Clarence H. Blackall’s Study for an Office Building

The above illustration originally appeared in an exhibition for the Boston Architectural Club in 1912. The subsequently published yearbook containing the drawing gives no context or background, just the cryptic title Study for Office Building and the architect’s name, Clarence H. Blackall.[1]

I’d love to know more about it. The note at the top of the drawing puts the overall height at roughly 1,550 feet (472 meters), which makes the tower around 100 feet taller than the Empire State Building. Taken as a whole, it feels like a shorter design was stretched along the shaft to give it more height. This results in some awkward proportions, and one assumes it would look much more comfortable if the shaft wasn’t so long. Unfortunately, it’s hard to read too much more into the design itself, since it seems to be an isolated study of an elevation rather than a properly designed building. To my knowledge, we have no context, no site, and no other drawings to help us understand how the building functions. It’s too bad, because the little flourishes of detail at the crown and base suggest Blackall put a lot of thought into it.

Check out other unbuilt designs here.


[1]: Blackall, Clarence H.. “Study for Office Building”. In The Yearbook of the Boston Architectural Club & Catalogue of the Exhibition: 1912. Boston: Boston Architectural Club, 1912.