Blue-Sky Thinking

Haven’t you heard? Our cities are full, bulging, engorged… and yet demand for luxury homes is ballooning. No wonder, then, that enterprising architects are throwing up ultra-skinny residential skyscrapers around the world. NYC is leading the size-zero revolution with a cluster on the south side of Central Park known as Billionaires’ Row. Here, we tour some of the skyline’s slimmest ‘super-slenders’ and ask: are they pillars of the community or pinnacles of post-crash inequality?

- Charlie Burton

OF ALL THE ARCHITECTURAL FORMS THAT TOOK WING DURING THE 20TH CENTURY, the skyscraper, in particular, invites metaphorical readings. What exactly it means, however, has always been up for grabs. Are these almighty structures emblems of hope and accomplishment or are they Babel-like images of capitalist hubris? As the world turns, so too do the resonances. During the feminist revolution, the skyscraper looked unapologetically phallic; after 9/11, it looked helplessly vulnerable. And, recently, the symbolism has shifted again – this time not due to changing times, but changing style.

The super-skinny skyscraper was born a decade ago in New York City, the spiritual home of the high-rise, where this burgeoning architectural subgenre came to be defined by a base-to-height ratio of at least 1:10. Many, however, are much slimmer than that. Take the Steinway Tower. When it’s completed this year, it’ll be the world’s skinniest skyscraper, with a ratio of 1:24 (for comparison, the World Trade Center North Tower was 1:7).

At a time when luxury housing is in demand, but space is at a premium, architects are grabbing small plots that might be too modest for large corporations but adequate for private individuals, and maximizing their value by building them up as far as possible. New York’s planning regulations prohibit building above certain heights in certain areas, to ensure that Manhattan doesn’t become a cyberpunk sprawl of densely packed superstructures. But thanks to a quirk of the NY legal system, if an architect chooses not to max out the height limit on a building, neighboring developers can buy the unused ‘air rights’ and add them to their own structure – and the people behind the new super-skinnies have done just that.