3 September is Skyscraper Day – an unofficial day for celebrating feats of architectural endeavour and engineering genius around the world. Whether you think they’re eyesores or pillars of human achievement, there are more than 7,000 skyscrapers (loosely defined as buildings stretching over 490 feet in height and above) around the world today, with the tallest still being the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, completed in 2010 and standing at a staggering 2,722 feet – more than half a mile – tall.

And for as long as skyscrapers have been built – since the building boom on the American East Coast in the 1880s – artists have been fascinated by them. From Marcel Duchamp to Georgia O’Keeffe, to Mies van der Rohe and Alfred Stieglitz, artists have paid homage to skyscrapers in all mediums, and all manners.

Perhaps the most famous work of art devoted to a skyscraper is Andy Warhol’s 1964 film, Empire. The film demands eight hours and five minutes of the viewer’s time, focusing singularly on New York’s most spectacular monument, the Empire State Building. More of a painting than a film Empire is a love letter to New York, to the city’s skyline, and to the sheer ambition of mankind; all things that Warhol closely identified with.

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