MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF

INSPIRATION FOR ARCHITECTURE IN

THE 20TH CENTURY

BRIGITTE PEDDE
FREIE UNIVERSITÄT, BERLIN

In the 19th century, during the period of Historicism, ancient

European styles had served as prototypes for new architecture.
Towards the end of the century, there was a great need to find
other ways for modern building. Avant-garde architects were
looking for inspiration from the archaeologists’ reconstructions
beyond classical antiquity and European tradition.
Since the middle of the 19th century, French and English
explorers excavated in Mesopotamia on a large scale, followed by
German excavations at the end of the century. In that way many
magnificent objects were collected by the museums of those
countries and a number of books and journals with imaginative and
grandiose architectural reconstructions were published.
Robert Koldewey, the excavator of Babylon, published a three
dimensional drawing (Fig. 1) and vertical plans of his
reconstruction of the Babylonian Tower in 1918. 1 He was of the
opinion that the platforms of the tower did not differ very much in
size and so he designed it as a massive block with narrow steps.
Koldewey’s drawing and the ziggurat reconstructions made by
other archaeologists had a significant impact on future architecture
in North America and Europe.

1 Koldewey, ‘Der babylonische Turm’, figs 3–4, 7–8.

27
28 BRIGITTE PEDDE

Fig. 1 R. Koldewey, Babylonian Tower (Koldewey, ‘Der

babylonische Turm’, fig. 8).
The American career of the Finish architect Eliel Saarinen began
with his design for “The Chicago Tribune Competition” in 1922
(Fig. 2). At that time the newspaper “The Chicago Tribune” with a
large and increasing circulation celebrated its 75th anniversary.
Therefore a new high-rise office building of 400 feet (ca. 145 m)
was planned. 2 Although the design was awarded only second prize,
it became a model for many buildings constructed later on. 3
Saarinen designed a stepped building with a vertical wall structure
produced by buttresses ending in merlons. A comparison of
Saarinen’s building with Koldewey’s reconstruction of the
Babylonian Tower (Fig. 1) shows many analogies although
Saarinen’s building is higher and narrower in proportion: both are
block shaped buildings with narrow steps. There are the same kind
of vertical ribs and niches, moreover the patterns of the different
blocks one upon the other have some similarities. The top of the
building reflects the upper part of Koldewey’s reconstruction, and

2 Sarnitz, Adolf Loos, 1870-1933, p. 57.

3 Lampugnani, Lexikon der Architektur, pp. 321–2.
 MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION 29

the round arched windows correspond with the round arched door
of the upper part of Koldewey’s ziggurat. 4 Saarinen’s knowledge of
Ancient Near Eastern architecture is obvious by his design and
construction of the railway station in Helsinki, built between 1910
and 1919. Here he had already used a few Assyrian patterns.

Fig. 2 E. Saarinen, “The Chicago Tribune Competition”

(Lampugnani, Lexikon der Architektur, figure at page 323).

4 Koldewey, ‘Der babylonische Turm’, figs 3–4, 7–8.

30 BRIGITTE PEDDE

Fig. 3 A. Loos, “The Chicago Tribune Competition”

(Sarnitz, 1870-1933, figure at page 59).
 MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION 31

Fig. 4 J. Fergusson, Ziggurat of Nimrud (Gill, Gateway of

the Gods, p. 74, detail).
Another contribution to “The Chicago Tribune Competition” was
the sketch of the Austrian architect Adolf Loos (Fig. 3). His
drawing shows a massive square block covered by a threefold
stepped terrace. A huge Doric column with a square abacus rises
up above its flat roof. The windows on its shaft show that the
column was also supposed to accommodate offices in twenty-one
floors. At the main entrance of the building there are two Doric
columns, and the roof terrace of the annex building is bounded by
a row of Doric columns likewise. Loos’ block-shaped, stepped
building is reminiscent of the reconstruction of the ziggurat of
Nimrud by James Fergusson published in 1853 in one of Austen
Henry Layard’s books (Fig. 4). 5 Fergusson’s representation of the
Nimrud ziggurat is composed of a massive square block with
narrowing low blocks on it. On its top there is a column shaped
superstructure as well, although proportionally much smaller in size

5 James Fergusson, The Palaces of Nimrud Restored. Lithograph

printed in colours, in Layard, A Second Series of The Monuments of Nineveh, pl.
1.
32 BRIGITTE PEDDE

than Loos’ column. The entrances to the lower part of the ziggurat
is marked by columns, too. Even the annex building of the ziggurat
has colonnades. As a result of these striking similarities there is no
doubt that Loos was inspired for his design by Fergusson’s graphic
representation.

