.
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'Turning Torso', Malmo, Sweden - "The unconventional shape of a twisted structure means that every component of the tall building design must be rethought," says Shawn Ursin, author of the CTBUH report.
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The World of Absolute E&D Condominium Towers, Ontario, Canada - Nicknamed the 'Marylin Monroe' towers by local residents due to their flowing, natural lines, they were designed by MAD Architects.
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The World of Absolute E&D Condominium Towers, Ontario, Canada - These two spiral towers reach 176 and 158 meters in height.
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The 'Burj Khalifa', Dubai, United Arab Emirates - Claiming its crown as the tallest building in the world upon completion in 2010, the 'Burj Khalifa' rises 198 meters above its closest finished competitor.
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The Tower, Dubai, United Arab Emirates - However, the 828-meter mark of the 'Burj Khalifa' on Dubai's skyline could soon be surpassed by a new mega-tall skyscraper.
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The Tower, Dubai, United Arab Emirates - Although it does not have an official name yet, The Tower at Dubai Creek Harbor will be 100 meters higher than the 'Burj Khalifa'.
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The Tower, Dubai, United Arab Emirates - Designed by Santiago Calatrava, the tower is expected to be completed in 2020 and will have ten observation decks at its oval-shaped peak.
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Jeddah Tower, Saudi Arabia - Also vying for the title of the tallest building in the world is the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia.
Designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the tower aims to break the one kilometer threshold upon completion scheduled for 2019. This type of innovation does not come cheap, the structure is expected to cost $ 1.23 billion.
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'Sky Mile Tower', Tokyo, Japan - To take the competition even further, the proposal for a tower twice the height of the 'Burj Khalifa' was unveiled in February by Kohn Pefersen Fox Associates (KPF) and Leslie E Robertson Associates (LERA).
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'Sky Mile Tower', Tokyo, Japan - The 1,600-meter building is part of a futuristic city concept called 'Next Tokyo 2045', which envisions a floating mega-city in Tokyo Bay .
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'1 Undershaft', London, UK - Plans were revealed in December 2015 for '1 Undershaft', a 300 meter tall building that could become London's tallest skyscraper.
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'1 Undershaft', London, UK - '1 Undershaft' will be on the opposite bank of the current tallest building in London, at its highest point it is expected to reach 309 meters.
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'432 Park Avenue', New York, USA - '432 Park Avenue', the only fully residential tower in the Western Hemisphere, opened in December 2015 and recently became the world's 100th super-tall building.
The 425.5 meter structure was designed by Rafael Viñoly of SLCE Arquitectos.
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'One World Trade Center', New York, USA - Known as the Freedom Tower, it is located in part of the area previously occupied by the twin towers.
At 541 meters it is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere at a cost of 3.9 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
The structure was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
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| 'Taipei 101', Taipei, Taiwan - The first skyscraper to break the half kilometer mark, 'Taipei 101' stands at 508 meters high and was designed by CY Lee & Partners. To withstand the inclement weather - including typhoons, earthquakes and winds of 216 km / h -, 'Taipei 101' uses a shock absorbing ball of 660 tons of mass suspended from the 92 floor, which is balanced to compensate for the movement of the building.
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| Shanghai World Financial Center, China - The construction of Shanghai's third super-tall building took 11 years, but the skyscraper known as 'The Bottle Opener' was praised when it was completed in 2008. At 492 meters high, among residents of the building from Kohn Pedersen Fox are the 'Park Hyatt Shanghai' and the offices of Ernst & Young, Morgan Stanley and BNP Paribas.
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| The International Trade Center, Hong Kong, China - Hong Kong's tallest building has 108 floors, but if you walk inside the building the story is different. The city's tetraphobia - the fear of the number four - means that the floors with that number have been omitted and the 484-meter-high center is marketed as a 118-story skyscraper. The building was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.
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Petronas Towers 1 and 2, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - The eighth tallest joint skyscraper completed remains the tallest twin towers in the world at 451.9 meters.
Completed in 1996 and opened in 1999, it has been the scene of numerous hair-raising stunts.
Felix Baumgartner set a BASE jumping world record in 1999, by jumping from a window cleaning crane.
In 2009 Frenchman Alain Robert, known as 'Spiderman', freely climbed to the top of Tower Two without safety equipment, he did it in less than two hours.
It was designed by César Pelli.
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'Turning Torso', Malmo, Sweden - The world's first tallest building in a spiral was the 190-meter 'Turning Torso', designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and completed in 2005.
Looking now over the London skyline, we can see these two types of towers: skyscrapers built as people's houses and shiny vertical buildings in the financial heart of the city: The Gherkin, Cheesegrater, Walkie Talkie et al.
We see the new luxury developments, super-skyscrapers built like high-end homes, or more often, business opportunities.
Just as the skyline of old London reflected the aspirations and ideas of its time, we see silhouettes that reflect our own.
And among them, the charred shell of the Grenfell Tower, after a tragic fire in 2017 that killed at least 71 people.
It is a totem that signifies the battle for the right to the city that has characterized the last years.
As social housing has been increasingly privatized and funding has been reduced, we have seen the
boom
in other types of skyscrapers for business and for the wealthy.
This has led to a schizophrenic state where there are calls to demolish all post-war high-rise housing, while at the same time accelerating high-end luxury living.
READ: The 'ghost' towers of Bangkok are still standing after twenty years of neglect
The remains of the Grenfell Tower are viewed from a neighboring tower on June 26, 2017 in London. (Credit: Carl Court / Getty Images Europe / Getty Images)
Outside of the political situation, the towers still seem to have those same ancient Babylonian dreams and fears.
The height brings with it a separation from the city that follows.
For some the towers signify power and success or a kind of beautiful calm, while others see the arrogant alignment of the streets and elevation.
On the one hand, the places are filled with the light of aspiration, on the other hand, with arrogance and moral danger, as if defying the laws of gravity were somehow an excess of the normal social or economic order.
It is strange that the tower, a relatively new phenomenon, has become so quickly a pigeonhole, as if we have exhausted our imagination about the possibilities of vertical life.
Perhaps it is appropriate that - back to its birthplace - the tower as a speculative possibility was the centerpiece of this year's Chicago Architecture Biennale.
In the exhibition "The Vertical City", artistic directors Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee invited more than 15 emerging architecture consultancies to reinterpret the tower as a type of building through giant models of five meters high.
(Not) Another Tower »by Tatiana Bilbao (2017) (Credit: Tom Harris)
Tatiana Bilbao's '(Not) Another Tower' suggested how vertical building technology could become a framework to allow a more
ad hoc
community to
become a kind of
civic
collage
in the sky.
My own firm - Sam Jacob Studio - envisioned how a high-rise building could be formed from stacked sections of different types of buildings, one on top of the other, so that instead of repeating the floor plate, a large number of different types of buildings, spaces and uses, could be possible.
In other words, those propositions show that there are many ways to reimagine the tower beyond its current state.
To revitalize the possibilities of vertical construction with the same energy that was the source of its original invention, as both an economic and a social possibility.
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