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Apartment building
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An apartment building, block of flats or tenement, is a multi-unit dwelling made up of several (generally four or more) apartments (US), or flats (UK). A difference may be drawn such as in San Francisco, California, between an apartment and a flat, where an apartment is one of many units on a floor and a flat is the only unit on a given floor.
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An apartment building, block of flats or tenement, is a multi-unit dwelling made up of several (generally four or more) apartments (US), or flats (UK). A difference may be drawn such as in San Francisco, California, between an apartment and a flat, where an apartment is one of many units on a floor and a flat is the only unit on a given floor. Where the building is a high-rise construction, it is termed a tower block in the UK and elsewhere. The term apartment building is used regardless of height in North America and the terms residential tower or apartment tower are used in other countries such as Australia. Hi-rise apartments are a popular mode of living in many of the larger North American cities, as well as cities such as Dubai.
A two-unit dwelling is known as a duplex (US); a three-unit dwelling is known as a triplex. A two-floor dwelling is known as a maisonette (UK); a three-floor dwelling is known as a three-flat in Chicago, or in Boston as a three-decker or a triple-decker. Beyond this, cardinal numbers are used (e.g., fourplex, fiveplex) in the US, and the term multiplex is also used.
Tenement law refers to the feudal basis of permanent property such as land or rents. May be found combined as in "Messuage or Tenement" to encompass all the land, buildings and other assets of a property.
Apartment buildings are used to house people from all social groups, from the lower socio-economic (such as public housing which features rentals and very basic living standards) to the wealthy, which sometimes include penthouse apartments (with luxury add-ons such as doormen, security, elevators, balconies, swimming pools and private gymnasiums, tennis courts and even boat moorings). Additionally, some apartment buildings, are designed to contain mostly studio apartments, serviced apartments or boarding houses to accommodate contemporary itinerant lifestyles.
Early history
Rome
In ancient Rome, the insulae (singular insula) were large apartment buildings where the lower and middle classes of Romans (the plebs) dwelled. The floor at ground level was used for tabernas, shops and businesses with living space on the higher floors. These buildings were usually up to six or seven stories. Some went as high as nine stories before height restrictions came into effect.
Egypt
The medieval Egyptian city of Fustat housed many high-rise residential buildings, some seven stories tall that could reportedly accommodate hundreds of people. Al-Muqaddasi in the 10th century described them as resembling minarets, while Nasir Khusraw in the early 11th century described some of them rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top storey complete with ox-drawn water wheels for irrigating them.
Cairo in the 16th century had high-rise apartment buildings where the two lower floors were for commercial and storage purposes and the multiple stories above them were rented out to tenants.
Yemen
High-rise apartment buildings were built in the Yemeni city of Shibam in the 16th century. The houses of Shibam are all made out of mud bricks, but about 500 of them are tower houses, which rise 5 to 11 stories high, with each floor having one or two apartments. This technique of building was implemented in order to protect residents from Bedouin attacks. While Shibam has existed for around 2,000 years, most of the city's houses come mainly from the 16th century.
Shibam is often called "the oldest skyscraper-city in the world" or "Manhattan of the desert", and is the earliest example of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction, as it was the the first city to consist entirely of high-rise residential buildings. Some of them were over high, thus being the tallest mudbrick apartment buildings in the world to this day.
United States and Canada
Apartment buildings are multi-story buildings where three or more residences are contained within one structure. In more urban areas, apartments close to the downtown area have the benefits of proximity to jobs and/or public transportation. However, prices per square foot are often much higher than in suburban areas.
The distinction between rental apartments and condominiums is that while rental buildings are owned by a single entity and rented out to many, condominiums are owned individually, while their owners still pay a monthly or yearly fee for building upkeep. Condominiums are often leased by their owner as rental apartments. A third alternative, the cooperative apartment building (or "co-op"), acts as a corporation with all of the tenants as shareholders of the building. Tenants in cooperative buildings do not own their apartment, but instead own a proportional number of shares of the entire cooperative. As in condominiums, cooperators pay a monthly fee for building upkeep. Co-ops are common in cities such as New York, and have gained some popularity in other larger urban areas in the U.S.
In the United States, tenement is a label usually applied to the less expensive, more basic rental apartment buildings in older sections of large cities. Many of these apartment buildings are "walk-ups" without an elevator, and some have shared bathing facilities, though this is becoming less common.
