Humans have always enjoyed building tall buildings.
Look back to the first article and you’ll notice how many of them the ‘tallest’ for a period of time were. Why are we obsessed with tall? Let’s find out!
This lesson contains 6 steps and an evaluation.
Work them through step by step.
Step
Activity
Introduction
Read the introduction.
Step 1
Watching - speaking
Answer questions about tall buildings. Recognize pictures of famous tall buildings.
Step 2
Reading
Read a text about tall buildings, answer questions. Add the first sentence in each paragraph of the text. Read the whole text and answer questions in your own words.
Step 3
Words
Find synonyms in the text of the described words. Complete the text with the words you have found.
Step 4
Grammar
About future will vs going to. Four exercises and theory in the Grammar Desks.
Step 5
Listening
Listen to a conversation betwee two teens, Jay and Steve. Answer the questions.
Step 7
Task
Write a short paragraph in future tenses about what you think the big changes to cities will be in the future.
Look at the list of building names, discuss the questions and do the exercise.
Buildings
Burj Khalifa, Dubai
Petronas Towers Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Sears Tower, Chigago, USA
Empire State Building, New York, USA
Chrysler Building, New York, USA
Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln, UK
Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt
Questions
Do you know these tall buildings?
Do you know where they are?
What do they all have in common?
If you had to add one more name to the series, what would it be?
Cities and towns have tall buildings, but some tall buildings are taller than others.
What reasons are there for building upwards – now and in the past?
De onderstaande antwoorden moet je zelf nakijken; vergelijk jouw antwoorden met de goede
antwoorden, en geef aan in welke mate jouw antwoorden correct zijn.
Reading
Read the text. It’s about the history of tall buildings.
The first sentence from each paragraph has been removed.
A short history of tall buildings: The making of the modern skyscraper
By David Nicholson-Cole, The Conversation
November 11, 2016
From the legendary Tower of Babel to the iconic Burj Khalifa, humans have always hoped to build to ever greater heights. Over the centuries, we have constructed towering edifices to celebrate our culture, promote our cities -- or simply to show off.
[1] For instance, the Great Pyramids of Giza -- built to house the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu -- once towered over 145 meters high. It was the tallest man-made structure for nearly 4,000 years, before being overtaken by the 160-meter-tall Lincoln Cathedral in the 14th century. Other edifices, such as Tibet's Potala Palace (the traditional home of the Dalai Lama), or the monasteries of Athos were constructed atop mountains or rocky outcrops, to bring them even closer to the heavens.
[2] London's Shard looms at 310 meters tall at its fractured tip -- but it's made to look small by the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa, which stands at more than 828 meters. And both these huge buildings will be left in the shadows by the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Originally planned by architect Adrian Smith to reach 1,600 meters, the tower is now likely to reach one kilometer high, once it's completed in 2020. So how did we make this great leap upwards?
[3] The booming insurance businesses of the mid-19th century were among the first enterprises to exploit the technological advancements, which made tall buildings possible. Constructed in the aftermath of the great fire of 1871, Chicago's Home Insurance building -- completed in 1884 by William Le Baron Jenney -- is widely considered to be the first tall building of the industrial era, at 12 stories high.
[4] Street trams, subways and elevated rail links provided the means to deliver hundreds of workers to a single urban location, decades before the European motor car appeared on American streets and reshaped urban form away from the city grid. Early office towers filled their city blocks entirely, with buildings enclosing a large light and air-well, as a squared U, O or H shape. This allowed natural light and ventilation within the building, but didn't provide any public spaces. Chicago made a rule of a height limit of 40 meters in 1893, but New York raced ahead with large and tall blocks.
[5] They forced new buildings to step as they went up, in order to bring daylight down to street level. This meant that while the base still filled the city block, the rest of the tower would rise centrally, stepping back every few stories, and it forced the service core to the building's center, leading to the loss of the light well and making mechanical ventilation and artificial lighting essential for human habitation. This was a radical change in the shape of tall buildings, and the second generation of skyscrapers.
[6] The mania for profit-driven tall development got out of hand in the late 1920s, however, and culminated in 1931 with the Chrysler and the Empire State buildings. The oversupply of office buildings, the depression of the 1930s and World War II brought an end to the Art Deco boom. There were no more skyscrapers until the 1950s, when the post-war era summoned forth a third generation: the International Style, the buildings of darkened glass and steel-framed boxes, with air conditioning and plaza fronts that we see in so many of the world's cities today.
By David Nicholson-Cole, The Conversation
Updated 1333 GMT (2133 HKT) November 11, 2016
From the legendary Tower of Babel to the iconic Burj Khalifa, humans have always hoped to build to ever greater heights. Over the centuries, we have constructed towering edifices to celebrate our culture, promote our cities -- or simply to show off.
Historically, tall structures were the preserve of great rulers, religions and empires. For instance, the Great Pyramids of Giza -- built to house the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu -- once towered over 145 meters high. It was the tallest man-made structure for nearly 4,000 years, before being overtaken by the 160-meter-tall Lincoln Cathedral in the 14th century. Other edifices, such as Tibet's Potala Palace (the traditional home of the Dalai Lama), or the monasteries
of Athos were constructed atop mountains or rocky outcrops, to bring them even closer to the heavens.
