Published by Columbia University Press, "Inventing the Skyline : The Architecture of Cass Gilbert" is a hefty, picture-packed hardback edited by Margaret Heilbrun, library director for the New-York Historical Society.

Cass Gilbert was a craftsman and a visionary who combined historic forms with modern technologies. His fanciful Gothic skyscraper, the Woolworth Building, was briefly the tallest structure in the world. His classically-inspired Minnesota State Capitol introduced new methods in dome construction. But in the 1950s, ornamental designs based on historic models fell out of fashion. With the rise of modernism, architects aspired to create simple, "pure" forms such as the Seagram Building by Mies van der Rohe. In one respected source, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Architects and Architecture, Gilbert's designs are dismissed as "pedestrian."

"Inventing the Skyline" is not an intimate biography. You will not learn about Gilbert's youth in Minnesota or his love affair with his wife, Julia Tappen Finch. Instead, the spirit of Cass Gilbert is revealed through his artistry.

Essays by four scholars analyze Gilbert's major projects, his sketches and watercolors and his contributions as a city planner. Along the way, readers are given an inside look at Gilbert's creative processes -- and his conflicts and compromises. Cass Gilbert's success as a designer was due largely to his skill as a businessman and his ability to negotiate and compromise. Through his drawings and his writings, "Inventing the Skyline" captures the spirit of a man who spent a lifetime trying to balance these qualities.