An English-language, updated edition of an influential French reference on urban high-rises.

The Metropolitan Tower is the first English-language edition of a French standard reference on the topic of the urban high-rise, published in 2012. It summarizes, interprets, and explains the research of French architect and teacher Michel Kagan (1953–2009). Featuring some six hundred photographs, sketches, and plans, along with Kagan’s writings and contributions by twenty-six distinguished international authors who respond to his ideas with key elements of their own research, the volume comprehensively explores the typology of the metropolitan high-rise since the birth of early modernism.

For this new English edition, the book’s content has been revised, updated, and expanded in the light of new research conducted by the faculty of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture (ENSA) Paris-Val de Seine under the direction of Nathalie Régnier-Kagan. It offers a fascinating and multilayered overview informing students, architects, and critics alike on vertical architecture.