ABSTRACT
Tall buildings-skyscrapers-have evolved a long way from their nineteenth-century origins. This evolution has rarely been smoothly linear and predictable, distorted as it has been by technological breakthroughs and economic woes alike. For a decade or two towards the end of the twentieth century, however, there was something of an evolutionary plateau. Tall buildings became a largely unremarked feature of most city skylines and their development, design and construction became as routine as they had ever been. However, all this has now changed.
