Abstract
This paper examines the Cathedral of Florence in Italy; the Thirumalai Nayak Palace in Madurai, India; the Empire State Building in New York City, United States of America, which is one the precursors of the great skyscrapers or high-rises of the world; the Louvre Museum in Paris and the designer hospitals of today, using as an example the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America. The author points out that the analysis of these structures is based on the structure's history, its design and architecture, the cost that the people of the country incurred when they were constructing it and the time that it took to complete. The paper concludes that the design and the principles of a structure are vitally important to the basic effectiveness of the building. The paper includes many illustrations and a graph.

From the Paper
"What this entailed was that the entire structure could be built without a need for scaffolding at the bottom. Reinforcements of iron and tension chains of stone were also utilized for the construction of the Dome, and finally, it was completed in 1436. Now Bruneschelli required a lantern to be fixed over the Dome, and his design was for an octagonal lantern with eight radiating buttresses, and eight high arched windows. The work on the lantern was completed after the architect's death, by Verocchio in 1469, and it was designed later to contain holy relics."

Tags:dome, bruneschelli, indo-saracenic, precursors, function