Skyline

For other uses, see Skyline (disambiguation).

A skyline is the horizon created by a city's overall structure, or by human intervention in a non-urban setting or in nature. City skylines serve as a kind of fingerprint as no two skylines are alike. For this reason, news and sports programs, television shows, and movies often display the skyline of a city to set a location. The term The Sky Line of New York City was first introduced in 1896, when it was the title of a color lithograph by Charles Graham for the color supplement of the New York Journal.

Paul D. Spreiregen, FAIA, has called a skyline "a physical representation [of a city's] facts of life ... a potential work of art ... its collective vista."

The skyscrapers of New York City are almost all situated in Manhattan, seen here in this panorama viewed from Weehawken, New Jersey, in January 2015. Prominent tall buildings include One57 and 432 Park Avenue, left of center; the Empire State Building, right of center; and on the far right of the picture, One World Trade Center, the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere. Near the last mentioned, Four World Trade Center, 70 Pine Street, the Woolworth Building, and 40 Wall Street can be seen. At the center of the skyline picture, the Chrysler Building, The New York Times Building, and the Conde Nast Building can be picked out of the crowd by their spires.

History

Early examples

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  The Colosseum in Rome

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  Gizah pyramids

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  The Acropolis Athens

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  Stonehenge's skyline has been known for millennia.

Modern skylines

Ski lift pylon in Italy transforming a natural skyline

Some natural skylines have been unintentionally modified for commercial reasons.

Features

Skyscrapers

Main article: Skyscraper

Tall buildings, including skyscrapers, are the fundamental feature of urban skylines.

Towers

Towers from different eras make for contrasting skylines.

San Gimignano, in Tuscany, Italy, has been described as having an "unforgettable skyline" with its competitively built towers.

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  Tower of silence

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  San Gimignano Towers

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  9 Water towers in Villejuif (Paris)

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  A cell phone tower making a surreal addition to the skyline

Sports stadiums

2008 Beijing Olympic Stadium

Main article: Stadium

The Colosseum and 2008 Beijing Olympic Stadium give varied sport stadium skylines.

Remote locations

Some remote locations have striking skylines, created either by nature or by sparse human settlement in an environment not conducive to housing significant populations.

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  Mount Everest

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  Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

Apollo 17 Moon landing site panorama

Architectural features

Notable architects influencing skyline

Nuremberg in September 1936.

Norman Foster served as architect for the Gherkin in London and the Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan, and these buildings have to added to their cities' skylines.

Albert Speer made a notable night time skyline with searchlights at Nuremberg.

Use of skylines in media

Skylines are sometimes used as backgrounds for movies, television shows, news websites, and in other forms of media.

Subjective ranking of skylines

Several services rank skylines based on their own subjective criteria. Emporis is one such service, which uses height and other data to give point values to buildings and add them together for skylines.

See also

• Cityscape
• List of cities with the most skyscrapers

Further reading

• Emporis ranking of cities by the visual impact of their skylines