, a 31-year-old shoe salesman, climbed the 88-story
Jin Mao Building barehanded. In 1895, the great alpinist
Geoffrey Winthrop Young started to climb the roofs of
Cambridge University, England. Students had been scrambling up the university architecture for years, but Young was the first to document this activity. He wrote and published a buildering guide to
Trinity College. Then in 1905, while a master at
Eton College, Young produced another small volume on buildering, spoofing
mountaineering. In 1905,
Harry H. Gardiner began buildering. He successfully climbed over 700 buildings in Europe and North America, usually wearing ordinary street clothes and using no special equipment. In 1910,
George Polley started his climbing career when the owner of a clothing store promised him a suit if he would climb to the roof of the building. He succeeded, and went on to climb over 2,000 buildings. During the years from 1915 to 1920, buildering in New York City reached its peak. Before 1915, there were few skyscrapers in New York City, and after 1920, the city authorities had legislated to outlaw buildering. During this era, a number of daredevils climbed the tall buildings, but several of them fell to their deaths in the attempt. In 1921, a group of undergraduates from
St John's College, Cambridge, published a buildering guide to that college. In 1930, John Hurst wrote the second edition of Geoffrey Winthrop Young's buildering guide to Trinity. In 1937, a comprehensive and lighthearted account of Cambridge night climbing (undergraduate buildering) appeared in popular print, written by Noël Howard Symington, under the pseudonym "Whipplesnaith". In 1947,
John Ciampa scaled the exterior of the
Astor Hotel in New York City. In 1960, Richard Williams wrote the third edition of the Trinity buildering guide. Night climbing remained popular in Cambridge during these post-war years. In 1970, a book entitled "Night Climbing in Cambridge" was published under the pseudonym "Hederatus". Buildering also featured prominently in a book by F A Reeve, published in 1977. In 1977,
George Willig climbed the South Tower of the
World Trade Center. In the 1980s,
Dan Goodwin scaled many of the world's tallest buildings, including the
World Trade Center, the
Sears Tower, the
John Hancock Center, the
CN Tower, and most recently (1 March 2014) the Telephonica Building in Santiago, Chile for
Stan Lee's Superhumans In the 1990s and the following decade,
Alain Robert became the world's most famous builderer by free soloing high buildings all over the globe. In 2007, buildering in Cambridge was featured in a detective novel by Jill Paton Walsh. Between 2007 and 2011, several books on night climbing were published by Oleander Press, of Cambridge. In 2007, they reprinted the Whipplesnaith book. In 2009, they reprinted Geoffrey Winthrop Young's first edition of the Trinity Guide, and the St John's Guide. In 2010, they reprinted John Hurst's second edition of the Trinity Guide, as well as Young's book "Wall and Roof Climbing". In 2011, they published an omnibus edition of the three Trinity guides, including an introduction by Richard Williams which reviewed the history of night climbing in Cambridge from the 18th century to the present day. This introduction removed the cloak of anonymity that had previously protected the identities of the first nocturnal explorers. From around 2008, buildering (also known as "roofing") became popular amongst teenagers and young adults in eastern European countries including Russia and Ukraine. They (E.g.,
Mustang Wanted) shared footage of their achievements on video portals such as
YouTube. In 2013, the History Press published a book by John Engle on the history of student pranks at
Trinity College Dublin, which featured a full chapter on the university's long-standing night climbing tradition, including the buildering activities of the
Dublin University Climbing Club. In August 2016, a young man going by the name
Stephen Rogata attempted to scale New York City's 68-story Trump Tower using climbing gear and giant suction cups;
NYPD officers apprehended him at the 21st floor. In April 2025, Jordan Schultz, a building climber and UC Berkeley graduate, published
Campusing: A Secret History and Buildering Guide to UC Berkeley. The book presents possibly the most comprehensive history of buildering, as well as a current guidebook to buildering on UC Berkeley campus. In January 2026,
Alex Honnold free solo climbed the
Taipei 101 tower in
Taipei, Taiwan, the tallest buildering free solo climb in history. ==Notable builderers==