According to legend, the design of the Empire State Building was inspired by, of all things, the lowly [L3 422 / I 001 / pencil]. [L3 205 / I 002 / William Lamb], the architect, was given clear and inflexible instructions from his clients: the building had to be the [L3 423 / tallest in the world]. It had to be practical - and, of course, profitable. And it had to be built quickly so that the investors could begin seeing a return on their money as soon as possible.
[L3 424 / Lamb's approach] was to design the building essentially from the middle down. In this way he put his emphasis on a typical floor of offices - the real income-generators - rather than on the top or bottom floors, which would serve totally different purposes. He arranged the office space around a "core" that contained elevators, toilets, stairwells, plumbing and so forth. Then he designed the areas above and below. Lamb drafted the building 16 times before his plans were accepted.
