The new American Copper Buildings in midtown Manhattan are one of multiple sets of twin skyscrapers built recently in New York City.
Photographer: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
When Two Towers Are Better Than One
Today’s skyscrapers often come in pairs. Here’s why architects double up their buildings, and what makes twin towers so compelling.
The skyscraper tends to be a determined loner, intent on standing tall and possibly nothing else. Interest in the surrounding city often plummets abruptly at the property line.
Vincent Scully, writing about the skyline of Dallas, described that city’s skyscrapers as “an architectural one-liner, intended to knock our eyes out for a fleeting instant as we glimpse it from behind the wheel.” Their statement of height is “their one loud cry,” as Scully put it.