Friedrich St. Florian

Elements of the Vertical City, project Rome, Italy Axonometric of base

1966

Ink, graphite, and gouache on board

Not on view

Friedrich St. Florian's Vertical City, a tower of three hundred stories, was a visionary urban proposal that he believed could actually be built. The cylindrical form of the structural components was intended to allow the city to soar above the clouds, thus granting at least a hundred additional days of sunlight to those at the top. The regions beyond the clouds were designated for those most in need of light—hospitals, schools, and the elderly—which could be continually provided by solar technology. Like the modern linear city, the vertical version had centralized stations for transportation, communication, and energy.

Publication excerpt from

an essay by Bevin Cline and Tina di Carlo, in Terence Riley, ed., The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002, p. 68.

Medium Ink, graphite, and gouache on board
Dimensions 36 x 28" (91.4 x 71.1 cm)
Credit Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation
Object number 1291.2000.a
Department Architecture & Design

Explore more

Installation views

We have identified this work in the following photos from our exhibition history.

How we identified these works
In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].
Licensing
To reproduce installation views, please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations). You will need to include the object identification number found in the caption.
Feedback
This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].

Licensing

Artwork or archival images

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

Audio and film clips

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.

Text from a publication or the archives

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.