Choice Review

A keyword search on the word "skyscrapers" in Books in Print lists 98 entries, but most of these publications are either out of print, intended for young adult readers, or limited in purview to the US, specific styles such as Art Deco, or even certain cities like Chicago. The book at hand illustrates, chronicles, and explains the worldwide revolution in skyscraper design that has burgeoned over the past quarter century with the demise of doctrinaire, International Style modernism in the 1960s. During this period, skyscraper design has acquired more elaborate engineering solutions, more illustrative postmodern themes, and more fanciful, figurative silhouettes. This book presents a brief essay highlighting the history of skyscrapers going back to the beginning of the century; it profiles 25 of the most celebrated skyscrapers of the last quarter century; and it indexes the current tallest 100 buildings in the world in a valuable illustrated index. This book may be said to update Charles Jencks's Skyscrapers--Skyprickers--Skycities (1980) and Paul Goldberger's The Skyscraper (1981). At the same time, the book is more complete than David Bennett's Skyscrapers: Form and Function (1995) and more up-to-date than Piera Scuri's Late-Twentieth-Century Skyscrapers (1990). General; professional. P. Kaufman Boston Architectural Center