Fig. 5 E. Kettelhut, “Metropolis” (Neumann, ‘Der

Turmbau zu Babel’, fig. 55).
A combination of the drawings of Fergusson and of Loos is shown
in the second version of the setting for the movie “Metropolis”
(Fig. 5) directed by Fritz Lang, who had come up with the idea to
make this film when he visited New York in 1924. 6 The set
designer Erich Kettelhut was obviously inspired for his “Tower of
Babel” in the centre of “Metropolis” by the drawing of Adolf Loos:
his tower consists of a stepped base on which a column-like shaft is
erected with a huge capital and a square platform like an abacus.
On the left, Kettelhut’s setting shows a high-rise building with a

6 Neumann, ‘Der Turmbau zu Babel’, p. 81.

 MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION 33

stepped top and a small column-shaped form on it. Here Kettelhut

was evidently inspired by Fergusson’s ziggurat of Nimrud (Fig. 4).
Later in the movie, the huge column was replaced by a massive
building, more in the shape of Pieter Bruegel’s Babylonian Tower, 7
and the small column on top of the high-rise building by a small
dome.

Fig. 6 A. Loos, “Grand Hotel Babylone” (Minkowski,

Turm zu Babel, fig. 574).
In 1923 Adolf Loos made a drawing for a hotel which was
supposed to be situated at the “Promenade des Anglais” in Nice at
the French Mediterranean coast. 8 The drawing was published in the
journal “Das Kunstblatt”. 9 Loos designated it “Grand Hotel
Babylone” (Fig. 6). The sketch shows a building of two similar
ziggurat-shaped parts connected by a base floor. The building is
similar to the reconstruction of the double ziggurat of Anu-Adad in
Ashur made by the excavator Walter Andrae and published in 1909
(Fig. 7). 10 Moreover the two single component parts show the
proportions of the reconstruction of the ziggurat in Birs Nimrud

7 Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babylon, oil on wood, 114 x
155 cm, 1563, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. No. 1026–1563.
8 Sarnitz, Adolf Loos, 1870–1933, p. 59.
9 Westheim (ed), Das Kunstblatt.
10 Andrae, Der Anu-Adad-Tempel, pls 8–9.
34 BRIGITTE PEDDE

by Henry C. Rawlinson. 11 In the middle of the 19th century Birs

Nimrud was regarded as the Babylonian Tower.

Fig. 7 W. Andrae, Double Ziggurat in Ashur, version 1909

(Heinrich, Die Tempel und Heiligtümer, fig. 360).
When in 1915 the Equitable Building in New York, a huge building
with thirty-six floors, was completed, it was evident that a building
of that height and size took daylight and fresh air from its
neighbourhood. 12 As a result, the demand for greater regulation of
skyscraper constructions arose in New York. Finally, in 1916 the
Zoning Law came into force. The law stated that large and high
buildings should be stepped upward from a certain height onwards.
“The Commission on Building Restrictions” itself gave some
simple proposal sketches with zoning diagrams each consisting of a
large block with a small one on top of it. 13 This law had a great
impact on skyscraper architecture in general.

11 Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands, fig. 118.

12 Nash, Manhattan Skyscrapers, p. 25.
13 Willis, ‘Drawing towards Metropolis’, p. 157, fig. 11.
 MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION 35

Fig. 8 H. Ferriss, King Salomon’s Temple (Willis,

‘Drawing towards Metropolis’, fig. 43).
From 1922 on, the American architectural delineator Hugh Ferriss
and the architect Harvey Wiley Corbett worked together to design
skyscrapers according to the conditions provided by the zoning
law. At the same time they also worked for a project of
reconstructing King Salomon’s temple and its citadel. For that
purpose Corbett and Ferriss cooperated with archaeologists from
the Columbia University, New York, researching Ancient Near
Eastern architecture. 14 Ferriss’ drawing of the temple (Fig. 8) shows
that he was influenced by ziggurat reconstructions. Moreover the

14 Willis, ‘Drawing towards Metropolis’, pp. 160–1.

36 BRIGITTE PEDDE

Mesopotamian influence is evident by Assyrian lamassu sculptures,

some in the foreground, some flanking the temple’s entrance.

