The Skyscraper Museum is devoted to the study of high-rise building, past, present, and future. The Museum explores tall buildings as objects of design, products of technology, sites of construction, investments in real estate, and places of work and residence. This site will look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.



Harbor


Hong Kong is defined as much by its hillsides as by its harbor, and the steep terrain has governed its growth. From the 19th century, landfill, or "reclamation," was the preferred way to expand the city's real estate, and there have been many waves of waterfront development. Hong Kong's skyline has always crowded along the waterfront.

By contrast, Manhattan is fairly flat and more developed at the island's center. Lower Manhattan in particular grew its tallest towers around Wall Street in the early 20th century and the World Trade Center created a new zone of office space in the 1970s.