It’s hard to believe that the world's first skyscraper was built in 1885 – the ten-storey Home Insurance Building in Chicago. Little more than a century later the highest skyscraper is the 163-storey Burj Khalifa in Dubai, standing 828 metres tall. By 2020, the 1,000-metre Kingdom Tower in Jeddah will take first place.

The designs are becoming more extraordinary, but behind all the steel and glass how is a skyscraper logistically constructed? The Haynes Skyscraper Manual takes the reader, be they armchair enthusiast or architect, through the fascinating process, from initial concepts through to modern-day building methods. Interspersed with intriguing facts and figures, the Skyscraper Manual is fully illustrated with stunning photographs and technical drawings.