Fig. 9 New York, Barclay-Vesey Building (Bayer, Art Deco

Architecture, figure at page 105).
The experience of working with archaeologists had probably
inspired Ferriss and Corbett to create visions of skyscrapers
following shapes of reconstructions of Babylonian and Assyrian
ziggurats. They developed drawings with four different stages of
the evolution of setback buildings. The drawing “The Four Stages”
of 1923 represents a summing-up of the four designs from the year
 MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION 37

before. These drawings served as models for many architects from

then on. 15

Fig. 10 H. Ferriss, “Modern Ziggurats” (Ferriss, Metropolis

of Tomorrow, fig. 99).
The Barclay-Vesey Building in New York (Fig. 9) was the first
skyscraper built according to the Zoning Law. It was constructed

15 Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow, pp. 72–81.

38 BRIGITTE PEDDE

by the architect Ralph Walker between 1923 and 1926. The front
part of Ferriss’ design of “Stage IV” from the drawing “The Four
Stages” 16 shows similarities with the Barclay-Vesey Building: the
narrow steps and the two wings in the middle part. Moreover the
Barclay-Vesey Building has some analogies with Koldewey’s
reconstruction of the Babylonian Tower (Fig. 1): the vertical niched
facade, the narrow steps in the middle part and the niched top
decoration with merlons. The huge windows on the top of the
Barclay-Vesey Building show the same round bows as the
entrances in Koldewey’s elevation of the west side. 17

Fig. 11 Berlin, department store Karstadt (Boberg, Fichter

and Gillen, Die Metropole, fig. 251).
Another drawing of Hugh Ferriss from 1924 published in 1929 in
his book The Metropolis of Tomorrow with the title “Modern
ziggurats” (Fig. 10) is further evidence for the relationship between
reconstruction drawings of ancient ziggurats by archaeologists and

16 Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow, p. 81.

17 Koldewey, ‘Der babylonische Turm’, fig. 7.
 MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION 39

modern setback skyscrapers. Ferriss’ comment about this drawing

is as follows:
“The ancient Assyrian ziggurat, as a matter of fact, is an
excellent embodiment of the modern New York legal
restriction; may we not for a moment imagine an array of
modern ziggurats, providing restaurants and theatres on their
ascending levels?” 18
The word “ziggurat” became a synonym for skyscraper, as “The
New Babylon” at that time had already been a synonym for the
multilingual and multicultural city of New York.

Fig. 12 W. Andrae, Double Ziggurat in Ashur, version 1924

(Heinrich, Die Tempel und Heiligtümer, fig. 327).
A significant example for a ziggurat-shaped building in Berlin was
the department store Karstadt at Hermannplatz, constructed by the
architect Philipp Schäfer (Fig. 11). For more than thirty years,
Philipp Schäfer was the leading architect for the enterprise of

18 Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow, p. 98.

40 BRIGITTE PEDDE

Karstadt. In the 1920s and 1930s he had great influence on the

architecture of department stores in Germany. His buildings mostly
have a strict structure with vertical ribs and niches. His best known
building was the department store of Karstadt in Berlin, erected in
1927; at that time considered to be the most modern department
store in Europe. Here Schäfer obviously followed the
reconstruction of the temple of Anu-Adad with two ziggurats in
Ashur by Walter Andrae designed in 1924 (Fig. 12). This
reconstruction drawing and the building of Karstadt consist of a
straight, rectangular base with two towers. Both, Andrae’s drawing
and the facade of the department store have a vertical structure
with ribs and niches and are also equipped with a horizontal tie in
the lower part. Furthermore, the two towers of Karstadt have three
steps like the double-ziggurat by Andrae. An aerial photograph of
Karstadt shows another correspondence to the reconstruction of
Andrae: both have a centric inner court behind the two towers. In
April 1945, at the very end of World War II, the department store
was destroyed.

Fig. 13 Lower Manhattan across the East River (Stern, New

York 1930, p. 600 bottom, detail).
A photograph of lower Manhattan from across the East River
made in the 1930s (Fig. 13) shows ziggurat-shaped buildings. On
the left side there is the building 120 Wall Street, built by the
 MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION 41

architect Ely Jacques Kahn in 1930, in the middle with the high
tower 70 Pine Street (today the AIG Building), built by Clinton &
Russell and Holton & George, completed in 1932, and on the right
side of the photograph 116 John Street constructed by Charles
Glaser and Louis Allen Abramson in 1931. All of these buildings
and some similar shaped skyscrapers still exist today in the Wall
Street District.

