The Chrysler Building’s Hidden Spire
Illustration from Popular Science showing how the spire for the Chrysler Building was built within the crown and lifted into place. The spire was hidden to conceal the full height of the building as long as possible, because it was competing with the Empire State Building to be the tallest building in the world.
If you’re competing to build the tallest building in the world, and you want to conceal your design’s final height until the last possible moment, how do you go about it? Well, you construct the spire inside the crown of the building, wait for your competitor to finish his tower, then lift the spire into place and take the title from him, of course. That’s what happened in 1930 when William Van Alen, the designer of the Chrysler Building, was competing with H. Craig Severance, the designer of 40 Wall Street, to design and build the tallest building in the world. The two architects had been going back and forth with each other, each increasing the height of their design to out-compete the other. When 40 Wall Street was completed, it was indeed the tallest in the world for about a month, until the Chrysler Building’s spire was lifted into place, beating out it’s downtown rival to be the world’s tallest.
The above illustration explains the process of building the spire and lifting it into place, which was no small feat. A boom was erected on the exterior of the building, and the spire’s structure was lifted in sections and secretly assembled inside the crown. Once complete, the boom raised the spire into place, which made Chrysler roughly 120 feet (36.5 meters) taller than 40 Wall. This is quite a lot of effort just to ensure the title of tallest building in the world would be secured. It’s a testament to the hubris and ego involved in the race for height, and it shows just how important height can be when constructing a skyscraper of this scale.
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Illustration originally printed in: “How Engineers Crowned World’s Tallest Building.” In Popular Science, vol. 117, no. 2 (August 1930). 52.