Urban Visions

A line drawing of a lone tall skyscraper surrounded by low buildings. The skyscraper is located on the short end of a long rectangular city block. It is set back from the sidewalk on three sides, providing an open plaza. The sketch is rough and does not provide much detail about the skyscraper other than its overall shape, which is tall, narrow, and vertical lines that rise up more or less uninterrupted. An inscription below the drawing reads: "Here is the first man to take advantage of the new law. He has certainly helped his corner and is not badly off himself with his 60 story building."

A drawing of three skyscrapers in a row on a single narrow rectangular city block surrounded by other blocks with low buildings. The skyscrapers on the ends of the block are identical and do not taper significantly at the top. The middle skyscraper is about one third taller than the other two and tapers gradually to a point. Light blue is added over the sky and whitish-yellow over the buildings.

Raymond Hood
Tower City I, aerial perspective, 1926
Ink and gouache on paper
9¾ × 7¼
Raymond Hood Collection, The Architectural Archives,
University of Pennsylvania,
by the gift of Mrs. Jacques André Fouilhoux

Raymond Hood
Tower City III, detail, 1926
Gouache on photographic enlargement of original
16¾ × 11
Raymond Hood Collection, The Architectural Archives,
University of Pennsylvania,
by the gift of Mrs. Jacques André Fouilhoux

Hood’s “Tower City” tied the occupied floor area to public circulation space. Anyone wanting to build higher would have to broaden the street and move the edge of their building back. Over time, there would be “hundreds of fifty and sixty story buildings and corresponding open street space“ with “plenty of air, light and sunshine for all.”

The series of sketches here show the successive stages of change. Hood believed that this change would occur through private development, with the incentive of more rentable space being enough of a catalyst for incremental change.