Quizmo

Quiz on Skyscrapers

20 questions · June 28, 2026

Below is the full Quizmo quiz devoted to the theme "Skyscrapers": each question, its four options, the correct answer highlighted and, where available, its source. A chance to brush up on your general knowledge and then test what you know.

▶ Play today's quiz

Question 1

Easy

Which city is home to the Empire State Building?

Source: It opened in 1931 in New York and reigned as the world's tallest for nearly 40 years.

Question 2

Easy

The Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, rises in which city?

Source: At over 828 metres, Dubai's Burj Khalifa is so tall you can watch the sunset twice by riding the elevator up.

Question 3

Easy

What material forms the main skeleton of a modern skyscraper?

Source: Lightweight steel frames carry the load, freeing the walls to be thin glass curtains rather than thick masonry.

Question 4

Easy

Which invention made tall buildings practical by carrying people upward?

Source: Without the safe elevator, nobody would climb 80 flights of stairs, so the lift truly built the skyscraper.

Question 5

Easy

What carries water all the way up to a skyscraper's top floors?

Source: Powerful pumps push water up in stages to rooftop tanks, since city pressure fades just a few floors up.

Question 6

Easy

In which US city stands the Willis Tower, once called the Sears Tower?

Source: Chicago's Willis Tower was the world's tallest for 25 years and birthplace of the bundled-tube design.

Question 7

Easy

The Chrysler Building's gleaming crown is made of what?

Source: Its stainless-steel sunburst crown has never been polished yet still shines after nearly a century.

Question 8

Easy

Which giant ape famously scales a skyscraper in classic films?

Source: King Kong's 1933 climb up the Empire State turned the new skyscraper into an instant movie icon.

Question 9

Easy

During which decade was the Empire State Building completed?

Source: Built in just 410 days during the Great Depression, it finished in 1931, ahead of schedule and under budget.

Question 10

Easy

The Shard, a pointed glass skyscraper, towers over which city?

Source: London's Shard was designed to look like a shard of glass spiking out of the River Thames.

Question 11

Medium

Which structural idea lets skyscrapers resist wind, pioneered by Fazlur Rahman Khan?

Source: Khan's tube design treats the whole exterior like a hollow pole, saving so much steel it made supertalls affordable.

Question 12

Medium

Taipei 101 hangs a huge suspended ball to fight sway. What is it called?

Source: Its 660-tonne golden tuned mass damper swings opposite the wind, and visitors can actually watch it move.

Question 13

Medium

Which twin towers were the world's tallest building until 2004?

Source: Malaysia's Petronas Towers held the crown despite being shorter to the roof than Chicago's Willis Tower.

Question 14

Medium

New York's stepped, wedding-cake skyscrapers came from a 1916 law about what?

Source: The 1916 zoning law forced setbacks so towers wouldn't plunge the streets below into permanent shadow.

Question 15

Medium

Which innovation lets modern towers wear a skin of pure glass?

Source: The curtain wall hangs off the frame like a curtain, carrying no weight but keeping the weather out.

Question 16

Medium

The Burj Khalifa's footprint was inspired by the shape of a regional what?

Source: Its Y-shaped plan echoes the Hymenocallis desert flower, a form that also helps it shrug off the wind.

Question 17

Medium

In which action film do criminals seize the Nakatomi Plaza tower?

Source: Die Hard's Nakatomi Plaza is really Fox Plaza in Los Angeles, where the studio that made the film had its offices.

Question 18

Hard

Which New York skyscraper briefly held the world's tallest title in 1930?

Source: The Chrysler Building won a secret height race by hoisting a hidden spire, only to lose the record a year later.

Question 19

Hard

The first building ever called a 'skyscraper', finished in 1885, stood in which city?

Source: Chicago's Home Insurance Building, just ten storeys, was the first to hang its walls on a steel-and-iron frame.

Question 20

Hard

What trick let One World Trade Center reach exactly 1,776 feet?

Source: A 124-metre spire pushes it to 1,776 feet, a nod to the year 1776 of American independence.

← See all quizzes in the archive