OCULUS is the quarterly journal of the American Institute of Architects.

Wainwright Building, St. Louis, Adler and Sullivan, architects, 1890—92.

State Capitol, Lincoln, Nebraska, Bertram Goodhue, architect, 1921—32.

Skyscraper, The Search for an American Style 1891–1941, edited by Roger Shepherd, New York: McGraw-Hill, an Architectural Record Book, 2003. 297 pages, $45.

WHEN READING the title of this fascinating new book, one wonders at first why the period of study begins with 1891, when several iconic skyscrapers, such as Chicago's Monadnock Block, had already been built, and why it ends in 1941, when nothing much was being built, least of all skyscrapers. But in fact 1941 was the 50th anniversary of the founding of Architectural Record (known until 1917 as The Architectural Record). And most of the content of this highly unconventional work is drawn from articles published in that first half century in Record (Record's 100th anniversary in 1991 was marked by a special commemorative issue--more about this later).

Within the 50-year period, it is astonishing that Roger Shepherd, who compiled and annotated the book, was able to uncover such a wealth of skyscraper material. There are articles on specific buildings, on groups of buildings, on a competition (for the Chicago Tribune tower), essays by critics, including the great Montgomery Schuyler and Record's first chief editor Herbert Croly; there are mini-bios and other vignettes in the margins, along with quotes ranging from St. Augustine and John Milton to Wright, Saarinen the Elder, and Robert A. M. Stern. And the text itself is a marvelous stew of facts and factlets which, once you overcome a slight fear of being embroiled in a mass of material set in all manner of type faces, column widths, and copy flow, ends up as an endearing compendium or anthology--Shepherd uses the ideal word scrapbook--that is difficult to put down once you've started reading.

There are no particular divisions--chronological, stylistic, or philosophical. The book's nine chapters have such headings as New Conditions/New Forms: The Promise of Function; The Commercial Problem: an Image of the People; and Lessons Soon Forgotten: the Passing of a Prophet (in reference to Louis Sullivan). The book's fascinating odds and ends include an examination of trends in design and construction, critical analyses of major buildings, and technological predictions--some right, some wrong, such as architect George Hill's 1904 prediction of the demise of the elevator for use in office buildings, and his assertion that "it is probable that the future will see a decreasing amount of structural steel used in floor framing."

Ultimately, the book focuses on style and form rather than function and technology. The period spanned by the book covers essentially five styles (my nomenclature, not the author's): the Chicago School; neo-Classical; neo-Gothic; Art Deco; and Modern (though not necessarily Modernist). I would add a sixth style, Eclectic, as a way to label the work of Louis Sullivan, which borrows elements from so many sources.

It is amazing, as one sees the examples, how some historical styles lend themselves easily to skyscraper function and form and some only after a very painstaking, and often unsuccessful, study of scale, mass, texture, color, and ornament. Thus, neo-Gothic takes to the skyscraper as a duck to water--witness the Chicago Tribune Tower scheme that won the 1922 competition or the University of Pittsburgh Cathedral of Learning (1927). Or take Art Deco and Hood & Fouilhoux's 1924 American Radiator Building or the Rockefeller Center architecture of the mid-1930s. The Reliance Building, an early D H Burnham building done in the style of the Chicago School, made for an elegant solution (it is now a vaguely chic hotel), as did Sullivan's 1899 Carson Pirie Scott & Company Building.

Neo-classical, on the other hand, had a harder time of it. Influenced by the pernicious impact of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago (1893), which spawned a legion of little classical banks and libraries in every hamlet in America, the attempt to make the style fit the skyscraper was forced. Classical is at heart a horizontal style. You can stack the Five Orders only to a certain degree before the whole thing looks like a wedding cake. See, for example, the St. Paul Building in New York, a cute 1890 confection by George Post, since demolished.

But it was the eclectic skyscraper style as practiced by Sullivan that created many of the masterpieces featured in this book. Sullivan's 1892 Wainwright Building in St. Louis ranked I Ith in the top 100 buildings of all types built worldwide between 1891 and 1991 in a poll conducted by Architectural Record to commemorate its centennial. Two other Sullivan skyscrapers, the Guaranty Building in Buffalo (1896) and the Bayard Building in New York City (1898), strike a powerful balance between form and ornament.

Other high-rises from that period stand out because of their unique responses to the program. Chief among them are Bertram Goodhue's Nebraska State Capitol (1932), Frank Lloyd Wright's Johnson Wax Administration Building (1939), and his Larkin Building (built 1904, demolished 1950), with its great five-story atrium-as-workplace that anticipated Richard Rogers' Lloyd's of London tower by 75 years.

Yet there's one puzzling omission--van Alen's 1930 Chrysler Building. It certainly falls within the 50-year time frame, and is now once more New York City's second tallest skyscraper. It contains many breakthroughs in form, engineering, and materiality. Along with the Empire State Building and the RCA building in Rockefeller Center, it is the last of the great prewar tall buildings. It surely deserved a place in the book.

Browsing through Skyscraper is an edifying and agreeable experience. Perhaps Shepherd will do a follow-up in the year 2016 to mark Architectural Record's 125th Anniversary.

Stephen A. Kliment, FAIA