Vertical Europe: The Sociology of High-Rise Construction

More high-rise residential buildings have been built in the last two decades than at any other time before. Even in Europe, where historically a typical city’s most prominent vertical accents came from chimneys and church steeples, towering buildings are increasingly shaping the urban landscape. In Vertical Europe, Andrea Glauser looks at new architectural trends in London, Paris, and Vienna, as well as the promises, desires, and fears associated with them in the minds of these cities’ residents. Her book is the first full-length sociological examination of the recent skyward growth in urban Europe, bringing together debates on high-rise architecture from fields including urban planning, geography, and art history. She contextualizes this vertical construction as an area wrought with tensions between these European cities’ desire to keep pace with global competition while still retaining the specific architectural qualities that have defined them for centuries.