Tower
A
tower is a tall man-made structure, always taller than it is wide. Towers are often built to use their height (for example, to keep watch, or to allow the sound of bells or radio signals to travel further); as
landmarks to be impressive or beautiful; for ostentation or religious piety; or (from the 20th century onwards) sometimes to save
surface area, as in the case of a
skyscraper.
Skyscrapers are often not classified as towers, although most have the same design and structure of towers. In the
United Kingdom, tall domestic buildings are referred to as
tower blocks. In the
United States, the now-destroyed
World Trade Center had the nickname the
Twin Towers, a name shared with the
Petronas Twin Towers in
Kuala Lumpur.A
tower wagon is a mobile tower for
construction work,
firefighting,
rescue work, window cleaning,
filming. A railroad tower allowed railroad employees to view the tracks and
switches near the tower; it now refers to any location housing
interlocking equipment.
Old English torr is from Latin
turris via
Old French tor. The Latin term together with Greek τύρσις was loaned from a
pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language, connected with the
Illyrian toponym 'ου-δοργίς. With the
Lydian toponyms Τύρρα, Τύρσα, it has been connected with the ethnonym
Τυρσήνοί as well as with
Tusci (from
*Turs-ci), the Greek and Latin names for the
Etruscans (Kretschmer Glotta 22, 110ff.)
*
Broch*
Tower house*
Watchtower (fortification)*
Turret*
Campanile,
Leaning Tower of Pisa 1170s
*
Bell tower, from the 14th c.
The oldest towers in the United States are the
Milwaukee City Hall, built in 1895 in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the
Woolworth Building, completed in 1913 in
New York City.
Most towers hold similar but varied designs, towers are always tall and often include an
antenna or
spire at the top.
Possible purposes of a tower:
*being impressive or beautiful
*saving
surface area*for the view
** for
tourism** for guiding:
air traffic control tower, in particular at an
airport,
harbor control towers at harbors
** for security against coming in or getting out: a watch tower at a
prison,
concentration camp,
fortress/
castle,
border/
defensive wall; in some of these cases also to fire from.
** for watching out for fire, especially in a forest (
fire lookout tower)
*for spreading light (
light tower,
lighthouse)
*for spreading sound:
church tower with
church bells,
minaret of a
mosque,
bell tower.
*for showing the time (
clock tower)
*as storage for grain (
storage silo)
*for increasing communications distances:
radio masts and towers*for use of the gravity (
water tower,
drop tower)
*for meteorological measurements in different heights (
measurement tower)
*as part of a
suspension bridge or
cable-stayed bridge*for supporting power and signal cables (
pylon)
*for access to rockets in order to prepare them for launch (
service tower,
supply tower)
*for the guidance of unguided rockets at launch (
launch tower)
*for physical experiments (
drop tower,
BREN Tower)
*for testing elevators, as the
Express Lift Tower*for
parachute jump training (
parachute tower)
*for
solar thermal power stations
*for astronomical observations,
tower telescope*as
chimneys
*for fixing nuclear bombs at tests (
bomb tower)
*for drilling in the ground (
drilling tower)
*in a
swimming pool for jumping or diving from a height
*for fun of climbing in it, for example on a children's
playground*the tower of a high
slide, for supporting it and with
stairs for reaching the starting point
*for gaining
wind power*as support structure for aerial tramways (
aerial tramway support pillar)
*to gain access for
maintenance or cleaning, e.g.
scaffold tower
*for mounting thyristors in a HVDC (
thyristor tower)
*as a heat exchanger for an industrial plant, a power plant or large building air conditioning plant, a
cooling tower*for attacking a walled city (
siege tower)
*to reach heaven (legendary
Tower of Babel)
* In
Tarot, the symbol of
Paradigms
*for the production of bullets, a
shot tower (German:Schrotkugel)
*for
ski jumping and
ski flying*formerly, for drying of hoses in a fire station.
*
List of towers*
World's tallest structures*
Inclined towers*
Partially guyed tower*
Additionally guyed tower*
mast*
pole*
Tower house
