Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago

Author: Carol Willis
Year: 1995 (Princeton Architectural Press)
Source type: book
Raw file: raw/books/willis-1995-form-follows-finance.md

Summary

Carol Willis's Form Follows Finance argues that skyscrapers and their skylines should be understood as vernacular architecture — "vernaculars of capitalism" — produced by standard market formulas (program, economics, profit) modified by local conditions (the historic grid of blocks and lots, municipal codes, zoning). Rejecting both the hero-genius histories of famous architects and the simple "form follows function" functionalism (and its cliché of a "corporate skyline"), Willis emphasizes speculative development, the economics of rent, and real-estate cycles as chief determinants of form: "skyscrapers should best be understood both as the locus of businesses and as businesses themselves."

Key Claims

• Vernaculars of capitalism: standard economic and programmatic formulas for quality office space "tend to standardize highrise design everywhere," while local conditions create "a vernacular unique to each city"; skyscrapers are studied "typologically" as "the product of standard market formulas and specific urban situations."
• "Form follows finance" as axiom, not natural law: unlike Sullivan's "form ever follows function," "form follows finance" "is axiomatic, but it is not ... a natural law"; other factors (human actions, imposed patterns and policies) also affect form.
• Periodization by light and site, not style: the "vernacular period" (before the 1940s) was governed by the need for natural light — "light and site are key words" — whereas the "international period" (after 1950, in the age of fluorescent lighting and air conditioning) made tall buildings "independent of their sites and essentially interchangeable from one city to another." "Even postmodern contextualism is international by this definition."
• Building from the inside out: offices are designed "from the inside out: from the smallest cell, to the full-floor plan, to the three-dimensional form," and "from the top down" (Corbett), because "the major income is from" the typical floors. Natural light set the module: "economical depth" of 20–28 feet from window to wall. "Finance dictates the fenestration; rent rolls rule the parti" (R. H. Shreve).
• Two cities, two vernaculars: New York, "the capital of capitalism," a laissez-faire model — small lots, no height limits until 1916, producing the "tower"; Chicago — height-capped (130 ft in 1893, rising to ~260 by 1923), large square blocks, producing a "big, boxy building penetrated at the center or rear by a large light court." Both expressed "genius loci": "no matter the hometown of the architect, the genius loci made the Flatiron a typical Manhattan tower."
• Economic vs. engineering height: buildings rose to an economic height — "the number of stories that would produce the highest rate on the money invested" — not merely a structurally feasible (engineering) height. Elevators were the great cost of height (shafts consume rentable space); at the Equitable they "determined the building's height." The 1930 study The Skyscraper found a ~63-story building on a given site promised the highest rate of return; "the higher the value of land, the taller a building must rise."
• New York's 1916 zoning and the setback: the "zoning envelope" (setback/stepped-back massing, tower unlimited over one-quarter of the site) "became ... the characteristic form for the New York skyscraper." It effectively "pre-designed" the building's shape when owners maxed the envelope; it also encouraged larger buildings/towers on large sites.
• Speculative, not corporate: the majority of skyscrapers were speculative rental properties, not company headquarters ("refuting some common clichés of skyscraper history such as the equation of big buildings with big business and the idea of a 'corporate skyline'"); over 80 percent of tenants leased suites under 1,000 sq ft.
• The Empire State example: "the most colossal miscalculation of the 1920s," remaining three-quarters empty for a decade after 1931 and not profitable until 1950 — yet "in every other way a standard speculative development," demonstrating how finance drove form (the 55- vs. 80-story income comparison that persuaded Raskob).
• Real-estate cycles: land prices, availability of financing, and speculative cycles ("the chicken-and-egg conundrum" of rising land prices vs. taller towers) shape heights and skylines; 26 million sq ft of Manhattan office space completed in 1931–34 at the start of the Depression produced high vacancies and losses.

Connections

Concepts: Everyday Architecture · Neoliberal Metropolis · Architectural Object · Vernaculars of Capitalism
Authors: Carol Willis · David Harvey · Matthew Soules · Jane Jacobs · Rem Koolhaas
Related source notes: Is the Era of the Skyscraper Over? (Wainwright) · Architecture and Capital in the 21st Century (Villagomez & Soules) · The Urban Process under Capitalism (Harvey) · Logan Airport / Junkspace (Koolhaas)

Direct Quotes

"A machine that makes the land pay." (Cass Gilbert, on the skyscraper, 1900)

"An office building's prime and only object is to earn the greatest possible return for its owners, which means that it must present the maximum of rentable space possible on the lot, with every portion of it fully lit." (George Hill)

"Finance dictates the fenestration; rent rolls rule the parti." (R. H. Shreve)

"[S]kyscrapers should best be understood both as the locus of businesses and as businesses themselves."

"Form follows finance" is axiomatic, but it is not, like Sullivan's idea of functionalism, a natural law.

"The formulas of finance responded to the particular urban conditions of New York and Chicago to produce distinct vernaculars of capitalism."

Open Questions

• If skyscrapers are "businesses themselves" shaped by real-estate cycles, to what extent does the architecture (and the architect) retain any determinative or critical agency, versus merely executing the "formula"?
• How does Willis's "vernaculars of capitalism" thesis connect to Geoffrey's other strands — the financialization of the city (Soules, Harvey), the everyday/vernacular, and the spectacle/icon debate on skyscraper branding?
• Does the "international phase" (buildings independent of site) confirm the financialization thesis (architecture as fungible spatio-financial asset), or mark a break toward a different (image/spectacle-driven) regime?