Louis H. Sullivan, a designer of some of the most prominent and enduring buildings in America, once stated "(It) must be tall, every inch of it tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line." 

Ever looked up at a building in downtown and said to yourself, "Wow, that's tall"?

Have you ever thought about how people just 200 hundred years ago were astonished when they saw a building that was just 5 stories tall?

But has it ever crossed your mind that in 1931, all 102 floors of the Empire State Building were completed in 1 year and 45 days, or 7 million man hours? Yet 77 years later, with the advent of the computer age, and advances in building materials, and Computer Aided Design(CAD), the Empire State Building still holds the world record for being built that high in that short a time frame. Even more astonishing, is that today, almost 80 years later, the Empire State Building is still one of the 10 tallest completed buildings in the world.

What happened? Where were all the architects and engineers in the last 80 years? Building houses? Garages? Furniture?

No, for the past 3 generations they were designing cars, aircraft, military weapons, and sending people to the moon.

But now they're back, and they're in force. With projects such as the 'Freedom Tower' in New York City and the "Al Burj' and "Burj Dubai' in the United Arab Emirates it seems as though the world's engineers just might be ushering in a second Golden Age of construction.

Browse around and take a look at some of the more fanciful construction ideas that have crossed engineer's minds over the years.