In the 60's, many scrapers in NY were in a very large slab form (eg. GE bldg, 345 Park Av. & Tishman bldg). This form seems less common in recently built buildings. Is there a trend that the new scrapers are in a more slender tower-shaped rather than a huge slab?

• ID# 133.2 (reply to #133.1) - 28 Jun 1998
  The main reason indeed must be simply the change in stylistic tastes, the simple slablike forms having largely gone "out of fashion", even in the eyes of the traditionally so cautious developers. Buildings that in the earlier decades would have been designed as slablike "flat-tops", are now modeled with more variable forms, both on the facade and top -- an indication of the rather whimsical and "trendy" preferences of both the architects and the architecture critics, a style once revered is soon scorned...
  Don't know if any zoning regulation changes have also affected the trend. Anyone? ED