On Verticality

-René Daumal, French author and poet, 1908-1944.

There’s a need among humans to occupy and build on the highest places around.

The above illustration originally appeared in the 1962 book The Earth from the Life Nature Library.

1929 etching by Nat Lowell showing the southern tip of Manhattan with her mountain of skyscrapers.

Perspective of the proposed Imperial Monumental Tower by Lamb and Seddon, showing a massive tower that dwarfs the existing Victoria Tower and Big Ben Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament.

Illustration showing Robert Mills’ original design proposal for the Washington Monument.

The caption for the illustration shown above reads: Puck’s suggestion for the World’s Fair - the “Colossus of Chicago” would knock out the Eiffel Tower.

Photo from 1894, showing Augustus Moore Herring and his glider prototype, designed from Otto Lilienthal’s 1893 patent from Germany.

Illustration by Gordon Browne from a 1919 edition of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales.

Postcard from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, showing the Federal Building with its three fluted towers.

Etching circa 1885 by E.

Pictured here are two photographs from 1931 showing a winged glider designed by Madame Helene Alberti.

Illustration by David Roberts from 1846 showing the Luxor Obelisk at the entrance of the Luxor Temple in Egypt.

Illustration by Gustave Doré from 1867, showing a scene from Dante’s Purgatorio where Dante is carried upwards by an eagle.

Elevation of a 1900 proposal to put a massive hotel at the base of the Eiffel Tower.

-John Muir, Scottish naturalist and mountaineer, 1838-1914 This quote appears in the first paragraph of John Muir’s essay The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West.

Daniel Burnham once said, make no small plans.

Illustration by Arthur Rackham showing a group of witches flying on their broomsticks.

Illustration showing the Singer Building, which was built in Lower Manhattan in 1908 and demolished in 1967.