Fig. 14 A. Moberg, Tower of Babylon (Schmid, Der

Tempelturm Etemenanki, fig. 19).
There is a remarkable resemblance of Robert Koldewey’s
reconstruction (Fig. 1) with the building 120 Wall Street. Moreover
the building 116 John Street shows analogies with Axel Moberg’s
reconstruction of the Tower of Babylon from 1918 19 (Fig. 14). The
small “temples” on the top look particularly similar: at 120 Wall
Street the uppermost floor has similar niches as in Koldewey’s
design and at 116 John Street the small “temple” on the building
looks like the one in Moberg’s drawing.

19 Schmid, Der Tempelturm Etemenanki, fig. 19.

42 BRIGITTE PEDDE

Fig. 15 Large scale model of 70 Pine Street, New York

(Brigitte Pedde)
 MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION 43

Fig. 16 New York, 250 Broadway (Brigitte Pedde)

44 BRIGITTE PEDDE

Fig. 17 London, 200 Aldersgate Street (Brigitte Pedde)

The AIG Building, 70 Pine Street, and its adjacent building, 1
Cedar Street, completed three years earlier by Clinton & Russell,
represent two types of setback skyscrapers. They are of the same
shape, one with and the other without a tower. A large-scale model
of the building 70 Pine Street is carved into stone on both central
pillars at its north and its south entrance (Fig. 15). The model
represents the skyscraper tower standing on a ziggurat. The lower
part shows some similarities with Koldewey’s reconstruction of the
Babylonian tower (Fig. 1): the vertical niches, the different heights
of the platforms and their narrow steps: so the tower of the
skyscraper stands on a ziggurat base. Furthermore, the uppermost
part of the AIG Building has vertical niched structures. The
similarities are obvious to the ziggurat facades. Even inside the
AIG Building the door of the elevator 20 shows similarities with the
merlons of the Khorsabad ziggurat, reconstructed by Felix Thomas
in 1867. 21 The rosettes of his drawing are replaced by the emblem
of the building’s company.

20 Abramson, Skyscraper Rival, fig. 137.

21 Perrot and Chipiez, Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité, fig. 102.
 MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION 45

Fig. 18 New York, New Museum, 235 Bowery

(Brigitte Pedde)
46 BRIGITTE PEDDE

In the 1930s the construction of ziggurat-shaped skyscrapers came

to an end. The new high-rise buildings, some with a glazed curtain
wall facade, mostly have a rectangular shape. But since the 1960s
there have been a few examples of new ziggurat-shaped
architecture. One of them is an office building in New York, 250
Broadway, built by the architects Emery Roth & Sons (Fig. 16). It
was completed in 1963 and has five steps with a dark green glass
facade.
In London in 1997, 200 Aldersgate Street, an office building,
was constructed by the architect Morey Smith (Fig. 17). The
entrance also has a glazed ziggurat-shaped form.
In December 2007, the New Museum of New York City
opened the doors to its new location in the Bowery at Prince Street
(Fig. 18). The new facility was designed by the Tokyo-based
company Sej-ima and Nishi-zawa and the New York-based
company Gensler. The building has been described as “a sculptural
stack of rectilinear boxes dynamically shifted off-axis around a
central steel core”. 22 In fact, here also narrowing blocks are put one
upon the other like in ziggurat architecture. But in contrast to the
ancient ones, here the common centre axis is lost.
The last three examples show that even in the recent past,
elements from the Ancient Near East are still used in architecture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abramson, D M 2001, Skyscraper Rival. The AIG Building and the
Architecture of Wall Street, New York.
Andrae, W 1909, Der Anu-Adad-Tempel in Assur (WVDOG, vol. 10),
Leipzig.
Bayer, P 1992, Art Deco Architecture, New York.
Boberg, J, Fichter, T and Gillen, E (eds) 1986, Die Metropole.
Industriekultur in Berlin im 20. Jahrhundert, München.
Ferriss, H 1929, Metropolis of Tomorrow, New York.
Gill, A 2008, Gateway of the Gods. The Rise and Fall of Babylon,
London.

22 www.offsoho.com/New-Museum.html (accessed 3/13/2013).

 MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION 47

Heinrich, E 1982, Die Tempel und Heiligtümer im Alten Mesopotamien

(Denkmäler antiker Architektur, vol. 14), Berlin.
Hilprecht, H V 1903, Explorations in Bible Lands, Philadelphia.
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Anubelschunu”, Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, vol.
59, pp. 1-38.
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Jahrhunderts, Ostfildern-Ruit.
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Chaldée et Assyrie, vol. 2, Paris.
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