Yet these grand historical efforts are dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the 20th and 21st
centuries. London's Shard looms at 310 meters tall at its fractured tip -- but it's made to look small by the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa, which stands at more than 828 meters. And both these huge buildings will be left in the shadows by the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Originally planned by architect Adrian Smith to reach 1,600 meters, the tower is now likely to reach one kilometer high, once it's completed in 2020. So how did we make this great leap upwards?
We can trace our answer back in the 1880s, when the first generation of skyscrapers appeared
in Chicago and New York. The booming insurance businesses of the mid-19th century were among the first enterprises to exploit the technological advancements, which made tall buildings possible. Constructed in the aftermath of the great fire of 1871, Chicago's Home Insurance building -- completed in 1884 by William Le Baron Jenney -- is widely considered to be the first tall building of the industrial era, at 12 stories high.
Changes in urban life also encouraged the change to taller, higher-density facilities. Street trams, subways and elevated rail links provided the means to deliver hundreds of workers to a single urban location, decades before the European motor car appeared on American streets and reshaped urban form away from the city grid. Early office towers filled their city blocks entirely, with buildings enclosing a large light and air-well, as a squared U, O or H shape. This allowed natural light and ventilation within the building, but didn't provide any public spaces. Chicago made a rule of a height limit of 40 meters in 1893, but New York raced ahead with large and tall blocks.
In 1915, there was such alarm at the darkening streets that New York introduced "zoning laws." They forced new buildings to step as they went up, in order to bring daylight down to street level. This meant that while the base still filled the city block, the rest of the tower would rise centrally, stepping back every few stories, and it forced the service core to the building's center, leading to the loss of the light well and making mechanical ventilation and artificial lighting essential for human habitation. This was a radical change in the shape of tall buildings, and the second generation of skyscrapers.
The developers now had to work out how to maximize the amount of usable floor-space in a city site,
before asking an architect to put a wall around it. The mania for profit-driven tall development got out of hand in the late 1920s, however, and culminated in 1931 with the Chrysler and the Empire State buildings. The oversupply of office buildings, the depression of the 1930s and World War II brought an end to the Art Deco boom. There were no more skyscrapers until the 1950s, when the post-war era summoned forth a third generation: the International Style, the buildings of darkened glass and steel-framed boxes, with air conditioning and plaza fronts that we see in so many of the world's cities today.
De onderstaande antwoorden moet je zelf nakijken; vergelijk jouw antwoorden met de goede
antwoorden, en geef aan in welke mate jouw antwoorden correct zijn.
De onderstaande antwoorden moet je zelf nakijken; vergelijk jouw antwoorden met de goede
antwoorden, en geef aan in welke mate jouw antwoorden correct zijn.
De onderstaande antwoorden moet je zelf nakijken; vergelijk jouw antwoorden met de goede
antwoorden, en geef aan in welke mate jouw antwoorden correct zijn.
De onderstaande antwoorden moet je zelf nakijken; vergelijk jouw antwoorden met de goede
antwoorden, en geef aan in welke mate jouw antwoorden correct zijn.
De onderstaande antwoorden moet je zelf nakijken; vergelijk jouw antwoorden met de goede
antwoorden, en geef aan in welke mate jouw antwoorden correct zijn.
De onderstaande antwoorden moet je zelf nakijken; vergelijk jouw antwoorden met de goede
antwoorden, en geef aan in welke mate jouw antwoorden correct zijn.
Task: Writing
Your teacher has asked you to write a short paragraph (80 words max) about what you think the big changes to cities will be in the future (20 years’ time). Next week you’re going to an exhibition on that topic.
Here are some ideas to help you.
Try to include a variety of future tenses.
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Van dit lesmateriaal is de volgende aanvullende informatie beschikbaar:
Toelichting
Deze les valt onder de arrangeerbare leerlijn van de Stercollectie voor Engels voor havo, leerjaar 4 en 5. Dit is thema 'Buildings'. Het onderwerp van deze les is: Can we touch the sky? Deze les gaat over hoge gebouwen en hoe deze gebouwen steden veranderen in de toekomst. De grammaticaopdracht gaat over future will vs going to.
Leerniveau
HAVO 4;
HAVO 5;
Leerinhoud en doelen
Engels;
Eindgebruiker
leerling/student
Moeilijkheidsgraad
gemiddeld
Studiebelasting
3 uur en 0 minuten
Trefwoorden
arrangeerbaar, can we touch the sky?, engels, future, h45, hoge gebouwen, stercollectie, will vs going to
Can we touch the sky? h45
nl
VO-content
2021-06-16 12:41:18
Deze les valt onder de arrangeerbare leerlijn van de Stercollectie voor Engels voor havo, leerjaar 4 en 5. Dit is thema 'Buildings'. Het onderwerp van deze les is: Can we touch the sky? Deze les gaat over hoge gebouwen en hoe deze gebouwen steden veranderen in de toekomst. De grammaticaopdracht gaat over future will vs going to.
Humans have always enjoyed building tall buildings.
Grammar
Listening
Copy and fill in the schedule and answer the questions below.