Apartments were popular in Canada, particularly in urban centres like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal in the 1950s to 1970s. By the 1980s, many multi-unit buildings were being constructed as condominiums instead of apartments, and both are now very common. Specifically in Toronto, high-rise apartments and condominiums have been spread around the city, giving almost every major suburb a skyline.
History of US tenements
In 1839, the first New York City tenement was built, housing mainly poor immigrants. More tenements followed suit. Near the 1860s, tenement squares were popping up quite frequently.
The tenements were breeding grounds for outlaws, juvenile delinquents, and organized crime. Muckraker journalist Jacob Riis writes in How the Other Half Lives:
The New York tough may be ready to kill where his London brother would do little more than scowl; yet, as a general thing he is less repulsively brutal in looks. Here again the reason may be the same: the breed is not so old. A few generations more in the slums, and all that will be changed.
Tenements were also known for their price gouging rent.
How the Other Half Lives notes one tenement district:
Blind Man's Alley bears its name for a reason. Until little more than a year ago its dark burrows harbored a colony of blind beggars, tenants of a blind landlord, old Daniel Murphy, whom every child in the ward knows, if he never heard of the President of the United States. "Old Dan" made a big fortune--he told me once four hundred thousand dollars-- out of his alley and the surrounding tenements, only to grow blind himself in extreme old age, sharing in the end the chief hardship of the wretched beings whose lot he had stubbornly refused to better that he might increase his wealth. Even when the Board of Health at last compelled him to repair and clean up the worst of the old buildings, under threat of driving out the tenants and locking the doors behind them, the work was accomplished against the old man's angry protests. He appeared in person before the Board to argue his case, and his argument was characteristic. "I have made my will," he said. "My monument stands waiting for me in Calvary. I stand on the very brink of the grave, blind and helpless, and now (here the pathos of the appeal was swept under in a burst of angry indignation) do you want me to build and get skinned, skinned? These people are not fit to live in a nice house. Let them go where they can, and let my house stand." In spite of the genuine anguish of the appeal, it was downright amusing to find that his anger was provoked less by the anticipated waste of luxury on his tenants than by distrust of his own kind, the builder. He knew intuitively what to expect. The result showed that Mr. Murphy had gauged his tenants correctly.
The Dakota (1884) was one of the first luxury apartment buildings in New York City. The majority, however, remained tenements.
Many reformers, such as Upton Sinclair and Jacob Riis, pushed for reforms in tenement dwellings. As a result in 1901, New York state passed a law called the New York State Tenement House Act to improve the conditions in tenements.
More improvements followed. In 1949, President Harry S. Truman signed the Housing Act of 1949 to clean slums and reconstruct housing units for the poor.
Some significant developments in architectural design of apartment buildings came out of the 1950s and 60s. Among them were groundbreaking designs in the 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1951), New Century Guild (1961), Marina City (1964) and Lake Point Tower (1968).
Scotland
In Scotland, the term 'tenement' lacks the pejorative connotations it carries elsewhere, and refers simply to any block of flats sharing a common central staircase and lacking an elevator, particularly those constructed prior to 1919. Tenements were, and continue to be, inhabited by a wide range of social classes and income groups.
During the 19th century tenements became the predominant type of new housing in Scotland's industrial cities, although they were very common in the Old Town in Edinburgh from the 15th century where they reached ten or eleven storeys high and in one case fourteen storeys . Built of sandstone or granite, Scottish tenements are usually three to five storeys in height, with two to four flats on each floor. (In contrast, industrial cities in England tended to favour "back-to-back" terraces of brick.) Scottish tenements are constructed in terraces of tenements, and each entrance within a block is referred to as a close or stair — both referring to the shared passageway to the individual flats. Flights of stairs and landings are generally designated common areas, and residents traditionally took turns to sweep clean the floors, and in Aberdeen in particular, took turns to make use of shared laundry facilities in the "back green" (garden or yard). It is now more common for cleaning of the common ways to be contracted out through a managing agent or "factor".
Tenements today are commonly bought by a wide range of social types, including young professionals, older retiring people, and by absentee landlords, often for rental to students after they leave halls of residence managed by their institution. The National Trust for Scotland Tenement House museum in Glasgow offers an excellent insight into the lifestyle of tenement dwellers.
Many multi-storey tower blocks were built in the UK after the Second World War. These are gradually being demolished and replaced with low-rise buildings or housing estates known in Scotland as housing schemes, often modern interpretations of the tenement.
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