Harvey Wiley Corbett - Views and Writings

Views and Writings

According to his obituary in the New York Times, Harvey Wiley Corbett was a longtime and ardent champion of skyscrapers and modernism.

In 1922, Corbett commissioned delineator and architect Hugh Ferriss to draw a series of four step-by-step perspectives demonstrating the architectural consequences of New York's "setback" zoning law. These four drawings would later be used in Ferriss's 1929 book "The Metropolis of Tomorrow". By demonstrating how architecture might evolve, Corbett's commission and Ferriss's book continue to influence popular culture; the Gotham City of Batman and the cities seen in the 2004 movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow both were influenced by Corbett and Ferriss.

In the late 1920s, the impact of skyscrapers on cities and downtowns was still hotly debated. Harvey Corbett defended the benefits of tall buildings against skyscraper detractors in articles published in the New York Times Magazine and the National Municipal Journal in 1927.

In 1930, Corbett described modernism in architecture as a "freeing of the shackles of style that for years have forced architects to erect duplicates of Grecian temples for bank buildings, regardless of modern requirements for light, air, and utility."

H.W. Corbett lectured at the Columbia School of Architecture at Columbia University in New York from 1907 to the 1930s, further influencing a generation of architects.